Here I will be documenting my quest to complete the Stephen Sykes 100 Day Practice Challenge. Despite being at music college, I’m fairly bad at doing consistent individual practice, (not helped by being regularly scheduled for 10+ hour playing days without factoring in any individual work, but that’s beside the point…!) so I’m hoping documenting what I actually do will help me do better.
Day 1
Happy New Year! Arranged and recorded a short 6(ish - plus overdubs) arrangement of Auld Lang Syne. Had a fight with Lightworks and eventually got something of a video made.
No real constructive practice done today, but I did warm up with melodic and harmonic minor scales 2/3 octaves in all keys.
Day 2
My technical exam at college is on the 26th of January, so I need to get ready for that. I need 2 contrasting studies, a load of scales/arpeggios and either a jazz or contemporary technique study. Here’s what I did today:
Studies: Played through most of Tommy Pederson’s “Unaccompanied Solos for Bass Trombone Vol. 1”, decided I like No.3 and 5 the best. Did some work on both of them and will decide which one to use when I’ve finished looking elsewhere!
Over the Christmas holidays I started writing an extended technique study. I did some more work on it today and it’s nearing completion… not looking forward to learning it though! It borrows ideas from Xenakis, Ades and David Reminick’s “,8,1“ amongst many other influences. It’s no great work of art but is hopefully a fairly concise and thorough exploration of some extended techniques and notations.
Scales: Did all majors 2/3 octaves with some fun metronome games to stop it getting boring. Today I played each scale as a 4:3 polyrhythm, with the metronome set to 3. Also started work on some majors in 3rds.
Day 3
More scales - majors in 3rds and arpeggios in 3’s and 4’s. Wrote a friend a short euphonium study. Decided to focus on No.3 from the Pederson and did some tidying up on the big interval jumps.
Started looking for a piece to play in performance class on the first day back of term (Monday!), still not sure but a couple of movements from one of the Doug Yeo Handel Sonatas is looking like a safe bet.
Day 4
Warmed up on bass trombone, but then my new bass trumpet arrived! Spent the rest of my playing day on that instead. It’s a Wessex piston model, and seems decent for a cheapish instrument. Build quality looks fairly solid, and other than a couple of slightly dodgy notes (and what instrument hasn’t got them!) I’m enjoying playing it. I’m not getting on with the supplied Wessex 6 3/4C mouthpiece at all though - it’s far too deep to get a proper tone and the rim is much thinner than I like, but I’ll try it with something more suitable as soon as I can.
Back to real work tomorrow!
Day 5
Ran through all majors and minors with my housemate (who also plays trombone!). I need to work on Ab melodic minor and the bottom octave of A melodic minor (starting on pedal A). Started looking at the first movement of the Handel F major Sonata properly.
Day 6
More work on the first movement of Handel, it’s not great but will be fine for Monday. Some tricky technical bits in the second movement, so looked at that mainly today. Will hopefully also be fine!
For something different, had a play through the Hans Werner Henze Sonatina for Trumpet on bass trumpet. Harmon/plunger is not practical for the second movement on this instrument, but the first movement fits remarkably well… maybe a future recital piece!
On a side note, I love stealing other instruments repertoire. Brass instruments have always been neglected by composers, and the bass trombone especially has very little quality original repertoire. It’s fairly difficult to find anything that fits in the middle ground between a trivial arrangement of a popular tune and super virtuoso Schnyder-esque stuff, but there’s plenty of stuff to steal!
Slightly bizarrely, I also decided to do some transcription and chose something in a style I’ve never tried working with in that way before. I’ve been a long time extreme metal fan, but it usually stays very separate to my meticulously notated classical studies! So here’s a transcription of Michael Keene’s solo on ‘An Autopsy’ (from The Faceless’ 2006 debut album ‘Akeldama’). I think it’s reasonably accurate apart from the rhythm in bars 3-4, which I couldn’t work out a better way of notating!
Day 7
13 hour day in college. No individual practice, chops bruised.
Day 8
Only(!) 7 hours of playing in rehearsals scheduled today. Too sore and lack the willpower to do anymore afterwards.
Day 9
Was hungover. Did some scales.