We all have problems, challenges, and weaknesses in our playing.

I see people post a question here and then there will be 20+ posts going into incredibly "detailed" (to put it kindly) answers of various levels of efficacy or dubiousness, often contradictory of other responses, and occasionally resulting in enthusiastic disagreements.

Might we perhaps be thinking too hard about this? I mean, some folks are academics more than players, and live for minutae. Like engineers, it's the minutae that gets their juices flowing.

But I put to you the proposition that too much thinking and too much analysis actually gets in the way of playing, improvement, and problem solving. Like, you get into the weeds, get frustrated, have your mind on too many things other than just playing music, and don't realize the benefits you were looking for.

For me, "shut up and play" works pretty well. Oh, don't get me wrong, I ask for advice, too. I recently started a thread asking about increasing my single-tonguing speed. We all need help and input from time to time.

But aren't a lot of these threads perhaps even making problems worse? And having to think about all the things people will describe in a long and dense post, doesn't that take away from your ability to just play? We really can only concentrate on one thing at a time. There is no such thing as multi-tasking; that's a misnomer for repeated shifting of attention from one thing to another.

Perhaps the best answer to a lot of inquiries is "just play and experiment with feel until it feels right"?

I don't have a solid opinion on this. Just looking for other's thoughts.

You suggested to a friend of yours to have a lesson with me. I think I helped him tremendously... to think about some things he was totally not aware of. Did you get any feedback from him?

The problem with "too much analysis" is when you don't know what you're looking at or what it means.

This is a luxury available to those that have reached a certain level of playing ability.

"Just play and feel until it feels right" can be very misleading especially for beginners. That's what I did at some point when I was young and developed an absolutely not efficient smile embouchure with puffed cheeks and everything. It made me play high range and low range but all with tremendous effort and basically no endurance at all. But it worked at least for a bit and I couldn't get rid of it without any external help.

I think this could come in to Left/Right brain territory. We're all wired differently. We were all taught differently during our youth, those early trials & errors often laid the path for our future. When it comes to formal education, I've always handled numbers more easily than words. I've naturally understood symphonic music and often struggle to understand jazz.

I feel due to early exposure to music and music theory in my life, I've naturally been able to produce a good sound on any instruments and tend to pick them up quickly. I don't always pick up "proper" technique on every instrument. I've found it hard to improve at a certain point.. usually when improper technique is holding me back. I've never given up and told myself, "I can't do this/that." Once I ask the right questions, hear the right answers (the right answers for me, for my brain and body) ... then things click and the gates open.

During grade school, I always hated when I would struggle to grasp a concept and the instructor couldn't answer my questions. Is it my fault for not understanding things their way? Is it their fault for not explaining things my way?

"Some of the best teachers aren't the best players. Some of the best players are horrible teachers."

"Some people are born with it, feel it, and will it to be. Others have to find it, dissect it, then learn to reproduce it."

It's not just engineers who get deep into minutiae. I've seen lawyers who will pounce into words the way engineers pounce into machines.

We get a variety of people asking for playing help:

• Pros who want to get that last micron of technique to help win jobs. Sometimes even a good teacher doesn't have enough knowledge to help them.
• Kids who want to learn how to play but either can't afford a teacher, can't find a teacher, or just don't want to have to expend any effort to do something.
• Amateurs who have encountered something in their music they don't understand and need an explanation.

The problem is that sometimes the answer for each is different. Also, trying to use online texting to teach music is like trying to describe architecture with dancing.

I fully vibe with the "think more, work less" approach.

BUT - - - - "thinking" more does not mean sitting and ruminating uselessly.

Truly thinking means critical analysis and remediation.

So - no. "Shut up and play" may work for people who only desire to get to their setpoint and stop. But why stop???

[quote="Burgerbob"]This is a luxury available to those that have reached a certain level of playing ability.[/quote]

Largely this.

Of course no statement in the abstract can be universally true. “You’re overthinking it!” and “Don’t just keep doing the same old shit and expect it to magically get better” can both be true.

Super-generally speaking I still think trombonists as a whole err on the side of caution, rote and tradition, and I’d like to see more thought and experimentation.

I don’t personally enjoy the minutia of, say, relative merits of bore sizes and bell materials, but I’m glad that people do. And it’s not as if they’re ignoring practicing the horn to post here and procrastinate instead so it’s not harming the “just put the work in” side of it either.

[quote="BPBasso"]I think this could come in to Left/Right brain territory. We're all wired differently.[/quote]

This. We're all different. I see it in my students everytime I teach. They all have different ways of learning and thinking. For some, being very analytical works great, for others it's just mumbo jumbo. And that's okay. That means I might analyse a student's problem one way, but need to find a way to "translate" it into instructions or suggestions that will resonate with them (but are completely different from how I would articulate them for myself). That's the challenge, and the fun, of that job. Are there people who would benefit from being less analytical? Absolutely. But just as there are some who would benefit from being more analytical, quite frankly.

Some of us have analytical brains, and thrive when intellectually stimulated and thinking about "minutiae". And for some of us it can come to be an integral part of our artistic practice and process. Telling us to shut that off, stop thinking and "just play" makes exactly as much sense to us as if I told someone "stop thinking about the music, when you practice you should be thinking about peeling a banana" or some other totally absurd non sequitur.

I think equating analysis and interest in the "minutiae" with being "an academic more than a player" is extremely reductive and a denial of other people's experience. Not to say, potentially even a tad bit insulting.

I'm certainly guilty of writing long, verbose posts, which I guess reflect how my brain works and how I formulate thoughts. I understand that might be frustrating, or exasperating, to some who are wired differently. But I'm not going to start changing the way my brain works (or my artistic process) on such a fundamental level. If someone doesn't like those posts, they can just choose to skip them.

As others have touched on, the issue isn't being analytical about one's playing. The challenge is strengthening the musical, sonic concept in the mind to the point that I am only thinking about music & sound while I am performing; Be analytical & critical about your playing, but leave that for the practice room, while listening back to yourself. It helps me to practice strengthening the musical performative state of mind, by playing through even something like an Arbans exercise, recording it, and listening back, and being critical about it there and then. No matter what you are practicing, it can be approached from a performative mindset. For me, that is the biggest challenge, being in control of where my mind is centered while playing. The only way to be able to also shut this off when you need to, is to practice strengthening this mental muscle, and the way to do this, is to practice with this performative mindset, but reserving time to go back and to be critical. Come back next take with this musical concept and goal in mind for the next take. That may work for me, and not for you, and that is OK.

[quote="tbdana"]For me, "shut up and play" works pretty well.[/quote]

That makes for a boring TC discussion if all conversations end up being reduced to "shut up and play."

[quote="tromboneVan"]The only way to be able to also shut this off when you need to, is to practice strengthening this mental muscle, and the way to do this, is to practice with this performative mindset, but reserving time to go back and to be critical.[/quote]

I may be misunderstanding your approach somewhat. But I do want to point out that training your mind to focus doesn't need to be just focus on musical concept. You can train your mind to focus better on the music by also practicing with focus on one or two technical elements during practice as well.

In other words, practice putting your attention on what you want to be working on at that particular time. "Focus" is a mental muscle that doesn't really care what the point of focus is, you decide yourself where it goes.

[quote="Doug Elliott"]The problem with "too much analysis" is when you don't know what you're looking at or what it means.[/quote]

That's one of the problems with the " paralysis by analysis" crowd, they often don't know what they are analyzing in the first place. The other thing that causes problems when "analyzing" things is that the student is multitasking, thinking of too much at once.

Which is why I agree with tromboneVan's recording yourself approach...

[quote="tromboneVan"]It helps me to practice strengthening the musical performative state of mind, by playing through even something like an Arbans exercise, recording it, and listening back, and being critical about it there and then.[/quote]

...even though I don't think that you *always* need to have a "performative" state of mind when practicing.

Dave

That is not the only way to practice, but it is one way to work on strictly putting what you have already practiced into action, while working on quieting your mind. There is no way to completely avoid analytical thinking because you are always listening to what is coming out of your bell.

Playing music and playing an instrument are activities. They are things we do. Thinking, listening, reflecting, analyzing are thoughts. As musicians, we need both to do our jobs. We all think while we play.

Our nervous systems give us lots of stimuli and feedback. We respond to the stimuli around us. Our sense of exteroception (stimuli from our environment like the sights and sounds of other players) helps us adjust to intonation, blend, and balance. We also respond to internal stimuli like our thoughts (cognitions: self-talk, self-judgment, reflection and analysis). There’s also how we feel in the moment (our emotions) and our perception of how we feel (propriooception), along with our sense of what our bodies are doing in the moment (interoception), like where our slide arm is, or whether our embouchure is playing a high G-flat or an F, and whether the two are in sync.

One way I’ve been thinking about this lately:

The human body/brain is really quite complex, but we can use that complexity to our advantage. In the practice room, I’m listening to myself and observing what I’m doing and how I’m playing more than during a performance. I’m consciously trying to improve, so I need to know how my body and brain are working in the moment. It’s not as if I’m devoting 50% of my attention to it. It’s just more than I do when I’m performing. I try to keep self-talk to a minimum, engage in reflection and analysis while increasing my awareness of exteroception, interoception, and proprioception.

During a performance, I try to keep the self-talk and analysis to a minimum. I keep reflection, proprioception, interoception, and exteroception turned up as much as I can.

Audio recording and video recording are very useful. I’m free to play without having to engage in the reflective analysis in the moment of playing. That’s performance mode. When I listen or view the recording, I’m in reflection and analysis mode. In contrast, using a mirror to observe embouchure movement or posture is a way to consciously engage in analysis and reflection in the moment.

[quote="tromboneVan"]That is not the only way to practice, but it is one way to work on strictly putting what you have already practiced into action, while working on quieting your mind. There is no way to completely avoid analytical thinking because you are always listening to what is coming out of your bell.[/quote]

This sort of discussion often gets erroneously broken down to "all or nothing." Either your focus is always on the music or your focus is always on the action needed to play. I don't believe anyone really approaches things this way, but sometimes the words we use give that impression.

[quote="tromboneVan"]The only way to be able to also shut this off when you need to, is to practice strengthening this mental muscle, and the way to do this, is to practice with this performative mindset, but reserving time to go back and to be critical.[/quote]

I don't believe that you truly feel this is the "only way," nor do I think you're stating that practicing with some mental focus on the mechanics of playing can't be useful. Correct me if I've got the wrong idea.

My point is that training your mental focus isn't about what you focus on as much as that you put your attention on one thing and train your mind to not wander. Anyone who has practiced regular mediation for a period of time might have experienced an improvement in ability to focus attention as a general habit, not just on your breath or awareness of the present moment or mantra or whatever you might use as a meditation focus.

Many of the things we practice are simple enough and devoid of musical expression. Sure, we can practice playing slow lips slurs as musically as possible, but I save that practice for when I'm playing something that has some musical value. When I'm practicing a routine to build and maintain technique I'm concentrating on playing mechanically correct. I want the correct technique to become subconscious, so I spend some time daily ensuring that I'm playing correctly.

This doesn't cause "paralysis" because I have a pretty good idea what is mechanically correct for me and because I'm not doing that when I've moved onto something else.

While the ratio of mechanics to music practiced might be different from person to person and changes around according to what we might have to play, I *think* that most of us pretty much agree with this practice strategy.

Dave

Come on! ...you all suggest that the salesman, 'Professor' Harold Hill, in 'The Music Man' who advocated the 'The Think System' might be wrong?

I mean, any musical with '76 Trombones' in it must be totally correct!

[quote="Cmillar"]Come on! ...you all suggest that the salesman, 'Professor' Harold Hill, in 'The Music Man' who advocated the 'The Think System' might be wrong?

I mean, any musical with '76 Trombones' in it must be totally correct![/quote]

Gotta admit, that’s a strong argument. Checkmate.

