Jazz T-Bone: The homepage for Joe Jackson

I'm preparing for an audition at 2pm on Saturday, so I was determined to perform for somebody everyday (excluding the day before the audition) at 2pm.

Yesterday I was playing basketball with my friends vigorously and we came inside and I realized I should perform for them. Despite how tired I was, I decided that if I could play well for them when I'm tired I bet I could play well when I'm not.

It didn't go all too well, and I forced out a lot of the high notes.

Today I practiced and saw my stamina go down and my high range deplete into nothing.

I was wondering if it had to do with confidence, or technique, because when you get tired your body makes a note of exactly how difficult things are and I think your body also alters your technique to force high notes out.

Does this ever happen to you? How do you get over it?

I don't think there are any absolutes here.

I would accept that novice players experience difficulties combining certain types of activities with playing the trombone.

But as far as I'm concerned, when a player develops a broad foundation of really solid trombone technique based on the efficient use of air, it doesn't matter a whit whether the person was knitting, riding the mosh pit, swimming in the Nile or climbing the Himalayas - they should be able to pick up the horn and feel comfortable.

How does one achieve this foundation? Obviously a strong element is practice and time with the horn. But the lesser acknowledged factor in developing technique around a given approach is that players achieve a series of mental breakthroughs surrounding the half-conscious/half-subconscious, physiometric understanding of how to play the trombone.

Since these breakthroughs must access understanding on what is often a level of consciousness we do not directly control, they most often happen as a result of "keying" on certain mental concepts. These concepts often seem like they have no direct relation with playing the trombone. That's because the world manifests itself in the part of our minds where things "seem" one way or another that is not necessarily the most important part of the mind when it comes to playing the horn.

So these concepts may come in little packages, like "push air from the gut". Do we literally push air from the gut? No. We push from the muscles surrounding the lungs. But the concept of "push air from the gut" is not designed to address a conscious process; it is instead designed to effect a change in the subconscious part of breathing.

So when I hear someone say "'pushing air from the gut' is silly advice because the air muscles are higher than the gut", I'm thinking, here's a person who is so wrapped up in being literal that they are not going to benefit from trigger concepts like this.

Same goes for "The Science of Breathing" - there was a lot of criticism of the book for the mystical aspects of the book, and it seems to occur to few that most of the processes which separate great musicians from good ones are purely hidden from the conscious mind.

So I'm laying all this out to point out the fact that people make up stories in their head about what they can and can't do ("can't play basketball then immediately play", etc.), just like they make up stories about the literal meaning of playing concepts, and the point is that it is these stories that limit us.

Playing is 95% mental. And what we choose to believe is true defines what we are mentally. And the only thing that prevents us from becoming mental masters of the trombone is lack of experience, resistance to change, and adhering to stories.

IMO the mindset to be in is that if I can't run six miles and then walk into rehearsal and play great, then the problem is with my playing and not with running.

Fun fact: every single take from the University of North Texas One O'Clock Lab Band album "Lab '89" took place literally minutes after vigorous basketball playing in the basketball court/storage warehouse next door to Dallas Soundlabs. We were often completely out of breath coming into the studio for the next take, and that session resulted in one of the better big band albums of the 1980s.

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