Do it Yourself: Mixing and Mastering

With all do respect to recording and mastering engineers, for various reasons, I’ve elected to take on these tasks myself whenever possible.

I really enjoy editing and mixing my own recordings. When I’m not actually editing and mixing projects myself, I’m usually either in the booth with the engineer or making detailed notes about the edits and mixes, or both. I’ve edited and mixed several CDs plus many projects for film and TV and other media. It’s normal for a composer working on movie, video and TV projects to do their own mixing and mastering depending on the size and scope of the project.  For smaller budget (or no budget) projects the composer is often the only warm body in the room, taking care of performing, recording, editing, mixing and mastering. Then sending the finished master to the director, producer or editor.

In classical, jazz and other acoustic recording situations, it’s more common to hire a studio, mixing and mastering engineer. I can tell you from experience it is a great pleasure working with top-level pros who really know what they are doing and are able to do it fast, because, the clock is ticking. Many successful movie and TV composers have a decent size recording studio at their house, saving them the time to travel back and forth to the studio plus all the costs involved with hiring a studio for the day.  The substantial investment to set up a home studio will, for a working composer save money in the long run and give the composer the flexibility to work on the project as needed, which can mean around the clock with the deadline looming or with the freedom to work on the recording until it is “perfect”.

With software becoming more and more sophisticated and easy to use, it’s not that difficult to learn to edit and mix with fluidity and confidence.  The beauty, compared to the old days with tape and razor blade, is that the edits are non-destructive, so when it doesn’t work out we can simply start over again or backtrack.

Of course, this work is time consuming, especially at the beginning, learning a new software. I find the best way to learn a new software is to go through the tutorials, there’s usually several to choose from. It normally takes about three hours. Almost always, three hours well worth spending. Normally there is a tutorial included with the software and now-a-days there are plenty of How-To books and videos, many for free on YouTube.

Then, I like to jump directly into the project. Knowing that the mixing and editing is non-destructive we know we can, at any time, start again from scratch.  Many times I’ve worked on a project the whole day only to throw it away the next day and start from scratch.  It’s always faster and better the second or even third time around. Go figure….

Depending on the deadline, the beauty of mixing at the home studio is that we can take our time working on the project. Working a day, sleep on it. Refining and polishing further the next day. We can also make a few different versions to compare and decide later. We have the luxury of putting it away and coming back to it in a few days, or weeks.

Of course, it’s good to know, as much as possible, about what we are doing. I read a few books on the subject and check out several how-to videos, sometimes coming back to a chapter when I have questions about how to do something specific. The bottom line is it’s not rocket science. We want to make it sound as good as possible, so it’s a mater of blending the musicians together so that it sounds as close as possible to a live situation, or even better if that is possible. It’s a good idea to compare with other recordings from time to time so as not to loose perspective.  Listen to recordings of similar music with a recorded sound that you think is great. Then emulate that sound, as much as possible. I was using four or five different recordings as a reference. It’s amazing how much they can vary.

I’ve had the benefit of working with top engineers, so by watching them and paying attention, trying to follow what they are doing and why. And, by asking questions, when appropriate, we can learn a lot.  It’s amazing how much we can learn simply by paying attention. What a concept. Regardless, the mixing engineer’s job is to follow our direction, so in the end it is still us, the leader, composer, artist, producer that has to say:  “OK, we got it, let’s move on”, or “give me some more trombones”.

Suite Ellington was recorded live, so that involved issues that we, hopefully, don’t face in the clean studio environment.  With a live recording, there is no  “take 2,” unless we record several concerts (the most ideal). So, when something needs “fixing” we have to find a way beyond going to another take. I was fortunate with Suite Ellington as all the players are fantastic top-notch players, so there were very few mistakes to deal with and some very wonderful playing from all.  The first decision was just to pick the best 60 minutes from a two-hour concert. And because there were sometimes several long solos on a particular tune (we were stretching out), it was necessary to cut out some solos and even to make some of the solos shorter. Decisions, decisions.

On this latest Suite Ellington recording, I decided to also do the Mastering. Mastering is the one aspect that I always turned over to the Mastering engineer. A Mastering session used to be, and still is, a studio filled with stacks and stacks of hardware with lots of nobs for the engineer to tune and “fine tune” the frequencies.  Looks like a kind of Mumbo-Jumbo, with the mad scientist “fixing” what is, hopefully, a pretty decent mix to begin with.

