Welcome to my official RU-vid channel! I'm Ian Bousfield - trombonist, conductor, teacher, gardener and wine lover. Here you will find immersive video podcasts, my most recent recordings, and footage of live performances. Subscribe now to be part of my community and get updated as soon as there is new content!
Go here 👇 for access to my 🎙️ podcast, socials and website:
Yeah, I mean, aside from maybe the Köln concert, which literally recorded a broken piano played by an amazing musician in concert, there aren't too many commercial recordings that aren't heavily edited. The difference between recordings made by, say, Decca and those from Christopulonius Willonicus (hypothetical recording artist), is that Decca is not using auto-tune and heavy compression and a million takes to create a recording. Decca records musicians/orchestras who do two or three run throughs and then they can splice the best passages together with crossfades, put some EQ, and add a little fake reverb to blend the close and distant mics. Maybe they master it with some room tone. You hit the nail on the head, Willonicus (hypothetical person) cannot play live. Then there is Christian Lindberg who I saw play the Aho Symphony 9 with the DC orchestra, and you could have recorded that direct to a disc and sold it as is....but he still would have asked BIS to splice it with the rehearsals because he's not gonna settle!
A comment from a wee man from the past I spent an afternoon with Maurice and Jim Brown in a pub in Cardiff when I was with WNO Their kindness and interest has stayed with me all my life
I accidentally hovered over the time-bar on this video, and up popped the time-stamp description saying "End Emotional Connections with Instruments..." I thought: WHAT? Bousfield is now proposing coolness and detachment from his instruments and locations? Then I thought: OK, perhaps you have to, with all the switches of instrument and makers you've gone through... But no, you restored my faith in your message! I won't be able to get rid of my first "proper" trombone, a 1979 Conn 88H sold to me (OK, my parents) by Peter Leary from the BBC Phil, which is such a lovely, warm lyrical instrument: my current main is also increasing in years - a Yamaha YSL-681B Bousfield edition! Much more direct! And - as a decent but "definitely" amateur - I'm hoping that my upcoming performance of Bolero *doesn't* make it onto RU-vid...
I as a middle school tubist really found the whole ready to get off stage attitude very true, I think as I've improved I've gotten into that shell where I'm not actually enjoying the performance, do you have any tips to break that habit?
At 61 I can relate. Although I spend much of my time not doing my 'day job' time on my road bike and exercising, this and the time I spent playing my trombone keeps you sharp and feeling yourself. You just have to be you and accept that. Thanks as always Ian!
Thanks Ian! Always inspirational. Really like the thinking around building your own etudes/exercises to address your own thing. Best of luck with the recording studio!
60 years well spent Ian! Time is a funny thing. As David Bowie said "Aging is an extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been." I am 52 now, so not too far behind. I just want to keep doing the thing I love and feel that my journey music has only just just started really. So much I still want to do with my music composition and production. Also, after a long break from trombone, I now play as a hobby but would love it to progress. I tend to be a bit like Joan Collins 😅😅, I know my age but don't feel that age and just forget about it. I think dwelling on it brings me down. I prefer to try and stay positive knowing that I am well and healthy and still have things to do. Great to have just found your podcast, so catching up still. It is great that you still have plans, ambition and motivation. I look forward to hearing and seeing more. 👍🙏👏👌
It seems to me that many of the observations here can also be applied to a wide range of other artistic pursuits. For example, the focus on technique over musicality applies to other fields as well. Also, the observation that decisions about juries say as much about the jurors as the competitors. Of course there is also the subjective matter of taste and the general expectations of the panel.
I would like to have heard James Markey take a stab at the cello suites when he was still a tenor player. His youthful recordings of the Schumann Romances are the most 'untrombonistic' performances I've ever heard. And that's a good thing! No instrument should impose or project it's...mechanical awkwardness onto the music as it were an obligation or badge of honor to be excused in service for valiantly having...dared, tried, and failed. Trombonists more than any other instrumentalists offend against music as an accepted quality of performance, which is why composers don't write for them, and no one wants to hear an orchestral trombonist 'solo' solo! Markey's musical traversal of these pieces requires 'no' qualification', and thing you can't say that about any other trombone performance. Trombone performances have a musical face that only a mother could love. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-GimI1xoV_ys.htmlsi=v3b0xNjg7Uc9Ux9m
Well said Ian! A classic manifestation of institutional low (brass) self-esteem. These pieces service humility. The answer is 'yes', but never 'perform' them, for expecting to ultimately and reliably fail musically. For good reason, there are no cello performances that 'I' care for either. That being said...too many trombonists, as do too many cellist (though in their case...unnecessarily), perturb these pieces past both their musical service and authority. The problem is that these pieces are riddles! There is no way to win, and Bach intended them as such. For instance, the last note of every phrase must be played 'as such', but it is also the first note of the phrase that follows it and must be played 'as such', BUT...first and last notes of phrases serve different purposes and must be played differently, so how do you play a single note in two different ways at the same time...you can't! You lose. The ridiculous musical means (usually overly affected rubato and unjustified ritardando) that trombonists employ to try to...'excuse' the fact that they must breathe at inopportune moments always results in a comedy of music errors that only another trombonist would be 'able' to forgive. And that's the 'real' problem! TROMBONISTS SHOULDN'T FORGIVE MUSICAL FALIURE ON ACCOUNT OF TECHNICAL SUCCESS! Sure, be impressed by the technical facility required, and the ingenuity employed to 'attempt' compensation of the music, but the last thing trombonists need is another excuse to play unmusically. Trombonists, as with all instrumental teachers, indoctrinate their students to...'forgive' the failings of the current performance paradigm's assumed mechanical obligation to forgive rather than overcome its own musical shortcomings. The problem is that prior to the trombone establishing its...'viability' as a legitimate or soloistic musical voice, the trombone's obvious mechanical...peculiarities have in practice proved the excuse to 'not' endeavour to evolve its state of play such that it convincingly defeats its own mechanical challenges. Composers didn't, in general, write for it because of what experience had taught them were the trombones indelible limitations. Instead of pursuing a more musically productive performance paradigm, orchestral trombonists have pointlessly and independently promoted and pursued, counter intuitively, their own musical deficit, to the point that they have all but ensured their own musical...obsolescence. While clarinets and oboes have evolved in address of technical challenges to making music, trombonists have simply gotten louder and even less musical. I was working at playing these on a small bore instrument (having retired from orchestral play decades previous for lacking resonance and respect for the dominant performance paradigm) to win more lengthy and luxurious phrases, and using 'extreme' alternate positions in address of facility, flow, and virtuosity. But I was struck with focal dystonia and unable to complete my own evolution towards...musical fruition on the trombone. I wonder then what a virtuosic player like Bob McChesney might accomplish with these pieces given his deft defeat of those mechanical aspects of play that so much trouble the orchestral trombonists, trained as they are, and determined to shout and muscle their way through every phrase on equipment ill-suited to nuance. Why have trombones gotten louder in orchestras subject to balance? Simply...orchestras are no longer balanced! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-56AKl4uHKjA.htmlsi=nSy6YTIBcY5x2WWJ&t=16
Happy Birthday! I'll soon be 77, and somehow I've managed to stay with the Trombone, and always wanting more out of my abilities. You have always been an inspiration to me. Just smile, live, and continue doing what you do.
Congratulation and Happy Birthday to you. As a fellow trombonist rapidly approaching my 59th birthday, I can appreciate and understand many of your thoughts (and fears!!). Keep on blowing - you're still doing a great job. 😁
