The Virtual Trombonist Podcast, ep. 1: An interview with John Ohnstad

In the summer of 1993, I had the great fun and opportunity to work at Disney World as part of the All-American College Orchestra, performing at Epcot.  One of my colleague was a bass trombonist named John Ohnstad.  John was an interesting guy.  He was a fantastic musician, but wasn't a music major in college at all!  John has continued his parallel paths in both business and music, and we recently caught up at a reunion of our College Orchestra pals in Orlando.  I sat down to talk a bit with John about how he arrived at his musical career, and to also hear about his unique experiences studying with the late George Roberts. [soundcloud url="https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/220684998" params="auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%" height="450" iframe="true" /]

John performs with a number of groups in and around Portland, here are some links to a few of them:

Rose City Trombones

Big Horn Brass

Portland Columbia Symphony

Art Abrams Swing Machine Big Band - and on their album "Speak Low/Swing Hard"

Shopping around

I have had the chance to visit a lot of universities over the past 10 years, both with my regular job, and as a member of Valor Brass. I was in Texas last weekend and while there, I had the chance to discuss with a young trombone player his upcoming graduate school auditions. We talked at length about the experiences he's had so far just setting up his auditions. It's always interesting to visit different schools. Like auditions, I feel like you often can tell within a few minutes of walking in an institution what kind of atmosphere you will find as a student. Correspondence with the admissions office, registrar, and faculty is a good indicator of how that institution feels about your application and about you as a student.

Some schools are welcoming, open, helpful, accommodating, and just downright encouraging. Others are unresponsive, rigid, not accommodating, and may make you feel as if they are doing you a favor by opening your application!

It might be true that a specific teacher will be best for you in spite of the institution where they teach. However, there are definitely numerous options for less-expensive, smaller, less well-known programs from which to choose. Bottom line is, find a teacher that works for you, and if it doesn't cost $50,000 per year, then all the better!

So, as you hit the college audition trail, think about the way you are received. Besides finding a great teacher, you are shopping for a great institution as well. There are a large number of hidden gems out there!

Good luck,

The Virtual Trombonist

How far will you go?

Teachers, I have a theoretical scenario for you....

How far would you go for a student with a bad attitude? Say it's a kid that's very talented, but resistant, even hostile to criticism, and is disrespectful to boot. How far would you go to help and teach them? Where do you draw the line? What if the institution where you teach doesn't support you in your dealings with the student? Are you morally and/or ethically obligated to try to teach them, and to what extent?

I'm really curious to hear everyone's responses!

Thanks, Chris

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