Zen and the Art of the Trombone is a tutor for thoughtful trombone practice.
Learning is about enjoying the journey, not just realising the achievement.
Starting with simple exercises, the book develops musicianship and technical ability in easily understandable steps. It focuses on the “how and why” which can then be adapted to any other learning materials that you already use.
How often have you started to learn something and been put off right at the start by something you don’t understand or just doesn’t feel right. The aim of this tutor is to help you think through those potential pitfalls in a relaxed and enjoyable way.
This book is for trombone players of all abilities from beginner to advanced. It contains a basic exercise routine, including a warm up, that you can use to develop your playing in all areas. The main premise is that it is HOW you practice rather than WHAT you practice that matters. It also covers all the major technical aspects of playing such as breathing, slide coordination and range. This tutor will be useful for you if you are fed up with books full of near impossible exercises that just seem to destroy your chops rather than build stamina and facility. It also embraces musical development, often neglected in practice methods, and encourages you to “get into the zone” and enjoy the practice experience as opposed to it just being a means to an end.
Available in bass or treble clef versions, the tutor can be purchased as a paperback from this site for £12 including p and p using the button below via Paypal.
You are also welcome to pay by cheque or BACS – please email your order to trombonemusic@mac.com
Or as an eBook here from Lulu:
Or as a PDF download here:
Zen and the art of the trombone – Kevin Morgan A review by David Whitehouse.
To call Kevin Morgan’s new tutor “for thoughtful trombone practice” merely a tutor, does not fully do it justice. In it, he shares with us his approach to playing, based on years of thought and performance at the highest level. And as one of the country’s longest-standing principal trombonists, he is a person that should be listened to. You won’t find pages and pages of exercises within. But what you will find is as much explanation as notation, designed to arm the player with knowledge that can be applied to anything that might be encountered in other areas of music, be it another tutor, or a Mahler symphony. And what better time to “road test” it than having recently had two weeks of not very much playing, followed by six days of no playing, with Elgar 2, Brahms 2 and Corsaire Overture, all on principal, as my first day back? My own warm up and practice routine (I use the term loosely), has traditionally been of the “play a few notes and try to fix what doesn’t work” variety, so this book gave me some much-needed structure to get my own playing back into shape. After 20 minutes of following Kevin’s excellent advice, it really felt like the air was moving properly and the lips were vibrating freely, and it certainly felt and sounded better than it deserved to after a quiet few weeks at work. Kevin’s hopes that this tutor will “compliment the existing material by encouraging a more holistic approach to practising and performing” certainly hits the nail on the head, and will be a book that I refer back to time and time again.