In my Mastering research it became clear that the go-to book is from the Mastering Guru Bob Katz. His book is written for the layman and professional alike, clear and easy to understand. The main message is “When the mix is great, there is very little, if anything, to do in the Mastering process”.  In former times the Mastering engineer made the recording louder, so that it could compete in volume with the other tracks being played on the radio. Katz called this the “loudness wars” and strongly recommended against falling into that trap.  But for Jazz, Classical and other acoustic music the goal is to retain the dynamics and maybe polish the sound a little.  I certainly believe that the sound of Suite Ellington recording was enhanced through the Mastering Process. The rest of the job of the Mastering Engineer is to put the spaces between the tracks and make sure all the tracks have the same relative volume and embed all the necessary codes and tracking numbers.

Through this ongoing process I am learning a lot about the process of producing a recording as well as how instruments respond in the recording environment. The software allows me to experiment and continue refining and polishing until I am completely satisfied, or the deadline arrives. Whatever comes first, which is usually the deadline! Plus, we can save the money it costs to book studio and engineer time.

Speaking of software: I am using Sibelius & Finale for notation, Logic Pro X for recording and mixing. I also use Pro Tools but feel more comfortable with Logic these days. For Mastering I use Ozone 6 from iZotope and HOFA CD-Burn & DDP to prepare to send to the Manufacturer.

Hope that was a worthwhile read.

Peace!

Ed

www.EdNeumeister.com

Recording update and other news.

It's been a busy time preparing for the upcoming NeuHat Ensemble recording.

We go into the studio for rehearsals Tuesday and Wednesday and we will be recording Thursday and Friday. The Indiegogo Campaign to raise the funds to record and release the Album properly is going well with over 90 people already purchasing, supporting and or contributing to the project. In order to give the album the release that it deserves, we need your support. Please check it out here: http://tinyurl.com/intothenow1

While in New York the past week I've been involved in a couple of very cool projects. Last night (Sunday) I performed in a chamber quartet setting with Dave Glasser (sax and flute), Bevan Manson (piano) and Joe Fitzgerald (bass) at the jazz club Smalls. Playing without drums brings out the transparency in the music.

Last Thursday September 18, the Composers Collective "Improvisatory Minds" produced our first New York Concert, after 5 successful concerts in Los Angeles. The Performers were the The Righteous Girls (Gina Izzo – flute, Erika Dohi – piano), Susan May Schneider – voice, Alan Broadbent – piano, Bevan Manson - piano and myself on trombone. Composers were Billy Childs and IM regulars Bevan Manson, Mike Patterson and Gernot Wolfgang. The concert went well with an enthusiastic response from the audience, composers and performers alike.

 Looking ahead: Ive got a tour to South America coming up in November with concerts in Buenos Aires and Cordoba Argentina, Montevideo Uruguay and Sao Paulo Brazil.

Please join me with the NeuHat Ensemble, if you haven't already and help to support creative music. Thanks!

