Best posts made by tjcombo

Always enjoyed the joke thread on TM. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so let's see if I can successfully upload an image (if not, failure always has a funny angle...)
NoMoreBlues.jpg

A little (but maybe not so much?) off topic...

@Doodlin This video from Eric Bolvin is a great place to start. This is all about beginning improv - making up your own tune/licks/counter-melodies as you go. FWIW, until I started playing trumpet again ("comeback" still feels pretentious to me) about 7 years back, attempts at getting started with improv never took off. This video really opened my eyes and after first watching it, I spent 3 very happy hours noodling with what I'd learned in ten minutes.

Enjoy!

@BigDub the trombone guys are way ahead of us...

Am currently enjoying a course provide by Coursera and would like to recommend it to TBers with an interest in playing/learning to play jazz, blues or simply expanding you knowledge on harmonic structures (beyond that which many of us have/had as players of a single tone instrument).

https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-blues

I'd previously bypassed this course because the abbreviated title "learn the blues" implied, in my mind, a simplistic overview of the genre. Happily, I was way wrong. The Blues: Understanding and Performing an American Art Form ranges widely from the origin of and foundation to much of our current music that the blues has given. From a practical point of view, the lessons provide good theoretical depth on harmonic structures along with practical take-aways. The starting point may be simple 12-bar blues as played by every guitarist and their dog, but delves into complex extensions such as those from Charlie Parker.

There are some great suggestions for ear-training technique, voice-leading, building/improving improv techniques and of particular use for wannabe key-boardists like me, comping techniques.

I could waffle on, but best that you take a look and form your own opinions,

For anyone that battled through the Gary Burton improv course on Coursera, I can say that this one is way more digestible with a lot of small elements that can be taken on board straight away.

About Coursera - there are two mode of using Coursera material - you can take a course for free, or pay to have an assessment and certificate at the end of the course.

Would love to hear from anyone who has had a look at this course.

Doctor vs Lawyer

A doctor moved to a new town but couldn’t get a job in a hospital. Needing work, he opens a clinic and puts a sign outside that reads: "GET TREATMENT FOR $20 - IF NOT CURED GET BACK $100."
A lawyer thinks this is a great opportunity to earn $100 and goes to the clinic. Lawyer: "I have lost my sense of taste." Doctor: "Nurse, bring medicine from box No. 22 and put 3 drops in patient's mouth." Lawyer: "Ugh. this is kerosene." Doctor: "Congrats, your sense of taste is restored. Give me $20."
The annoyed lawyer goes back after a few days to recover his money. Lawyer: "I have lost my memory. I cannot remember anything." Doctor: "Nurse, bring medicine from box no. 22 and put 3 drops in his mouth." Lawyer (annoyed): "This is kerosene. You gave this to me last time for restoring my taste." Doctor: "Congrats. You got your memory back. Give me $20." The fuming lawyer pays him.
The lawyer then comes back a week later determined to get back $100. Lawyer: "My eyesight has become very weak I can't see at all Doctor: "Well, I don't have any medicine for that, so take this $100." Lawyer (staring at the note): "But this is $20, not $100!" Doctor: "Congrats, your eyesight is restored. Give me $20"

Took up trumpet as a child and went on to knock out quite a few decent tunes. Sadly he passed away at 91 after breaking his femur a few days ago.
This is a nice reading of my favourite Morricone number.

My favourite cornet today is this sweet old Martin Indiana which "saved my life".
My band had two slots -Sunday and Monday of a holiday weekend at a jazz festival an hour and a half drive from home. I normally stay for the whole weekend, but family matters prevented this. I arrived an hour before our slot, opened the hatch of my car to see no trumpet. Don't like leaving horns in a car.
Most of the bands with brass players had played on the previous days and had left town. Was walking from the car in my stupid purple suit when someone on the way to their gig said "great suit". I told him that I should've spent more time packing my instrument than dressing up. His keyboardist, a local, rocked up and said "I have an old trumpet upstairs". He returned with this baby.
It performed almost flawlessly. The first valve was sticking during a solo in Dm - fortunately you can hold down 1st and still make fair riff in Dm . No valve oil, so I had to make do with a bit of old school saliva on the valves

Hope this isn't too political

There is light on the other side!
Thanks again all for the sage advice. @SSmith1226 Steve, thanks for the suggestion about the pencil exercises. I added that to my post-op exercise regime albeit not religiously. I sure that the doctors prescribe beta-blockers to prevent patients feeling too good, too soon

I discussed resuming practice with my cardiologist and surgeon and got the go-ahead to resume gentle practice (and driving - Yes!!) after four weeks. Was doing some long tones and lip slurs, but was feeling discouraged because the notes were coming out, but sound was horrible. To get a bit a structure into the practice, I started using the early pages from Charles S Peters Total Range.

Last Friday, after nine days practice, my community band had their first post-Christmas practice. Playing felt great - it's so good to play in an ensemble and be welcomed back after such a break.
Today (Sunday), my jazz band got together for a practice and that was good fun and not at all painful.
Articulation needs some work, but that was the case pre-op My old sound, for better or worse, has come back and I'm playing up to C above the staff in tunes and solos without any discomfort.

It seems that the sternum is healing well - a sneeze only hurts a little bit. Now that the beta-blockers have stopped, I'm finally feeling better than pre-op.

I stumbled across an interesting piece of software last week - Impro-Visor is a tool to help improvising musicians generate ideas.

It looks like an academic project and has some quite sophisticated features for analysis of melodies or transcriptions. As I've just started to scratch the surface, I won't pass judgement on it at this stage, other than to warn you that, compared to modern score writing software, the interface is a bit of a pig - but the tools on offer look very interesting.

The screenshot below shows a transcription of a Chet Baker solo that is an included sample file. You can see that notes can be highlighted as chord tones, approach notes or "outside the changes". It appears that there is even a method for capturing audio although this requires extra modules.

Anyhow, it's all free and I'd be interested to hear if any of you have had a look at this? I'm using it on a Windows PC, but the website mentions Mac and Linux versions too.

If you try it, would love to hear your thoughts

G&T Jazz is a band put together by Gill (vocals and songwriter) and Tiina (piano) who I was fortunate to meet with at a part time college course a few years back. We've had a great time playing local jazz festivals. The collection of original material has grown so we thought it time to record an album.
Eight tracks, six originals can be heard here...
https://gtjazz.bandcamp.com/releases

Our YouTube channel has just the one video so far, but should grow when I get time to do some more video editing (and hopefully figure how to keep picture and sound synced through YouTube's transcoding).

tj

I joined the Committee club during lockdown about a year back with this beauty. It was a roll-of-the-dice purchase. A couple of patches of missing lacquer made it look a bit suss. At the price - USD1600, I thought it might be worth throwing some money at it for repairs.
It arrived in its original case which is currently being restored. Turns out to be straight as a die, very little wear on the valves and fits me like a glove. It’s been my daily player since it arrived and has just come back from a chemical clean and valve alignment.
It was made in my year of birth which makes it even more special to me.

@SSmith1226
I thought the Google translation was flawless