Read this first, then download music below.
For the 2012 edition of The Unaffiliated Trombone Choir our selection is an original that features a section of “conduction.”
“Conduction is a way of inscribing musical information onto a human body and an occasion for releasing that inscribed information in a real time performance situation. The body of the conductor, his or her four limbs, the digits of the hands, even the gaze, has supplanted the notated page.” -Butch Morris
“Anytime you synchronize the spirit and still give it liberty,” writes Morris, “you open many doors to the primus, where the intimate necessity of possibility reigns, where we find and realize our individual and collective freedoms.”
I will conduct over the section ***Watch Conduction****. Although the sheet music and the midi/mp3 file only have the section repeating twice, this section will evolve for a few minutes before we hop onwards towards the coda.
I will have a series of 5 or 6 different hand signals that will be intuitively obvious. There will be a “wave” of trombones as the hands will “sweep” across the line of trombones. There will be a volume crescendo and decrescendo as the slide arm extends back and forth. There will be a few solos whereby my hands will direct background sheets of sound to cushion the solo. Simple stuff, if we get it right!
Invite our sousaphone/tuba friends.
We are not allowed music stands on stage … so you can memorize, bring the part with you, have a friend on stage standing there holding the page…
Regarding memorization, I have made it so that if you begin in the “middle” with the conduction movement, the parts mirror themselves outwards. In other words, once you learn last three movements leading up to the ***Conduction*** section, you can simply, on cue, play those sections in reverse to get us away from the ***Conduction*** section. Make sense?
Another point to clarify: When 10x or 4x is written within a repeat section, this does not mean to “repeat the repeat” 10 or 4 times; it means to play the measures within the repeat signs as indicated.
Lastly, if you are in a band with multiple ‘bones, please distribute parts so that you are all not TB 1,2,3 or 4 … I know the Montreal Chaotic band has four trombones, so they should each play one part, not all four on TB 2 and such.
Don’t hesitate to communicate with me with any issues about this.
Looking forward.
Cheers, and may you Slide Free,
Sebastian