Keep in Touch,

Ed

www.edneumeister.com

Back from Hell… no, not a gig….. Just came back from an unexpected and unplanned journey to Hell, or more specifically Lyme Disease (neuroborreliosis). The adventure began last July with a rash on my ankle. The doctor said it was probably nothing and gave me some cream to put on it and said come back if the rash doesn’t go away in a couple days. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a typical Lyme rash, which I already new about from living in Westchester County New York. The rash looked like it was fading at first, but then after a week it was clear it wasn’t going anywhere. Doctor #1 on vacation, so off to doctor #2. By now I was feeling a strange sensation above my left ribs. This doctor didn’t think it was anything and that the burning sensation in my rib area was probably a pinched nerve from playing tennis. He made a blood test to look for infections from ticks and other bugs etc, negative, I should just stretch some more. But the pain just kept getting worse. Fast forward a couple weeks the burning pain in my abdomen area got progressively worse making it impossible to sleep, so off to the emergency room, for some pain killers and more blood tests. Nothing, but needed to see an internist ASAP. Saw the doctor the next day. More extensive blood tests as the pain got increasingly heavy. This was a nerve pain, feeling something like an intense sunburn all around my abdomen, which made laying down painful on whatever area I was laying on. The only relief I could get was in the bathtub, so I took a bath every two hours. Pain medication wasn’t really working. After one more tortuous night and a pleading text message to my doctor for HELP! She called me into her office to tell me I had neuroborreliosis or Lyme Disease, the kind that affects the central nervous system. She basically checked me right into the hospital into the Neuro or brain unit. At this point I was in too much pain to pay much attention to my surroundings. Intravenous antibiotic and pain killers, but the pain medication did not really work and it totally messed up my stomach, so in addition to the nerve pain, I was dealing with some serious stomach pain. I Had it Bad and That Ain’t Good. The doctors said that two or three days of antibiotics and the pain will go away and I can get on with my life. Well…. Three days later, the pain is getting worse, I’m not able to sleep through the pain until I fall asleep out of exhaustion, up the whole night pacing the halls, in between showers (oh, the relief). Then, I started to lose movement in my right arm. Now, I couldn’t brush my teeth or feed myself with my right hand without help from the left. For a trombone player, that’s not too cool. But the doctors said I would make a full recovery and I believed them, so I wasn’t worried, too much. By this time, once it became clear that I would be there awhile, my wife brought my computer and my music manuscripts so that I could work. I was right in the middle of a film-scoring project, so I sat in the hospital bed, day and night, in between bouts of pain, and composed for the film. It’s great to have something positive to focus on at times like this. Occasionally, I would get inspired to compose more “creative” music, sometimes coming out of the delirium of pain and painkillers. Luckily, I had my trusty music notebook to transcribe and log my ideas. I must say I had one or two very creative inspirations there in the hospital. I’ll be following through on those ideas soon. Once I started paying attention to my surroundings, I felt like I was in a surreal “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” setting. Remember this is the brain unit. There was the guy with a big scar all across his forehead watching TV in the TV room all day. The guy across from me was clearly “crazy”. No, that’s not nice. He was quite nice but clearly had some issues (who doesn’t right?). My other roommate was dying from an ear infection that spread to his inner organs. Wow, we don’t think of these things unless we are confronted directly. Eye opening. I met a very nice woman who was a lawyer. She had Parkinson’s disease. She couldn’t control the movements of her arms and legs. So when she walked her arms, legs and head were waving around uncontrollably. It was scary at first until I started talking to her. To think I was feeling sorry for myself! Turned out I was in for two weeks total, and, another week of daily visits to get my intravenous antibiotic. But still the pain has only subsided a little. Thankfully, the movement of my arm returned after a few days, whew. The doctors said, as I checked-out that they hoped not to see me again, but that it would probably be three more months before I was “normal” again. They were right, as it turned out. On to a Neurology specialist, Chinese acupuncture and herbs, Qigong and physical therapy and a strict, organic only, diet after extensive in-depth Lyme Disease research. I managed to finish and record the film score without delaying production. Featured lot’s of trombone playing. Sometimes as many as five overdubbed. Playing the trombone was painful because of the nerve damage in all my breathing, except the most vital, muscles in the diaphragm area but I managed to do it. Most of the trombone breathing muscles were not functioning due to the nerve damage, so I had retrain myself to breathe with the few muscles that were still available. Didn’t tell the director I was sick until after we finished. He was very happy with everything. The film is called “Yes, And…” Hopefully will come out this year. Of course it’s a romantic comedy. A horror sci fi would have been more appropriate for my situation. Now, about five months after the beginning of the pain, I’m 99% back to normal. Whatever normal is. About two weeks ago it was like the fog (of disease) lifted, it was quite a sensation, like everything got clearer all of a sudden. Still doing Qigong and trying to eat only organic food as much as possible. The pain is gone. It’s great to be back! Thanks for reading. Please visit my web site, www.edneumeister.com and let me know what you think. Ed I’m here for the music.

