About a year ago, I asked a friend of mine Terrence Wright to write an unaccompanied piece for me. Much to my pleasure he agreed and got to work. I had met Terrence while in my undergrad at UK and liked what I heard. Considering he was also a trombone player... I trusted his instincts of the instrument. A few months later and he emailed me the piece "Grid". Fantastic piece of music that just connected with me. Then I realized, it was a piece for me and about me. Now, what this said to my internal artist is a different story.
I was able to work on and premiere the piece at the University of North Texas in front of 90 fellow trombonist and 3 of the 4 trombone faculty members. It felt great sounded great and it was the first time most of those people had heard me play. Thankfully, I had a fan base sitting in the back row!
That being said, it inspired me to take my mentor's advice (Dave Taylor) and start commissioning pieces for the instrument. Obviously, I've been writing extensively for my album, but I decided to take a break from writing and get back to playing.
So what is in it for the composer?
Well, obviously writing for the bass trombone isn't a "go to" instrument. But I am currently residing in the MECCA... the factory of the world where trombone players doing nothing but live the instrument.
On top of that, one of my teachers, Vern Kagarice, owns his own music publishing company. This means that if he likes what he hears, he has no problem with buying the piece and publishing it for mass sale. Think about that for a second. Someone willing to publish new material, and performing the piece for 90+ potential buyers. The odds are in the favor of the composer of the piece!
At this point everything seems to be rolling along just fine. I encourage anyone that reads this to pass it on, because there is nothing better in the music world that helping another person out!
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