[Dixielandjazz] Tips for the Piano (and bone)

[David Dustin]

Criss wrote:
As far as speed goes, I would also love for someone to give me some tips on
how to play the trombone faster, yet clean and crisp.
I'm self mostly self taught on the trombone and can use any help that I can
get.
====================
Criss, I¹ve always thought it's not how many notes, it's the right notes.
(Or else we¹d all be issued saxophones.)  But if you want to try selling
trombone by the pound, Bob McChesney has published a resource (book plus CD)
on doodle-tonguing.  ("Doodle Etudes for Trombone"?)  You can find it
through Google.  If you can master that you too can have perfect intonation
and articulation of 8-bar 32nd note riffs like pure "modern jazz"
trombonists McChesney, Bill Watrous, Hal Waters, and Conrad Herwig, et al.
I've been making tremendous progress: I figure in about 20 more years I'll
just about have it down.  Course it would help if I could figure out how to
doodle AND get up and down scales at the same time.  (Why does it all have
to be so hard?)
 
I listen awestruck to these spectacular modern trombonists doodle crisply
through their lines -- not that I can recognize any songs. And then I come
back to Jack Teagarden, who may or may not have doodle-tongued.  (I don't
honestly know, he had perfect lip control and monster trombonists can
standard-tongue almost like a cobra.)  I KNOW I'd give my left leg up to the
cheek to sound even halfway like him and not the best doodler emerging from
Berklee or North Texas today.  (May Jack rest in peace.)
 
David Dustin