New Beginnings...

Hellloooooooooooo everyone!  Greetings from Alexandria after what has been a loooooong time without a post. It was recently suggested by a friend that I restart my blog (thanks, Meredith!), which quite frankly, took me by surprise!  It’s been quite a long time since I posted regularly, and I never thought I had much readership, so it caught me off guard anyone remembered it! Since my last post, things in life are quite different, and about to get a whole lot differenter! 

First of all, if you originally signed up for my old newsletter, The Virtual Trombonist, then I have to tell you that this new iteration is going to be different. It probably won’t contain much, if any, content related to the trombone, or even to classical music. You see, that time period of my life is rapidly coming to a close!  Not exactly a permanent end of my tromboning, but very likely a long break from it, followed by possible short stints now and again. We will see. I make no promises!

The reason?  Well, I am retiring from “The President’s Own” U.S. Marine Band at the end of June. I will have spent just shy of 25 years in the band, and it has been a great ride. I simply became ready to start the next chapter of my life, and I will be moving on to a career in the audio visual production world. Many of you know I’ve had a part time career in that field for a few years now, and the time has come to fully commit to a new path.  

The trombone section of “The President’s Own” - May, 2024

I feel like I’ve been released from a cage. Seriously. Even though my military career has been wonderful, it feels like a new beginning and like anything is possible. As a friend said, “now you get to decide what you want to be when you grow up!”

I don’t know about that, but there are some things in my life that I have done as hobbies, or peripherally, that I want to make more time for.  Photography, writing, hiking, cycling, sitting on the beach…. I don’t expect to make a living from any of these (one can always hope!), but I’m excited to spend more time at these and other pursuits.  I’m planning for this blog to begin exploring more topics in these and other areas.  If you are looking for trombone content, you should probably unsubscribe - I will miss you!  Otherwise, welcome, and I look forward to sending out more thoughts into the internet ethers in the coming year.

Professionalism always shows itself in unlikely places

How do you demonstrate professionalism on the job?

Recently, I had the great fortune to shoot video at the 98th annual Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company pony swim and auction. This year’s event was indeed the 98th edition of this Eastern Shore of Virginia tradition. Thousands of people make the trek across the single causeway connecting Chincoteague Island to the mainland for the week of the Swim, and all the events surrounding it.

On pony swim morning, I showed up at the dock owned by the Fire Company that juts out into the narrow channel between Assateague and Chincoteague Islands around 5am. I found myself the first person to arrive and walked the length of the dock to begin setting up my camera and gear. After visiting briefly with a couple of other folks from the fire company, a few other media types began to arrive. First was an audio crew that was setting up for the live stream coverage and PA system that would communicate with the huge crowd and stream the event for the giant LCD screen deployed at Memorial Park, just down the channel. The swim can be a notoriously difficult event to view, due to the fact that there is no one place where you can see the whole event up close other than on a boat out in the channel. The Coast Guard is on hand to keep the channel clear and keep ponies and propellors out of proximity of each other, so even out on a boat, you are viewing at a distance. Also, a full grown pony rides pretty low in the water while swimming, which means it can be hard to see them very well during the 4-and-a-half minute swim.

Anyway, the audio crew was under time pressure, and the one gentleman clearly in charge was rather abrupt with me and my choice of position for my camera. I wasn’t really offended, since I understood where he was coming from, the pressure he was under, and the early hour of the day. The rest of this crew was focused on the task at hand, and went about their business getting the live sound ready to go. Next to arrive was a crew from a public news station. Now, it was clear from the beginning that this group of 5 individuals had never attended the Swim, didn’t really know what was going to happen, and hadn’t a clue the timeline or events that were going to take place that morning (even though a quick internet search revealed a week’s timeline of events from the fire company).

Now, what I found really interesting was the interaction (or lack thereof) that this group had with those of us already on the dock. One of them looked at me and, after I said good morning, said, “freelancer?” I replied, yeah, more or less. Now, at this point, I was ready to spill the beans about all that goes on with the swim, the timeline involved, how I had heard one of the cowboys say, “ponies in the water at 1015” earlier in the morning… In other words, I could have easily filled in the blanks with most of the information that this crew didn’t seem to have in order to give them a better chance to write/video/photograph a compelling story. That never happened. Not once did any of them try to make small talk, ask questions, visit with the cowboys, or much anything else for that matter.