Attacked by a Fly! a true story……

I was sitting and practicing my trombone this morning when two flies started to annoy me with their constant buzzing. It’s a beautiful day so the sliding door was open to the garden with the sun shining outside, but closed the door so not to bother the neighbors with my playing On a Slow Boat to China over and over again, this way and that way, melody then harmonies then melody again followed by more harmonic work etc,. After awhile, though, the buzzing of the flies and one loud “mother buzzer” in particular started to really annoy me so I got a section of newspaper, rolled it up and went after the culprit. I remember saying “sorry man, but your gonna die anyway”, as most flies do that are frustratingly trying to fly through glass. The lucky ones find the open door or window and fly away to freedom. Or, at least out of my hearing range. With the rolled up paper in hand I went looking for the mother-buzzer, which wasn’t difficult considering the decibel level of his buzzing. Are these flies he or she? Hmmmm. Don’t know. There he is on the window. Gotta a good clear shot. Ready aim…….smack!! Oops, missed him. Too much wind-up. That always tips them off. Now he’s pissed and buzzing around the room like a maniac. The other one joins him for some frenzied buzzing. Bam!! Into the window. Bam! Bam! After awhile he calms down and starts to rest here and there, but not in a good location for a clean shot with my paper. He’s actually sitting on top of a photo of my son, just taunting me. Nice try MF!! I laugh. So, I brush him off gently to the more open landscape of the window. Eventually, he walks into the open space. I take my aim with the precision of a Zen marksman and, with a little flick of the wrist, smack! Chock!! Down he goes onto the floor, belly-up, to be swept up or vacuumed with the other flies, bees and other bugs, most whom have died a more dignified natural death trying to escape through this unexplainable clear but persistently hard membrane we call glass. Finally with the primary buzzer taken care of I sit back down to practice my trombone. Quiet at last. As I sit down, I see on the music stand another fly. “The more quiet one,” I think. I literally say to him “you’re cool as long as you don’t start buzzing”. As I start playing the trombone all of a sudden I feel a fly routing around in my hair. This guy was really fu*king with me!! I stop playing and brush the fly out of my hair, but he proceeds to keep buzzing me like a kamikaze. He was literally flying around my head in an aggravated way, paying special attention to my ears, and bombarding my head and face. What the fu*k? My first reaction was anger as I tried, unsuccessfully of course, to catch the fly with my hand. As the situation became clearer to me I started laughing. I couldn’t believe it. Was he really all over me because I offed his buddy? Or was he trying with aggression to protect himself? So I said out loud “alright, you want to go out? No problem”. I walked to the sliding glass door and opened it with my trombone in hand. Walked outside onto the patio a step and said “here you go”…. only to see him buzz past me into the outdoors. Quiet at last, I’m able to continue my practicing without the drone. Now, as I sit at my computer near the open glass door, with the clean fresh air streaming in, there are 4 or 5 buzzing flies inside, trying to figure out how to get through glass. I just saw one fly all the way to the open door only to turn around and come back in the room to buzz on the glass and irritate me. What to do now?? Besides close the door. But if I close the door, they can’t get out. I’m done practicing for now and not composing which is when the buzzing is completely unacceptable. Trying to compose with buzzing flies and wasps is almost as bad as the ever-dreaded leaf-blower outside. The main difference is that you can’t very well go hit the leaf-blower over the head with rolled up paper. As much as I’d like to, sometimes. I’m not a violent man, in fact I am a pacifist. Or am I? When it comes to buzzing, flying bugs, including mosquitoes, that’s where I draw the line. I had to share that. Peace! Ed

A busy month

Just coming off a busy month of tours and gigs, all great, as it turns out.

Early December was the Netherlands tour. I spent in week in the Netherlands as a guest with a couple different bands and schools. Then a 3 day “Portrait” at the great jazz club in Vienna, Porgy & Bess. Three nights, three different bands, three different kinds of music. Whew!! Fun!!

Started in Enchede where I played a concert with the Millennium Jazz Orchestra, a quartet concert with some of the teachers from the conservatory and a concert with some of the students. The concert with the Millennium Jazz Orchestra led my Joan Reinders went very well. Then band played my music great and were enjoyable to work with. Joan conducted (which I often do as well) so all I had to do was show up and play. I did conduct Jari, one of the pieces I didn’t play on.

Unfortunately, it was extremely cold with icy snow on the ground and an icy wind blowing so the size of the audience wasn’t as large as we would like. Those that were there were quite enthusiastic.

The quartet concert with some of the teachers was also great. There are all great players and very sympathetic. With no rehearsal we picked some tunes and played. Felt like we had played together for years (oh, they have…) really fun. The concert with the students went well, more challenging for me, of course. Sometimes I felt as if I was pulling a train. But, it’s important to play together with students so that they can get the experience of playing with experienced players.

