I was destined to be a trombone player -- tall, skinny, sometimes with a scraggly beard.
When we picked instruments at the age of 9, my destiny was set.
Trombone players are outwardly shy but don't let that fool you.
The lead trumpet's mouthpiece is missing? Search the trombone player.
Dead fish in your locker? You've crossed a trombone player.
As a trombone player, you don't get to be in many grunge bands. Still, when you get to the spot with fff written on the score, that's as loud as you'll ever hear without amplifiers. And no Guns'n'Roses wannabe leaves as much spit onstage.
Trombone players play mostly classical and jazz, and both are fun to play. With classical, you get to play it loud and you get an adrenaline rush when you start in after a long pause (was that rest for 85 bars or 86?). With jazz, you get to personalize each piece, sometimes you get to ad-lib, and as a brass player you usually get to growl. Trombone players get to perform glissandos and "flutter-tongue".
With the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra, I played an excellent sampling of classical music:
Conductor: Charles Zachary Bornstein
| 1982-83 | |
|---|---|
| L'Apres-Midi d'un Faune | Debussy |
| Symphony Number 4 | Bruckner |
| Guitar Concerto | Composer not listed |
| The Messiah | Handel |
| Magic Flute Overture | Mozart |
| Scheherazade | Rimsky-Korsakov |
| Cello Concerto | Dvorak |
| Symphony Number 82, The Bear | Haydn |
| Symphony Number 5 | Beethoven (see also Yahoo) |
| Symphony Number 4 | Mahler |
| Sandburg Songs for Soprano and Orchestra | Bornstein |
| Piano Concerto Number 2 | Rachmaninoff |
| Symphony Number 7 | Sibelius |
| Air on a G String | Bach |
| 1983-84 | |
| Information not available | |
| 1984-85 | |
| Siegfried Idyll | Wagner |
| Shanadithit, Op. 26 | Michael Parker |
| D Minor Symphony | Cesar Franck |
| Night on Bald Mountain | Mussorgsky |
| Eine Kleine Nacht Musik | Mozart |
| Mid-Summer Night's Dream | Mendelssohn |
| Hall of the Mountain King | Grieg |
| American in Paris | Gershwin |
| Blues in the Night | Mancini |
| Star Wars | John Williams |
| Thieving Magpie Overture | Rossini |
| Violin Concerto | Beethoven |
| Symphony Number 1 in G, Winter Dreams | Tschaikovsky |
| Der Freischutz | von Weber |
| Excerpts from Louis Riel | R. Murray Schafer |
| Four Last Songs | Strauss |
| Symphony Number 2 | Brahms |
With various school jazz bands, I played a lot of jazz and blues. Two pieces really stand out for being fun -- and occasionally terrifying -- to play:
