Chris Tune's Blog

I'm deciding if I will buy Dick Nash's Bach 42B. Steve Ferguson had it at his store. I took it home to try out. It plays well. From the serial number, it appears to be of 1982 or 83 vintage, so it is actually newer than virtually any of my other horns. Nonetheless, it is of the older design. The closed, compact valve section. The question I guess is how much better does a symphony tenor with F attachment play if it has the open valve design? Is this really a big deal? I'm thinking it really may not be a big deal. I played an open version 88H about five months ago, having borrowed it, and it was not that much different. I'll just have to decide. I could use a large bore with F attach.

SpikedHumor.com » Lightning Fast Browsing Trick For Internet Explorer And Firefox » SpikedHumor.com This is video describing how to improve speed performance for high bandwidth internet connections. It increases the number of connections allowed to something higher than the defaults. There are two separate instructions - one for Firefox, and another for Internet Explorer. Hope it works. Hope I have time to try these. Chris

Now we are chewing our own legs off, or so it appears when looking at the 2nd amendment community. Veteran writer Jim Zumbo commented that he thought it was stupid to use an "assault rifle" (sometimes also called "black rifle", since the AR-15, for example is black plastic in many areas). Now, he has lost most of his gigs with magazines and the NRA, and many of the gun enthusiasts are just fine with that. Also, I note that some are now trying to tell Ted Nugent what to do. . . .(not a good idea, mind you!). He has posted apologies and restatements of position from the 67 year old gun writer. . .apparently, Zumbo made his dumbo comments about "terrorist" rifles and now lots of folk think this is "ammunition" for more efforts to abolish certain types of rifles, and pistols. I think this is "throwing the baby out with the bathwater". We don't need to chew up veteran, 40 year NRA member authors regardless of WHATEVER they may say, a...

TENS OF THOUSANDS DEMAND IRAQ WITHDRAWAL Forbes covers the AP Feed on this. . .and my mind says: That means that there are more people gathered in D.C. listening to Jane Fonda, and others than the KIA in Iraq in the three years of action there. We now have slightly more than 3,000 KIA in the Iraq war. During the war in which Jane Fonda committed TREASON, [we lost slightly more than 47,000 KIA in Vietnam] we lost in excess of ten times as many soldiers. During the very first BATTLE that the US Marines fought in World War I, (in France, part of a combined breakout effort by French, British and US forces). . .the Marines lost roughly 5,000! YES five thousand souls lost their lives for a single mission. . .they did this in the course of a very few days, and for the goals of ONE BATTLE. I believe sincerely that Jane Fonda, and all the other anti-war protesters are INSULTING all those who lost their lives for these other wars. Whether WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, or other actions which are ...

The title is linked to a page for "Convergence 2007", a Microsoft Dynamics oriented convention scheduled for 2007 in San Diego. On this page, there is a list of blogs having to do with MS Dynamics. So, if you found this blog because of a search on Microsoft Dynamics, feel free to pop over to the list. I think it could be useful. Don't forget to bookmark this blog, especially if you like Jazz music, and/or trombone. DYNAMICS-IS. . .WELL, DYNAMIC! As I thought, Dynamics is having a wonderful run-up with coverage by the user community, hip EDP-oriented , bloggerly folks with much to say about this very powerful financial software. I'm looking forward to learning more about what all those users and developers out there are doing with Dynamics. Here at Western Studio Service, we plan on implementing MS Dynamics GP starting this coming month (February). This should vastly improve on ledger function and provide a base with which to fully track ...

I was listening to Frank and his video of him doing Monk's "Well You Needn't" and was astounded as he did the melody over both in the low octave and in the upper octave. You should note that this is a leaping melody which starts on a low C and leaps up a fourth to an F and then does a "bebop" sounds down to F# (with a sort of tritone sound to them). The point is that there are these very high brief upper notes to the "bebops". . .the "tops" of them, so to speak. The range is very, very high. And Frank sounds like this is simply not very difficult at all. This tune was the last one played on this half hour show. He then immediately launches into the theme music and again plays in tessiatura that is simply not supposed to be on the trombone -- it is more trumpet range, if you look at the orchestration books. Now Frank played a very small mouthpiece but a medium bore conventional trombone (a Conn 6H. . .a .500 bore medium trombone mode...

Here is studio ace, Dick Nash discussing the ballad style technique of vibrato. Here is someone who can really play the heck out of a ballad discussing this key tecnique for singing style.