There are some music teachers who unironically quote Harold Hill and The Music Man as an example of great music pedagogy. There are plenty of well-respected musicians who get awfully close to the Think System with their suggestions. That's the opposite of what Dana seems to be arguing against.

In reality there needs to be a blend of instruction/practice that makes use of both careful and conscious attention on the playing mechanics and focus on expressive playing.

So Dana, what are your thought on "just stop thinking and just play" now that we've been discussing it for a bit?

I think it's a bit of both. I find that I analyze things more in practice than in performance. That's not fixed in stone though - you might think that playing with a bit more caution and with a bit less volume is a good thing in a performance when you're starting to get tired. Not necessarily a bad bit of analysis in that situation, or to play a little louder on the next soft entrance if the last one spoke a little late. Reacting to what your chops are doing at that moment and making a plan can be a good thing. Also, I was just watching some Masterclasses from Carnegie Hall with Enzo Turriziani (Vienna Philharmonic Principal) and he was encouraging a couple of the young players (who are really good by the way) to use some more thought in some of the musical interpretations. Things like measuring crescendos or ritards, or establishing where a crescendo starts, or if there are multiple crescendos near each other, which one should go to the loudest peak? These are things that are partly intuitive, but need some planning and thought too. He did a little bit of similar talking about vibrato - where, how much if at all? If you only rely on intuition, there is a danger that everything sounds the same, and if it's all intellect, the music can become stale. Some combination of both seems like the best way to find your best playing.

Jim Scott

[quote="Wilktone"]....There are plenty of well-respected musicians who get awfully close to the Think System with their suggestions....[/quote]

Right, and that might not make them great teachers. Many of the greatest brass players have never had to really think about the processes that actually go into brass playing...usually because it came so naturally to them in some kind of way.

And, we all know some great players who had to quit early, retire early, had some 'chop problems', or just gave up because something started going wrong for them and they were unable to get the proper help at the time; or because they couldn't conceive that there might actually be other ways of approaching brass playing that they didn't want to know about because it might upset their 'world view'.

'There are many roads to Rome'.... as there are more than one or two 'only ways' of how to play a brass instrument.

If one road is leading nowhere, then we might have to take another once in awhile.

But... with a good guidance system from an excellent teacher who will get us to both Think and Use Our Intellect at the same time.

[quote="Wilktone"]So Dana, what are your thought on "just stop thinking and just play" now that we've been discussing it for a bit?[/quote]

Hm. Well, Dave, I wasn't planning on posting my opinion, but you asked, so here goes! Be careful what you wish for! LOL! :) My process is different depending on the situation. I go from using all my concentration to using none of it. Let me explain.

When I'm practicing alone at home, I pay a great deal of attention to embouchure, air stream, attacks, and technique. I concentrate exclusively on getting everything to sound just right and, most importantly, <I><U>feel</U></I> just right. As I approach and pass the edges of my skill set, I concentrate very hard on making it sound like it's in the middle of my skill set. And that includes making it sound like a "pro" is playing it, for lack of a better way to characterize it.

When I'm at a rehearsal or anytime I'm sight reading (and I do a fair number of sight reading gigs), particularly if it's difficult, 100% of my attention goes to reading, listening intently to whoever I'm supposed to follow, and getting the time and style right. I don't worry about playing the horn at all. All my attention goes to playing the part perfectly and playing with the ensemble perfectly. NONE of my thinking goes to playing the horn; not to my tone, breathing, how to get that high note, how play that fast lick, or whatever. Not one brain cell. That's what the practice room is for. If I have to think about playing the horn, I've already lost. Rehearsals and sight reading are about playing with the ensemble.

In a performance, I try not to think at all, but just play. Indeed -- and this is a central tenet of my musical philosophy -- the goal and the reason we practice is so when we get to the performance we can forget completely that we're even holding a trombone and just play music. We trombonists, including most pros, are largely craftsmen, using expertise with our tools to make something pretty. But the ultimate goal is art, not craft (though where that extremely fuzzy line is can be tough to identify.) One thing I know surely and completely is that we can't become artists until can we stop thinking about our tools, and get into a space where we can just "be" the art.

So, now you can probably tell why I wasn't planning to offer my thoughts. :)

Hi folks .

Frankly , I am a bit surprised ...

OP open this thread with the question : " Maybe stop thinking too much and just play ? " .

Then she add , on her last replies : " But honestly , you can' t stop the thinking part until you' ve pretty much mastered the instrument" .

So , what is the purpose of the initial question ?

Regards

Giancarlo

[quote="GGJazz"]Hi folks .

Frankly , I am a bit surprised ...

OP open this thread with the question : " Maybe stop thinking too much and just play ? " .

Then she add , on her last replies : " But honestly , you can' t stop the thinking part until you' ve pretty much mastered the instrument" .

So , what is the purpose of the initial question ?

Regards

Giancarlo[/quote]

My purpose in starting this thread was to prompt exactly this conversation. It was born of reading threads that dive into limitless minutiae and technical detail, but which rarely solve the OP's problem or answer their questions definitively. There is too much information. The answers are often contradictory. And we are incapable of telling the advice of the well-intentioned from the experts. As a result, it often devolves into paralysis over a tsunami of conflicting analyses, and real help is lost.

To people's credit, we offer the best advice we can in a vacuum of useful info from the OP. We respond to situations where we don't experience the OPs' problems or even hear them play. So how can we really diagnose and fix a problem someone? It's a recipe for the exact kind of chaos many of these threads wind up in. Too much advice.

I'm often relieved when someone pipes up with the inevitable "Take a lesson from Doug" post, because at least that's a solid way to find your way though the forest. Usually that should be the end of the thread.

So I was suggesting that maybe what we need to do do is just go play and stop trying to make sense of all the swirling information we get from these threads. With time and experimentation, it's amazing how many things we can work out. But we want answers now, and we don't know what to do when a mountain of different answers lands on us.

So, just shut up and play, perhaps. Absorb the mountain of information by osmosis for a while.

Now, my most recent post, to which you refer was just about *me* and what *I* try to do as a general approach. So in that sense my thoughts on the subject aren't directly responsive to the OP. I could not think of anything else to say about the OP.

Hi again .

Personally , I practice very focused , with lot of attention to every aspect of playing / music , etc . Then , when I perform , I do not think at all , and I am just trying to play music , by reflex and feel .

Anyway , I hope that nobody can seriously think about to learn the horn and to solve the various related problems , just by chatting HERE , or in any on-line source like that !

One have to take in- person "live" lessons , to learn .

Of course , one could find here some very good opinions , which could be useful as starting points.

But , being a free chat open to everyone , and not a full panel of experts , one could find also some non-sense topics .

But again , what I do not understand is this : if the thread suggest " stop thinking so much" , then say (as result of personal experiences) " you can' t stop thinking until you have mastered the horn" , so what is the suggestion for WHO have not YET mastered the horn ( beginners , intermediate students , amateurs , etc ) ? "Just play ..." ?

Some times it works ; some others times it does not .

Regards

Giancarlo

An interesting question is this: does "just playing" or "focusing on the music" involve no thoughts and analysis?

When I'm performing, I'm usually not thinking about or analyzing my technique, although I agree with Jim, that still being aware or it and reacting can be helpful in some situations. But even when I'm not analyzing technique, does that mean I'm not thinking? Particularly when practicing, I'm analyzing all the time how I'm playing my musical ideas. A huge amount of thought goes into the details of my interpretation, getting the shaping and the shading just right. It's not left to chance. That's not to say it's the same everytime, just that I aim to be in full control on the ideas and their execution. I work hard at improving and refining my musical imagination and execution, and control over them, so that I can have clear and increasingly detailed ideas – and execute them exactly as I mean – even at first sight. Then in rehearsals, a lot of my brain power is switched to listening to (and analyzing) the group, finding how we interact rhythmically, when I'm playing with whom, what moving notes I need to be aware of at any given moment, what the harmonies are and what my role in them is, how we're shaping things together, what's the ensemble's sense of tension and momentum, how I can lead certain things just through the way I'm shaping notes, etc.

