TromboneChat

Pretty soon here I'm gonna have a sit down lesson with a college trombone professor!
Any advice on how to prepare for this?
I'll be playing a few rochuts, Gulinos Sonatina and a selection out of Finks tenor clef studies!

Do you know your scales cold?

Hi All.

In my opinion , you should perform something in which you feel really confortable .
Also , probably the teacher himself will ask to you to play some exercises/etudes/etc that he will propose to you .

If I can give an advice , I think that would be better to keep in mind that a lesson is NOT an audition... So , if your pourpose is to have some lessons to really improve , don' t be afraid to play "at your worse" .
The sooner the teacher will notice your shortcomings , the sooner he will be able to help you fix them.

Regards
Giancarlo

I have a slightly different take on this.

I think you should play something that you to play comfortably. Practice it up and play as perfectly as you can. My philosophy is that we rehearse from the edges of our skill set, but we perform from the center of it. This isn’t a performance, it’s a lesson, but you want to give this teacher a sense of what you really sound like. And that means just playing something that you play well. Definitely don’t do what a lot of people do, which is to pick something really ambitious and try to learn it for the lesson. Don’t do that. The teacher won’t get a good sense of where you really are.

I would work up the selections you are most comfortable with from all of those books. And it would be best for you to play one or two of them well rather than play all of them mediocre.

I’m sure the instructor will give you things of his or her own to gauge where you are. So the for the ones you are preparing, just be very comfortable with them. Don’t try to impress.

The goal is to give the teacher a really good assessment, not to try to impress him with something and inevitably struggle.

That’s my take.

GGJazz wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2025 4:53 pm
If I can give an advice , I think that would be better to keep in mind that a lesson is NOT an audition... So , if your pourpose is to have some lessons to really improve , don't be afraid to play "at your worse" .
The sooner the teacher will notice your shortcomings , the sooner he will be able to help you fix them.

Regards
Giancarlo

This.
It's not an audition. Unless you think it is.
A lot depends on.what the teacher's strengths are in teaching. Musical interpretation, or fixing problems? I don't want first time students to prepare much of anything.

Maybe think about what you need to work on or get help with. What’s the weakest part of your playing?

I had a lesson with R Sauer that started with him asking “what can I help you with?” or words to that effect.

I think one important thing to keep in mind is to be prepared to be open and receptive to any criticism, which hopefully will be delivered in the form of suggestions to make a change to a particular aspect of your playing.
As a teacher of younger students, I find differences in how well students are willing or able to take my recommendations. I would rather work with a student who has more issues, but can make necessary changes.
And be prepared if he/she asks what you feel you need to work on.

Why are you taking the lesson? Your reason for taking the lesson will tell you what to do ahead of time.

When I was getting a one off with someone T try and advance my playing I kinda liked when I sucked a little. The teacher could see my problems. When I was about to “get a lesson” with a potential grad school instructor, I had my best stiff ready to roll.

Be able to tell the teacher what you're hoping to accomplish and learn from the lessons. If you have no idea, then the teacher will make the decisions, and you might find yourself going down a path you're not interested.

I found a wonderful jazz teacher online. The lessons are on Zoom. I don't need someone to tell me to practice page 27, etc. I'm an older adult and have studied music my whole life (I have a degree in music).

But I'm relatively new to trombone. So for the most part these days, I'm teaching myself. He listens to me play, and makes suggestions and recommendations, shows me alternatives to what I'd done, talks about the trombone and the particular song I played, and so on. Each lesson is like a master class, and contains words of wisdom.