You also have to get through the awards part BECAUSE Bird and Diz do "Hothouse" and there is much great soloing. This is so far back Diz had not had the bend in his bell . . .the upward tilted bell he was known for. . .that was yet to come. This is 1951. This is BEBOP! After you listen to this, then you can tell people you know what bebop is. . .(the term is misued like so many others in jazz). Charlie Parker & Dizzy Uploaded by trombone-usa

Since this is the world of Web 2.0 and that means that web pages are more and more assembled out of "pieces" of data from all over. . .then by all means we should hip ourselves to the very estimable Mr. Rosolino as he bebops on the most difficult of instruments to do that on. . .the trombone. Here is yet another great performance by Frank Rosolino playing jazz trombone to the utmost. Frank introduces this tune as being by "Monk, who writes with the 'funk' and that's no 'bunk'. . ." :) Frank Rosolino VI Uploaded by trombone-usa This is truly the guy you need to listen to if you are going to try and survive as a bebop trombone jazz player. You would also do well to listen to JJ Johnson, Kai Winding, Carl Fontana, Curtis Fuller, and really a host of other worthy bone players. But perhaps the important thing about Frank is that we have a lot of high quality and it is available to be heard. Don't be misled by false notions of "West Coast ...

I'm devoting my site to jazz trombone from here on out. I've seen how political blogs can get "blogged" down . . .what is more fun than music? And since I particularly like jazz like Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie and Jack Teagarden. . .and well this guy below. . .well then this site should mainly be about jazz trombone. I'm unsure if this will work but this is supposed to be Frank Rosolino: Frank Rosolino II Uploaded by trombone-usa We shall see. . .won't we? Or maybe you will see one of the greatest to ever blow jazz on this awkward instrument, the trombone. Frank was probably "certifiable" in a lot of different senses of the word, I'd tend to remember him as certifiably the greatest bebop trombone player (I even have to shift the very, very fine JJ and Kai down to just beneath this guy. . .he's that important to me in the world of bop). Anyway stay tuned. Chris

This is very good news. The many open source items available now provide wonderful, FREE, software sources. I have several of them. . .Open Office (much like MS Office). . .Audacity (Digital Audio Recording) and several others. In fact, free software these days can allow you to do almost anything. . .so always look at the open source before you dive in and BUY. The Bible is available in really quite a few translations in open source form, with a project called SWORD (probably more like S WORD, as in "Software Word". .more likely knowing Christians, rather than the weapon thingy. .) For those of us who are interested in studying the bible, as I believe most intelligent folk are. . .this is . . .well. . .a GODSEND. Now you can put this on any computer you have and can be content that you have a legal copy of the word on your computer and can search it and research it at your own pace. Can you tell I'm happy about this? Of course it is a good idea also to have a hard co...

Andy Rooney says he is not going to think about those who have died to protect our country. . .he claims that war is our LEAST noble deed. . .he doesn't get it. He is so simple that he is not just a FOOL, but is FOOLING everyone. No nuance. . .no thought. . .no MEAT to his actual ravings. Does he honestly think that war against Hitler or against Pol Pot, or against EVIL. . .is not Noble? Not at ALL? Does he not discriminate between one action and another similar action? Can't he tell if WWII was justified on the part of the Allies? After all Hitler had repeatedly attacked most of Europe! This wasn't an action of Britain, or the U.S. Herr Hitler did it! Andy? . . . Andy? . . .WAKE UP!!! Laura Ingraham lapsed a bit today. . she seemed to think that she has to respect her elders. . . .actually I believe the commandment is to "honor your mother and father. ." There is no requirement for a Christian to respect older folk who are obviously weak of mind. . .an...

 This was taken several years ago. Daisy seems to want to hog into the picture a bit. Adam is having a good time. This is in the back yard on the swing Michele and I made. 

 This is the KID PICTURE from my wife, Michele. I think she was very cute. :-) 

  This is what I looked like at around age 7 or 8. Now, Adam was looking a LOT like this just a few years ago. Funny how the "circle of life" goes. . .I guess we have a pretty lovable little bloke here. . .? Yeah. . it's cool being a kid. . . I was pretty thrilled to be "ridin' herd as a 'cowpoke'" 

  This was a great gig. The "Direct from Vegas" The Rat Pack. . .show. This was Don Gustafson and myself on bones. . .Scott Strecker, leader. . .and other than hassles from Local 47, was a pure pleasure experience. . this was a "verbatim" style performance replicating the rat pack schtick. . you should know that is the way Sammy and Dean and Frank did it. . .they had written material which they tossed into the show in a loose, improvised manner. It allowed them to do shows solo, or with various combinations of the rat pack guys. . .I have a couple of show recordings of the three. . and a couple with just Frank or with just Dean. The same jokes. .different persons delivering. . different "victims". . .heh!. . .heh! This is very funny and is done with a real, live big band! 

  

The heart of the matter. . to my trombone player heart; here are the Kanstul bones 

NAMM is really huge; here we see some of the immense Roland set  

Kanstul and its excellent brass instruments. Steve Ferguson also carries these excellent horns