For me at least, all of this requires focus, thought and analysis, pretty much at every step. Some people might do all of that on instinct and without conscious thought, but they are few and far between. And many who think they can do all of that instinctively are actually not doing any of it more that superficially. In my experience, when someone is not actively thinking about any of this when playing, it often translates to sloppy technique, half-assed musical decisions, or both.

[quote="Cmillar"]Right, and that might not make them great teachers. Many of the greatest brass players have never had to really think about the processes that actually go into brass playing...usually because it came so naturally to them in some kind of way.[/quote]

Or not great teachers for teaching mechanics. Some of these teachers are excellent with musical coaching, or teaching improvisation, or simply are great at inspiring students.

My gripe is when these teachers become the "go-to" for teaching technique when their process is reducing it all to an easy answer of "imagine the sound and let the body figure itself out." That strategy can work, but as a teacher I think you need to understand the actual physical mechanics well enough to judge whether or not you can reduce it to the easy answer.

[quote="tbdana"]When I'm practicing alone at home, I pay a great deal of attention to embouchure, air stream, attacks, and technique.[/quote]

[quote="tbdana"]Rehearsals and sight reading are about playing with the ensemble.

In a performance, I try not to think at all, but just play.[/quote]

[quote="GGJazz"]Personally , I practice very focused , with lot of attention to every aspect of playing / music , etc . Then , when I perform , I do not think at all , and I am just trying to play music , by reflex and feel .[/quote]

Yes, as it should be. Worry about technique in the practice room, not in the rehearsal or concert hall.

So Dana, isn't your strategy pretty much the same as most of us are advocating? Think about it at some times and just play at other times? If so, why advocate for something different when it comes to how and what gets discussed on an Internet forum?

[quote="tbdana"]My purpose in starting this thread was to prompt exactly this conversation. It was born of reading threads that dive into limitless minutiae and technical detail, but which rarely solve the OP's problem or answer their questions definitively. There is too much information. The answers are often contradictory. And we are incapable of telling the advice of the well-intentioned from the experts. As a result, it often devolves into paralysis over a tsunami of conflicting analyses, and real help is lost.[/quote]

So that's something different than advocating for not thinking and just play. A few things, really.

First, there's the issue of reading threads that go through great detail. It's only minutiae if it doesn't apply to the specific conversation. We can debate whether or not it's necessary on a given topic to go into such detail, but everyone is welcome to ignore posts that don't apply to your own particular situation. Some people happen to enjoy reading and writing about the details of certain topics. We can debate the relevance of the discussion, but I don't see any need to poop on someone else's party if I'm not personally interested in that topic.

Speaking of the nature of Internet forums, you're always going to get some contradictory advice and it's hard for a random forum member to know who are the experts and who can safely be ignored. All things considered, I think TC does a pretty good job of with calling out bad advice and pointing out who the experts are.

As far as devolving into paralysis over conflicting analysis goes, without more consistent follow up from members asking for help, it's very hard to say. I know that at times I have offered advice and gotten a follow up privately, so I know that it's not always so unhelpful. Maybe your impression on how helpful those topics really are is off.

Then there's the "easy answer" advice. You could certainly argue that without the info of having seen/heard a trombonist play the best advice might really by, "stop thinking and just play." But I don't believe that it is ultimately the best strategy for most musicians. As has been noted already, this works great when the technique is already established well enough to work properly for a give piece of music. And while we do tend to frame conversations like this into either/or (think/don't think), in practice I think almost everyone acknowledges a blend of the two is best.

[quote="tbdana"]To people's credit, we offer the best advice we can in a vacuum of useful info from the OP. We respond to situations where we don't experience the OPs' problems or even hear them play. So how can we really diagnose and fix a problem someone? It's a recipe for the exact kind of chaos many of these threads wind up in. Too much advice.[/quote]

It's either deal with that or don't post and read an Internet forum. Do you have a better solution to keep a discussion going without just reducing it to the easy answer of "stop thinking?"