Next, off to Utrect to play with the Frits Bayens Big Band. Frits is an old friend and colleague. As a producer for the Metropole Radio Orchestra he commissioned me to write and come as soloist for several projects over the years. He’s also a great arranger himself and we played many of his charts with his band, which has been together for 30 years. This was an interesting gig for me as I was the featured soloist on every piece and the only rehearsal we had was a quick run-through at the sound-check. Fun.

The next morning I was at the conservatory in Rotterdam for some composition lessons, trombone clinics and master-classes. A cool week, especially as it was below freezing and snowing the whole week. Made for some interesting travel days.

The big news, really was the Suite Ellington project and the three day “Portrait” at the great club Porgy & Bess in Vienna.

The Suite Ellington Project: Billy Drewes-Alto Sax & Clarinet, Jim Rotondi-Trumpet & Flugelhorn, Fritz Pauer-piano, Peter Herbert-bass & Jeff Ballard was put together to perform my arrangements of some of the more obscure Ellington and Strayhorn. Mostly from their Extended Suites, such as Black Brown & Beige, Far East Suite, Afro Eurasian Suite and the complete Queens Suite.

We started in Graz where the guys who are not associated with the University, Billy Drewes, Jeff Ballard, Peter Herbert & Fritz Pauer (who made his first return visit since retiring from teaching a few years ago) all gave clinics, workshops and master-classes. We started with an open rehearsal. All the students were invited to attend and the room was full. I think it’s important for the students to see how a high level professional rehearsal is run. We ran through everything, made sure the road maps made sense and played most everything a couple times, so that we could all become accustom to how our part fit into the whole. With three horns, in order to get some variety of colors the lead sometimes moves from player to player. Of course, you need to know where you are in the formation in order to make the proper blend.

The next morning started with workshops on the prospective instruments, Billy with the saxes, Jeff with the drummers etc,.

End the evening we played the concert at the Orpheum in Graz. Great concert! What can I say? The guys played my arrangements, which are sometimes quite twisted and other times more of an orchestrated transcription, with precision and passion. It’s such a great pleasure to hear ones compositions and arrangements played by the highest-level players.

After the Orpheum concert in Graz we then moved to Vienna for the beginning of the three-day Portrait. It was generous of Christoph Huber to offer me this Portrait and let me design the three days any way I wanted.

Consequently, I wanted to do three completely different programs. Suite Ellington focusing on my arrangements, Chamber in the Now focusing on improvisation, or, composing in the moment, and thirdly the music for big band.

It was a great opportunity to present my music, which is admittedly somewhat Schizophrenic, in a concentrated time. The one style, I left out is the one that I am most known for, Modern Mainstream, or, whatever you call it??

Happy Holidays!

Ed

Trombone Plunger Technique

I’ve spent a lot of time with the plunger and the trombone. I think that’s the most important aspect of mastering any specific technique or style. Concentrated time spent honing, refining and exploring. I didn’t practice with the plunger, I explored, experimented, searched and researched.

With that said, here are the basics of plunger playing.

The Equipment: It takes time to find the best plunger. There was a period of years when if I passed a hardware store I would go in and check out their toilet plunger selection. If there was a plunger there, that I had not tried, then I would buy it. Not a big investment really, usually two to five dollars. It was always fun to buy the plunger and tell the clerk that I didn’t need the stick. I always got a kick out of their reaction to that. So consequently, I had a basket full of plungers at home in my studio. Had a basket full of trumpet mutes too. But we’ll get to that in a minute. I have one favorite plunger and one or two back-ups, but I’ve been playing with the same mute plunger combination for more than 20 years.

For my taste, the plunger should be relatively hard with no open holes and nothing shaved off the rim, which I know some players like to do. In my earlier plunger days, I had a soft plunger that I could squeeze, which feels good but doesn’t really affect the sound that much. The advantage of a plunger with hard rubber is that the sound is manipulated by bouncing off the inside of the plunger. With softer rubber the sound is more absorbed, therefore less bright. We want to be able to close the plunger completely so that we can produce that “buzz”, a very cool sound, so the plunger needs to be big enough to be able to close completely. Some guys will cut out the whole in the middle and put two pennies or dimes in there to get another kind of buzz. I had a mute like this for a while, but prefer the whole uncut plunger. With a good plunger the sound should change when the plunger is moved as little as half an inch (1 centimeter). This gives us many possibilities for different sounds, from tightly closed to completely open and everything in between.

