Who am I, and why am I here?
It occurred to me tonight that I have been, as usual, putting the cart before the horse. I just perused the Wordpress Blogging 101 series and noted that one of the first things a new blogger should do, according to Wordpress, is to define why you are starting a blog and what you hope to accomplish. My title does pay homage to the 1992 vice presidential debate in which Admiral James Stockdale opened with the now famous quote above, but not for the reasons you might imagine. That great man and his writings will be the focus of another post in the near future. As a person who had "early success" as a musician, mainly in high school and college, I have often found myself wondering, "What now?" and "What else?" I auditioned for the Marine Band in 1999 and began my career that summer. After joining the band, I promptly careened down the path of, "I have a job, I can relax and do other stuff!" Not that there's anything wrong with that! But, for me, I feel like I have put a lot of my musical development on hold over the years. I have a lot left in the musical world that I want to explore, and I enjoy communicating about those issues through my writing.
So, what will you see here? Well, the All-State etudes are fun to do and give me something to practice, but I have in mind a number of other topics and focusses that you will see here. Namely, I want this blog to become a resource and place of connection for trombonists and musicians everywhere. Interviews, personal accounts and experiences, sheet music reviews, recording reviews, my own recordings, book reviews, and many other topics that I enjoy, but all trombone or music related. Also, I want to add my own experiences with different mentors I have been lucky enough to have throughout my career, and share some of the special things that they taught me.
If you want to see other stuff that I get myself interested and tangled up in, I am starting to use Tumblr now for short everyday posts about things I find interesting. You can find me there as virtualtrombonist as well... On Twitter, I am @beebesdad...
Happy creating!
Chris