the yardley taylor project (might be a long one)

well, here it is. i've had a few days to digest (and drink...) my coaching with mr. taylor and now i'm ready to spew my thoughts on it.

first, for those who don't know who dave taylor is, he's one of the world's finest bass trombonists. if you understand the above title at all you can probably skip over this paragraph. others may want to continue reading... so, he lives in new york city and has quite an extensive resume. he's played with everyone from leopold stowkoski (sp?....conducted the american symphony orchestra) to blood, sweat, and tears. he played with duke ellington (not the ghost band...), quincy jones, mel lewis - thad jones band, etc, etc, etc... these days he's mostly known for his career as a solo and chamber musician. most consider his music of choice "contemporary" but he hates that label so i'll try not to use it too much. he's befriended many composers and has over 100 commisioned works. i think he has about 10 albums under his name. he's an eccentric artist in the most stereotypical use of the word and his weapon of choice happens to be the bass trombone. ok, enough background, on to my experience...

so it's wednesday night and almost all of the trombone students (i think about 40...), the 3 professors, and some other, i assume, brass players are gathered in one of the 4th floor large ensemble rehearsal rooms for a masterclass with dave taylor. he starts in typical fashion by introducing himself and blah blah and suddenly begins to play (and sing) this piece of music. i think it was something based on a schubert song...i'll have to go back and listen to my recording. he gets done and talks a little more. then, he looks at me and says "i see you're holding a bass trombone, would you like to come up and play for us now." i was one of 3 students on the docket to play and i kind of expected to be first so i wasn't caught off guard too much. so, i stand up in front of everyone and announce the piece i'm about to play, "variations on palestrina's 'dona nobis pacem'" ok, so, i may have been a little nervous because he immediately called me out for mumbling and asked me to repeat the title of the piece. this time, i spoke up and tried to speak more clearly. to my surprise, i failed, because he asked me again to repeat. now i'm feeling a little awkward but i try again....not happening. after he asks me to repeat the title a 4th time (keep in mind the audience i'm standing in front of) i start to wonder what is happening...what am i pronouncing wrong? finally, he lets me off the hook and is happy with my pronunciation of the title. hokay....time to play trombone now.

now, the good thing is that i'm not as shaken as i would have been a week or so previous. about twice a week since i've gotten here i've had to stand up and play in front of people and the nerves are slowly going away. i tried to get it in my head, real quick before anything negative could enter, that this isn't a big deal, i'll most likely still be alive after it's all over, and everyone wants to hear me play well. the first half goes pretty well. 2nd half was a grind as i got tired and lost a little concentration. it was one of the few times i've played through the entire piece, so, keeping that in mind, i wasn't too disappointed with my performance. little did i know, that that performance was going to be the least stressful 4 minutes of the next hour i was to endure.

i was relieved to hear the first thing he said to me was "you have a beautiful sound." i smiled and said "thank you." after that, he proceeded to put me on the spot with his every question. it went something like this;

taylor - do you like this piece?
me - yes
taylor - why?
me - it's a beautiful melody
taylor - why is it beautiful and what are you doing to communicate that beauty?
me - (staring blankly at my stand) well, it's tonal which is pleasing to my ears, the phrases are easy to understand...i guess i'm just trying to sing through my horn...
taylor - why are playing this piece?
me - well, i heard it on doug yeo's cd and kind of fell in love with it. also, it's a required solo for the ita competition.
taylor - (nodding his head as if the competition is the only reason i'm playing this) i would never play this music
me - yeah, well, i would never play anything you like (ok, i wish i would have said this, but i didn't. it occured to me later that this would have been an uproaringly funny response and would have completely eased the extreme amount of tension that was building in the room)

ok, hopefully that little transcript gives you an idea of the kinds of questions he was asking me. they may not seem too "ball busting" but i certainly felt as if i was being "called out" in front of quite a lot of people...trombone players and professors. i didn't mind so much because i should have good answers to those questions. i certainly wasn't upset. it was just taking a toll on my nerves i suppose.

after that little exchange he asked me to play some things over again in different ways. once again i found myself trying really hard to figure out exactly what he wanted from me. one of the things he asked me to do was play the first statement of the melody in a stylistically acceptable way but completely different from what was on the page... i really didn't know what to do so i kinda just made up some different articulations. another thing he asked me to do was play all of the 8th notes as written, but to do something with the other notes. well, dona nobis is a pretty simple melody so really all i had left to work with were a couple quarter notes and a couple half notes. i think i ended up just holding them longer or something. i don't exactly remember (need to go back and listen...) while feeling awkward once again, he finally explained what he was trying to get me to do. he wanted me to play this piece in a way that was "natural" to me and not the way it has been written by someone else, for someone else. i really liked this concept, however, i felt pretty natural playing it the way i had been before. it was also interesting to me that he was able to tell me to play it different but in my own way....he wouldn't tell me how to play it because then i would just be playing it his way...which is what he was trying to get me away from doing. although i love this concept, i think it may have been better understood if i had been playing a different piece, like a concerto, instead of a hymn. maybe not....

he then went on to make the point that we should be playing music we love and if we don't, the truth of the music will never be revealed. it's kind of an artsy deep thing to say, and i'm not able to put it in his exact words, but it made sense to me. it's obvious the he is 100% into the music he plays. you can tell by watching him, listening to him, and by the sheer fact that you HAVE to love that kind of music to make your living off of it. he believes that the audience can hear when you're telling the truth and when you're lying (in this case, lying is playing something you're not totally "diggin' on"). he talked about his first recital (he was 40) in which he played technically quite poorly when the whole audience rose to their feet immediately after he was done for a standing ovation. he said he was quite embarassed about it for many years to come but made the point that the audience reacted to the "truth" in his playing. i guess it's something that you'll either believe or not believe...but i believed what he was saying.

so here's my question...how do you perform a piece of music "truthfully?" afterall, music is a form of communication and when we communicate we have the option of being truthful or lying.

here's my answer, and i hope to hear what others think about this. i think what i have to do is know a piece so well that i can justify playing it my own way. who wrote the piece? who did he write it for? why did he write if for that person? why did that person agree to play the composer's music? etc, etc, etc....the list of questions could be endless. but, i think when you truly know the answers to all those questions, you can begin to approach whatever it is you're working on from your own perspective. first, though you need to have A perspective. i also think that part two of the answer is you need to love what you're working on. it may be technically difficult, or maybe boring in a couple spots, but you need to find something about it you really love and care about it. those two things, i think, are what seperate an inspired performance from one that is just technically acceptable.

ok, so, once again, those are my thoughts. take em, leave em, respond to em, do what you will. either way, thanks for reading.

love,
james