Without Pixie Mute: The advantage of playing without a pixie mute is that we can play louder and if we are playing a solo in front of a loud big band riffing backgrounds behind us, then subtle sound variations won’t be heard, so playing without a pixie makes sense.

When playing the plunger without a pixie mute there are intonation issues that need attention. On certain partials the pitch is raised approximately a ¼ tone, sometimes as much as a flat ½ tone when the plunger is in the closed position. Therefore the player needs to learn the open and closed positions of all the notes in his/her playing range so that they are in control of the intonation. With some notes the intonation is not changed when the plunger is closed and with others the note changes drastically, and the player needs to know how the note will be affected so that the desired effect is performed rather than an “out of tune” note. Which, let’s face it, an “out of tune” note is not a very pleasing sound. Somehow, it seems that many plunger players just don’t take the time to learn these idiosyncrasies in order to be able to perform freely. But, when we do take the time to learn the basics and explore the possibilities the results are rewarding.

I usually prefer to play with a pixie mute when performing with the plunger because of all the sound possibilities. If the volume is loud and a good microphone is not available then I would consider playing plunger without pixie, or open horn entirely or maybe, if I have it, the trombone pixie (with the O ring popped out) with which one can also play relatively loud.

The Pixie Mute: As I said earlier, I have a basket of pixie mutes, but use primarily one mute, a Humes and Berg (Stoneline) trumpet straight mute, with the corks filed down so that the mute fits tight in the horn. I play a King Silver Sonic 3B and the throat or flare of the bell is relatively narrow in relation to many other horns. Many a friend has had my pixie mute stuck in their bell. Then, the only way to get it out is to drop a drumstick down from the other side, or to push it out with a cleaning rod or something similar. As the mute needs to be tight, I sometimes have trouble getting it out of the horn if I have sweaty and slippery fingers, one of the trials and tribulations of a plunger player.

I like this mute because it is in tune and playable the complete range of the trombone and is very expressive sonically. This mute allows many possibilities of producing different overtones.

The other mute that is generally in tune is the trombone pixie mute made by Humes and Berg. I also like the Shastock Trumpet Straight mute.

When I was exploring the possibilities of plunger playing, I would often go into music stores and see if they had some trumpet straight mutes for me to try. If I had my horn with me I’d try all the trumpet mutes. Many just didn’t work at all, but I would buy the ones that had potential and check them out at home, sometimes moving or shaving the corks so that they fit right. We should to do this with any mute. Any mute is fitting properly when we can play the entire register of the horn. The low register is tricky when muted. A mute fits properly when we can play chromatically down to low E, or below for the trigger guys, with all the notes sounding, more or less, in tune and with no “dead” notes. With all mutes, including the pixie, one should check the intonation with a tuner to see as well as hear where all the notes are. Note that with the pixie mute the tuning slide will probably need to be pushed out roughly 1 inch (2.5cm).

I have played almost all of the trumpet straight mutes available including the Nonpareil, which the Ellington guys used. The problem with this and many other mutes is that the note choices and range is very limited. I heard that Trickey Sam Nanton only had 13 good notes with the pixie and plunger. Of course Duke knew what those 13 notes were and put them to good use. I’ve never bothered counting his notes to see if this is true. Makes a good story though. The sound(s) of the Nonpareil and other mutes are cool, but I want the sounds and the complete range of the horn. The trombone pixie gives me the range, intonation and some volume, but not the variety of sounds. It’s the Humes and Berg (Stoneline) trumpet straight mute that gives me the sound(s) and full range of the horn. The lowest 3 or 4 notes are a little wolfy, but with some work can be controlled.

Posture: It’s important that we don’t put our body into any contortions in order to hold the plunger and the horn. Try to use good posture when playing with the plunger, just like you would when playing normal open horn. I like to balance the bell in the heal of the hand, above the wrist (when holding the hand up), that way the horn can be supported by the hand and the hand is flexible enough to manipulate the plunger from closed tight to open which is about 45 degrees.

