On the topic of Trombones…
I got thinking a bit more about playing my trombone. Something I need to do more. I don’t get to play much any more, but I really did enjoy playing for many years. Maybe I’ll find some others to play with.
I played in orchestras. I played in concert bands. I played in military bands. I played in jazz bands. I played in brass quintets. And I played in other various groups with various other instruments. But the group I enjoyed playing the most with is the brass quintet. There are a bunch of reasons for this, and it very much relates to how I like to work today.
You see, in a quintet, there are five voices. It’s a small group, and you get to really know your peers, and have to work really hard at working well with them. It’s not about any of you individually, but about the five of you together. No one is in charge; there’s no leader, per se. We’re all leaders, and we all have accountability to each other, and to our audience, or customer. It’s just the five of us, all working towards a single, shared common goal. We all have to work together, listening to each other, complementing each other, supporting each other, critiquing each other. If we don’t? Well, there’s no one to hide behind. It’s just us. Each playing our part, which come together to produce something amazingly superior to the sum of our five parts.
It also forces five committed people to be their best, and continually work to improve personally, and each other. There’s nowhere to hide in a quintet. Not that I ever hid in any of the other settings, but it’s not the same when you’re one of a number people playing a similar – or even the same – line of a piece. That doesn’t happen in a quintet. There’s no one else playing your line. It’s just you. It becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly if you’re not pulling your weight. And it’s the same with everyone else in the quintet so they’ve got to be equally committed, and equally interested in being the best they can be, finding ways to get better individually, and helping each other make the quintet as a whole even better.
By the way, if you want to see some of the best musicians in the world, a team who practically invented and popularized the brass quintet, have a look at the Canadian Brass.