Well, it isn’t compulsory, that’s a fact and when we journey out from the realm of European ‘classical’ (and other) styles we encounter more and more regions where musicians barely give the idea a second thought. The book deals in some depth with form and the way in which other elements, particularly rhythm, are affected […]
Tag: composing
Composition
Composers will occasionally pause to think about about what they do and why they do it and then get on with their daily business. Some will rarely think about it at all. But it can be interesting to assess current attitudes against the background of what has gone before. For example, many years ago music […]
So what IS Art?
I’ve had a number of interesting conversations on here where ideas stray into the realms of philosophy. As a composer/arranger/trombonist – and I was also classically trained as an artist – I’ve never spent too much time dwelling on ideas that are better handled by musicologists who specialize in them. I usually have little time […]
Taste: a dangerous area for the unwary…
My book was never intended to become a philosophical work. Nevertheless, I believed it to be important to establish a common ground regarding objectivity because I was aware that ideas about music and art are often hopelessly subjective. Here’s a quote from the part of the book dealing with ‘Composition’, where the detailed studies of […]
A view from the trenches…
Musicians spend a huge chunk of their lives sitting at rehearsals and paying attention to instructions from the MD. In my experience, MD’s have generally been fairly competent. What I’d like to do here is to provide them with a little feedback; a view from the trenches. My early experiences were with various big bands […]
The rise and rise of the English Brass Band
The English-style brass band is unique in its origins and instrumentation. Men who performed heavy duty work in hostile environments found it easier to pick up brass instruments than orchestral instruments such as violins and woodwinds and their employers often encouraged them to do so, providing rehearsal facilities and sponsorship. High-achieving bands were associated with […]
Fellow trombonists please note
This post is for the benefit of fellow trombonists, especially those who are middle-aged and older. It concerns a problem that many players experience. For some time I’d been suffering from a pain in the neck and the back of my head. It turns out I have spondylitis but the important thing to realize is […]
Two countries separated by a common language
The British don’t regard America as being a foreign country. Our common language and similar culture has produced a unique international bond despite the bad blood of the War of Independence. Not only this, but English is the international language, the official language of the European Union, Hollywood, Elvis, the Beatles, Frank Sinatra…the list goes […]
Points of view…
One of the great things about WordPress is the opportunity to talk with people worldwide, swopping ideas and learning from each other. One of my recent blogs discussed whether or not music is truly an international language, as some people believe it to be. Another dealt with the mixture of intuition and formalism in a […]
The brass section
One of the most common mistakes arrangers make in their early days is to treat the brass (trumpets and trombones in the big band context) consistently as one section. In reality it often isn’t and the reason for this is simple. Ideally, the brass section would be one family of instruments with increasing bore sizes […]