[quote="tbdana"]I'm often relieved when someone pipes up with the inevitable "Take a lesson from Doug" post, because at least that's a solid way to find your way though the forest. Usually that should be the end of the thread.[/quote]

Glad to hear it. It seemed that a [url=https://trombonechat.com/viewtopic.php?p=226316#p226316]couple of years ago you were mostly just amused about the "universal solution to every problem" being to catch a lesson from an expert like Doug. But I don't think it should be the end to every thread. What's wrong with discussing things further? Or following up later to clarify what was covered in the lesson?

[quote="tbdana"]So in that sense my thoughts on the subject aren't directly responsive to the OP. I could not think of anything else to say about the OP.[/quote]

Say, aren't you the OP (original poster) in this topic? Personally, my favorite topic to discuss is me. If you don't have anything more to say you could always ask me about me and steer the conversation into the best possible direction (more me!).

Dave

Hi Dave. I'm not staking out any hill to die on here. I was asked my thoughts and gave them. I said why I started the thread and gave additional thoughts on that. I have no interest in arguing about it, and make no claim that I am a better authority than anyone else. In fact, though I didn't do it this time, I almost always start these kinds of comments with the caveat that I'm usually out of step with the rest of the crew here so to take my advice with a grain of salt (or a mountain of it).

Yeah, I'm still wildly amused that every thread gets a "take lessons from Doug" post. :D Sometimes that might be the very best advice. Sometimes not. But I've considered requesting that the mods put that answer as the first response in every new thread. (Not really! I'm joking! But, you know, it's actually a "thing" here.)

I'm the OP (original poster) who was referring to my OP (original post). Yes, it's confusing. No, I feel no obligation to make sense.

I'm just a trombone player, man. But I do subscribe to the principles that we get paralysis by analysis too often, and shut up and play many times really can be the solution. I feel like if we pay attention, go for a good feel, use good judgment, and just stay focused over time, these things often have a way of working themselves out. In the absence of a definitive "diagnosis and treatment protocol," we may not find the most direct route to a solution, but we'll often get there one way or another. I've found that there are few quick fixes in tromboning, and often we just have to live with the thing for a while.

I started out with an embouchre 'specialist ' and two years after getting into college and being hit with more and more technical stuff, I left and began to freelance. I was miserable having to think about all the technical issues, so I decided to just enjoy the music and let the technique sort itself out. Fifty years later, I have had a fun career and continue to do so. It's all about the music for me. I don't care what anybody thinks about that....it's been fun all the way and worked for me.

Lately I have been reading about Alexander technique, two separate books on two different activity’s. Running and trombone playing. With correct body mapping I have been making a lot of progress on both. It is more sensing than thinking of course! For trombone I read the book from David Vining

And a lesson with Doug of course, that helped me a lot!

Think about things until you don't need to think about them anymore. Everyone will have a different relationship to that idea, if music as an art is akin to a journey, we're all born at different points on the road. Some people need the focus on technique to unlock their instinctual playing, and learning how to "let go" when it's performance time is a skill that can be cultivated, much like the skills needed to play trombone in the first place.

For me, this usually looks like having a pretty intense routine that covers basically everything I can do on the trombone each day. I do this to internalize my technique, so that when I'm reading music for fun and profit, I can hopefully focus on making the best art that I am capable of, rather then worrying about anything technically related.

Everything piece of advice in this thread is akin to a tool - tools can be used when necessary and appropriate, but there is no one tool that can do everything by itself, and using the wrong tool for the wrong job can set you back if you're not careful.

Seeing as it's 'Wimbledon weekend!'...

The good old "Inner Game of Tennis" and "Inner Game of Music" books. (My first teacher, Phillip Brink, had the original Tennis book on his required list of trombone text books. Thanks forever Phil!)

We practice all the technical stuff so that we can concentrate on the music. But we've practiced the boring, technical stuff we need so much that it is there to draw upon when we're 'in the game' and need some reminders of how to stay on track.

Then, we can focus on the ball again.