life

So life is a bit different now for me. I developed tmj syndrome around spring break of this semester. I found that playing my trombone aggravated it. It is hard to give up a dream you have had for a large potion of your life. I knew it was over when I took a week off for spring break and was still in pain when I got back. I limped through the rest of the semester practicing 20 or 30 minutes a day. Towards the end of the semester I was just playing in ensembles and not practicing. The rest of the time my horn stayed in its case.

I was still doing bass trombone in jazz band and tenor in symphonic band. I still put thought into my lesson material and prepared it as much as I could. My teacher gave me an A for the semester. I am convinced that it was through the kindness of his heart not really based on my playing. I haven't played since my jury. My jaw hurt for about a month after I got back but it seems to be better now. I have an orthopedic device that I stick in my mouth at night that I think might be helping. But enough depressing news. I have new plans and life is too interesting to stay depressed for long.

Waking up one morning I decided I needed a new major. I thought about for the rest of the day and then went to sleep. This is one of my favorite ways to approach a problem or decision. I probably first learned about it in mind performance hacks. I kept it in mind for a few days while seeding my brain with various majors and interests while reading through the lists of majors and descriptions of them. I woke up about two mornings later and the first thought in my mind was international studies. I did some more research on it and decided I liked it. I then called up my favorite list of relevant, smart, old, people and talked to them. This is an important thing to do on big decisions. I asked them what they thought of the major and what region was going to be big in the next few years. Most of them liked the major. When asked about a regional specialty they all answered China. Having taken counsel from wise old people i decided to embark on a new path

Doubling on Bass and Tenor trombone

My current challenge is the necessity of playing bass and tenor trombone at an equally high level. I have heard that this is a difficult undertaking. I seem to be doing it OK right now. The main thing is to just treat the bass and the tenor trombone as separate instruments and practice equally on both. My strategy is to do my daily routine on bass and on tenor alternating days. I have to play bass on Tuesday and Thursday; I have to play tenor on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. My current schedule is to practice bass Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. I practice both on Sunday. Monday, Wednesday and Friday are my tenor trombone days. I am not really having any problems going from tenor to bass. Bass to tenor causes issues for me. It is physically painful for me to play tenor after playing bass. I have listened to recordings of myself switching. My sound doesn't seem to be suffering when I switch. It is just painful. I think that my tendency to manipulate my embouchure to produce notes on tenor is the cause of the pain. On bass I can play all my music without manipulating or using a lot of pressure. I have to use more pressure on tenor to get a good sound (especially in the low range). I think that is why it is painful for me to play tenor after playing bass. Pain is my only real problem with doubling right now. I will keep reporting on different strategies i am using to double.

getting started on bass trombone

I have a new development! I might be a bass trombonist soon. I was kind of pushed into it. Here is how it happened. I walked into the music building one day to practice. When I got near my locker, one of the other trombonists thrust a piece of music into my hands and told me to go audition for jazz band. Now is a good time for some background on me. I went to a small school and played in a small band. There weren't enough people to have a jazz band even if we wanted to. I spent my Sunday afternoons playing in the Memphis youth symphony with the kids who went to the arts high school. I was first trombone for two of my three years in it. It was great to actually play in a real section. Those are some of the happiest memories I have of high school. At region band I was generally rated at dead middle. I was often at the bottom of the top half of people who made it. My junior year things changed. I got first at all region. Shortly after, I made a major embouchure change and as a result, I made second to last at all-state. The next year I got my act together in time to make first at all region again. I then made 1st chair all-state. After the embouchure change I found my low range was much better and my sound improved immensely. I can play great in the middle and low range. However, my high range never really returned. I have a functional high range but not anything special. Now, back to how I got into bass trombone. I auditioned for the jazz band on my tenor trombone. I basically sight read the audition. The guy who ran the audition was the one of the coolest people on the planet. I came back to see my name on the list as 4th trombone. There was a specific bass trombone on the list so I didn't suspect anything yet. The bass trombonist had other plans for his life so he dropped jazz band leaving me. The jazz band is actually set up to have two bass trombones. One on each side to give a "stereophonic bass sound." I got my parts the first day of class. They said 4th trombone. There nothing really super low in it. I still thought I was just 4th trombone not bass. I then started to get more music. these were real bass trombone parts complete with low D's and the occasional C. I played all this on my tenor at first. I then learned that the school owned a bass trombone. I whipped it out and discovered that bass trombone parts are a LOT easier to play on a bass trombone. I then brought the bass into my weekly lesson. My teacher liked the way I sounded on it and gave me some music to work on for next week. I came back the next week and was told that I sound better on bass than on tenor. Next semester I will be mostly bass trombone. In the mean time, I have to play bass and tenor trombone.

Mind Performance Hacks

I just finished a book called Mind Performance Hacks by Ron Hale-Evans. This is a great book full of little tricks to help you think better. You can find a lot of the information in the book on the Mentat Wiki. I used one this morning to address a specific problem that I have. I have a problem with getting going mentally in the morning. Sure, I can get up and make my self go to stuff on time. (If you have a problem with getting up in the morning check out this. It's all about alarm clock discipline. I learned it when I tried an ill-advised experiment with sleep. I had a perfect attendance record my first semester of college, even in my 8 am class.) I could get there physically without fail, but mentally I was a zombie. (I would just use caffeine like the rest of the world, but it has the opposite effect on me. It causes me to crash and become even more sleepy about thirty minutes after I drink it.) This morning, I tried Hack #66. Warm Up Your Brain. I stayed up a little too late last night and was mentally foggy when I rolled out of bed at 7:00am. The hack says that you can get your brain going by doing simple brain teasers. I started by multiplying stuff by 3's. 3x3=9x3=27x3... by the time I got to 729 I was mentally awake. I was no longer dis functionally foggy. You could also do things like squaring numbers or thinking of as many synonyms for a word as you can. My next project is Hack #51 Learn An Artificial Language. I think I'll learn lojban.

convenient backup

I have been thinking about computers a lot lately and I came up with a nifty idea. Put a secure digital card in your wallet as a backup. If you look around, you probably have one just lying in a box somewhere. If you have bought a digital camera recently, look in the box and see if it came with a crappy undersized SD card. It may be undersized for your camera, but not for your word documents and spreadsheets. You can backup the most important ones and stick them in your wallet. A lot of computers now have SD card slots, so you can use them just about anywhere. You probably won't lose your wallet as easily as a USB stick. Just remember to put it back in your wallet when your done. If you're worried about theft, just encrypt the thing with a program like TrueCrypt.