As a 50-plus professional that has spent a career (and indeed, lifetime) in the military and performing arts, I am still blown away by the lack of interest people show in others. Professional situations are such an easy place to make small talk. The knowledge to be gained from those around you is truly astounding. Sometimes, the most lasting and helpful lessons come from the least likely sources. The shared experience, profession, even instrument/camera/microphone (or other gear) that you are holding can be an easy gateway to introduction and learning. As for me, I learned a lot at this year’s pony swim. I can’t wait to share what I captured this year, and return next year with even more ideas about compelling ways to cover this historic and exciting event. Oh, and next time, I’m gonna ask even more questions myself!

A Mystic Day Off

Greetings, everyone!  I’m writing to you today from a very gray and dreary Mystic, Connecticut.  Even though the day is gray, I am not!  Why?  Well, today is in fact a “maintenance day” on our 2022 tour with the Marine Band.  

What the heck is a maintenance day?  Well, exactly like it sounds!  Maintenance days, aka “a day off”, is a time to take care of things that we can’t do, or don’t have time to do, when we are constantly moving on tour.  Laundry, rest, grocery shopping, exercise, and simply mental recharging are all things I look forward to on days like today.  Well, ok, maybe not laundry… This morning finds me in a Starbucks next to our lovely hotel where I am simply enjoying sitting and catching up on some reading and thinking, hence this post.  

I thought I would simply take the time to write a few significant events that have happened on tour, and tell you a little bit about our experiences on the road.  This is the Marine Band’s first tour in 3 years due to the pandemic.  It has been very successful so far - great crowds, excellent performances, and our featured soloists are really playing their hearts out and sound fantastic.  

On stage at Carnegie Hall

Some serious musical highlights of this tour have come about due to acoustically special and/or historical venues we have had the chance to perform in.  We played Carnegie Hall about a week ago, and it’s true that this historical and amazing venue never disappoints.  As a musician, playing on that stage feels effortless.  The acoustics of the hall are so complementary to what we do, that you feel as if your sound projects into the hall and audience with very little effort needed.  Playing there feels like cycling with a tailwind!  I also had the special pleasure of having my wife and boys in the audience.  They made the trip up to hear the concert, and even got to visit an Amish family that we have become friends with in Chincoteague during the summer.  Needless to say, I think they had a gamut of experiences that they won’t soon forget, to include driving a horse-drawn buggy, and riding “Amish scooters”.

Driving at age 14! :)

After Carnegie, we drove up to Worcester, Massachusetts, where we gave a performance at Mechanics’ Hall.  Mechanics’ Hall was built in 1857, and the Great Hall is renowned for its excellent acoustics and as a concert space.  It is indeed a beautiful hall, with excellent acoustics and a beautiful reverb.  The Marine Band first performed there in 1891 when Sousa (director at the time) took the band there as part of our very first national concert tour.  It is an exciting honor and connection to history to be back there with the modern version of the Band.  

Mechanics’ Hall, Worcester, Massachussetts

A couple days after our Worcester concert, we had the chance to play at Symphony Hall in Boston, home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.  That concert was full of special moments, not the least of which was having some friends from the BSO join us on stage towards the end of the concert.  My friend, Steve Lange, was able to join us in the trombone section - Steve and I actually first played together in high school! Steve now plays second trombone in the BSO. We played the Great Gate of Kiev movement from Pictures at an Exhibition, plus a couple of patriotic tunes.  Besides the timeliness of Mussorgsky’s work, the orchestra version of the piece (orchestrated by Ravel) was commissioned by Serge Koussevitsky in 1922 and first recorded by the BSO at Symphony Hall in 1930.   That was another inspiring connection to bring to this concert! 

Russell Sharp, Karl Johnson, Steve Lange, Chris Clark, and Tim Dugan onstage at Boston Symphony Hall

I’ve been enjoying quiet time in the hotels to do some audio mixing and editing on this tour.  I’m at work on a few different albums (lots of trumpet!), as well as prep work for late fall concert recordings.  I brought a Merging Technologies Anubis interface with me, and the D/A conversion sounds fantastic and is helping me make the most of my hotel mixing time.  Sennheiser was helpful with providing a pair of HD-820 closed back headphones to me at a professional discount, and those are making all the difference with hearing detail in mixes and edits while out on the road.  

Hotel mixing!

As always, thanks for reading!  Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions.  Home soon!

Podcast Appearance on my favorite show!

Working Class Audio is one of the longest running podcasts that I know of, and it’s creator and host, Matt Boudreau, is an excellent interviewer and audio engineer. I was surprised to get an email from Matt about a month ago asking if I would be interested in coming on the show. We had a great conversation and I had a wonderful time talking about my journey into audio engineering, and my career as a trombone player. I hope you can take the time to check it out! Click the photo below to go to Matt’s webpage where you can hear the episode, or find it where you normally get your podcasts. Cheers!

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