The Basics: We have from “as open as possible” to “tightly closed” and everything in between. Every note has unique overtone possibilities when combined with the different positions of the plunger. Often there is a sweet spot for a note with the plunger a specific distance from the bell. Al Grey said he used 6 plunger positions. I don’t think about it that way, I’m using feel and sound to guide me. Sometimes a very small movement will create interesting overtone variations.

The plunger articulations are Wa Wa or Ja Ja and the opposite Open-Close or Open-tight closed.

We can color the articulation by adding the tongue with a light legato, or brief flutter. The flutter can be used as an articulation or by continuing to flutter one can sound as if growling.

We can help accentuate the Wa Wa or Ja Ja by shaping those syllables with the tongue in the mouth.

Many people have asked me how I do the Ja Ja. And the answer I usually give is “I don’t know”. I just play and that is what comes out. Lucky I guess. With that said, I use a combination of notes, plunger positions, articulations, vowel sounds and sometimes singing or growling to produce the desired affect. Important to note that what I am hearing when I am playing is not exactly what the audience or the microphone is hearing. It’s only on playback that I hear what the audience was hearing. I don’t hear Ja Ja nearly as clearly as the audience hears it. So if you think that you can’t Ja Ja, you better record yourself and listen to the playback. Maybe you can? But don’t be troubled if you don’t produce the Ja Ja clearly. I’ve known some excellent plunger players who just couldn’t Ja Ja. Wa Wa is it for them. One can still make a lot of music with Wa Wa.

OK, back to the basics. In order to get that buzz from the closed plunger, the plunger needs to be tight against the bell, therefore in order to play a buzzing note at mf we need to play that note ff or fff so that it sounds mf. This takes some practice to be able to color the note of a line with the tight buzz by playing fff while playing the other more open notes mf or even mp.

The voice: The voice as singing or growling can be added for interesting and varied effects. One can sing above the note being played or sing or “growl” below the note being played. I would suggest beginning to work on this technique, sometimes called multi-phonics with the open horn, then when you are able to control your voice and the trombone you can apply this to plunger playing to good affect.

Explore: This is the most important aspect of playing the plunger freely. Just like most things in life, when you spend concentrated time studying and exploring, you get better at whatever you are working on. Plunger technique is no exception. I spent many hours working with the plunger, mostly with the pixie, exploring all the possibilities that I could think of and hopefully discovering some possibilities that I didn’t think of, discovering them through exploration and experimentation.

I’ve made it a point to play at least one solo piece with pixie and plunger at my quartet and even big band concerts. It’s a great expressive tool. And, the audience always enjoys the vocal qualities.

OK? Are you ready to explore? Hope so. “Music” is a wonderful vocation when we can “play”, explore and experiment in order to come up with “cool” lines, rhythms, harmonies and colors etc,.

One more point: Have Fun!!

Keep in touch,

Ed


You can see/hear many examples of me playing the plunger. On YouTube, my “Solo Improvisation for Trombone, Voice & Plunger” has received more than 180,000 hits. This piece is more of a sound sculpture with some vocal sounds and singing together with the trombone plunger sounds. There are also examples of more tonal plunger playing on all my CDs and in the CD that accompanies my book Trombone Technique: through music.

And, there are several examples on my latest lecture demonstration Video:
Creative Practicing – Practice Creatively.

All available at: www.EdNeumeister.com

I also offer lessons via video conference

Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments etc,.

Rediscovering Bach Part II

Played through the 1st and 2nd Bach Cello Suites in consecutive days. It’s been many years, but it was like butter. Like visiting an old friend. Seems like yesterday. They are so beautiful, great music and a great way to start the day.
Then I came to the 3rd suite. Oh boy, another story. In the key of C, so lots of low Cs. Guess I didn’t work ion this one as much, probably because it’s in the low register, more in the bass trombone range. So I decided to play it up a perfect 5th, superimposing the tenor clef. Now it goes up to High D. I think there is a French edition that transposes this one up a 4th, but that’s not too easy to do on the fly, but tenor clef should be possible. It’s kicking my ass, challenging to say the least. Cool!!! Guess I’ll be on this one for a while. It’s good to be back, a great way to start the musical day.