I just started getting serious about trombone a few months ago, and I’m struggling with listening. I listen to all the big names and I listen quite often, but I can’t tell a difference in their sound. For example, I listened to Toby oft and Jonathan Randazzo play the same piece back to back and I couldn’t tell a difference in the sound. I also experience this in my own playing, I’ll work an etude up and record it and listen to it alongside the first full run. I know I sound a lot better, but I can’t explain why. What should I do to get better at active listening??

Keep listening. It takes time. Listen to as many different players as you can. Go to live performances. I've been listening obsessively for 20 years now and when I take a few years off from a recording, I'm always amazed at how many new things I hear when I pick it up again. Your brain just needs time. I'd also try playing along with some recordings (your ears are working differently when you are playing vs when you are listening). Practice some mindfulness and listen from that mindset. Song along at the top of your lungs. Listen for specific things (note lengths, phrase shapes, listen to the piano/orchestra, etc etc etc). Listen to the same 3 second clip 10xs in a row, rather than listening to a 10 minute thing once a day. Try a million things. Write some music. Record some music.

And the most important thing is to know when to stop listening. You need to be able to stop hearing the recording in your head and play like you are sight reading when it's time. Playing along with someone else's recording in your head can cause all sorts of weird problems.

I second what Kris said. And he's absolutely right about it taking time. Your brain needs to develop new pathways for this information, and learning to recognize subtleties definitely takes time and patience.

Several years ago I got into showing dogs at dog shows. When I first started, all the dogs in my breed basically looked the same to me. For the life of me I could not see what the judges and the longtime show dog breeders were telling me they saw. It took me a full year before I could start to see what they were talking about, and about three years before I became really good at it. Now, no two dogs look alike to me.

It's the same with listening. One thing I'd add to Kris' post is to listen to what other people say about the various musicians you're listening to. They will point you to differences that they hear, and if you pay attention to those you'll slowly start to be able to identify them. I found it very helpful to have people describe the differences they could tell, as it gave me specific targets to pay attention to.

I also second the notion of listening to people play live. It's far more instructive than recordings. I don't know why that would be, but it is.

<YOUTUBE id="8DNKmD_qYb4" t="44">https://youtu.be/8DNKmD_qYb4?si=JzDydjar6OtWIoMD&t=44</YOUTUBE>

<YOUTUBE id="ZDgfhds6Hx0">https://youtu.be/ZDgfhds6Hx0?si=lyJvTAVmSa9e5E4g</YOUTUBE>

In the first 20 seconds of each the first thing that jumps out to me in the above videos is a style difference that Oft's approach is sharper and more dynamic while Randazzo's is sweeter and more lyrical. There are differences in attacks, phrasing, etc. Randazzo uses vibrato where Oft plays it straight. And of course their tones are different. And I haven't even listened to the whole things yet.

The thing to keep in mind is that there are a hundred things going on at once in each performance. Someone else might listen to the same 20 seconds I did and key in on different things than I did. We can't focus on everything at once, and we all learn to hear differently. Pay attention to what other people have to say and try to find those things, but always make your own observations. You might disagree with them, and that's fine. We all hear differently, and you'll learn to hear the way you do.

Lastly, there is a trend in classical trombone playing toward sameness (but that's for a different thread). So it's not all you. It's actually much harder to hear differences in classical than in other genres, where individuality is prized over conformity. So you're tackling the most challenging area in which to hear differences. Give yourself a break and just live with listening for a while.

If you can get it, I wonder if following the chart they are playing might help you notice how they treat the markings eg articulations, dynamics and even note length. Not a substitute for listening but a way of focusing some of the attention. I could, of course, be entirely wrong in this case. It has helped me in the past.

Hi folks.

In my opinion , listening AND hearing are the main skill , for a musician .

We develop that ability year after year , as the result of the growth of our musicianship , and general experiences .

Of course , our personal taste will be envolved in this development , as one will prefer some kind of music over others , or Toby Oft tone instead of J. Randazzo tone , etc .

Anyway , I suggest you to listen to Music in general , not only trombone-related .

Listen to great singers , great piano players , great Orchestras , etc .

About listening our own playing , I think that this could be more difficult too .

When we are playing , expecially if one is not so expert , our capacity to listen at ourself is reduced by the attention we have to put in the performance .

And if one is listening at his own recording , he may spot some not so important issues , without hearing the main problems .

As said by others above , it take time , so do not worry at all !

I just would like to add a link of a video in which Ralph Sauer is playing the E. Remington routines .

You can hear how his playing is so BEAUTIFUL , just performing these basics exercises ; so you can comparate this with yours - or some other student / player - way to play the same things ( long tones , intervals , legato , flexibility , etc) , and ask yourself about the differences.

<YOUTUBE id="WxHV3XtCRGg">https://youtu.be/WxHV3XtCRGg?si=lPYV9HM2gSJyuRXb</YOUTUBE>

Regards

Giancarlo

[quote="evanbone1"]I also experience this in my own playing, I’ll work an etude up and record it and listen to it alongside the first full run. I know I sound a lot better, but I can’t explain why. What should I do to get better at active listening??[/quote]

So that means you listen improvements in your own playing? Not really sound but improvements? Good. Maybe you cant listen difference between all this good players because you focus on the level of performance they do. They are all among the best players you can ever listen. So there they are about the same. But no one has the same sound.

Maybe it's about what you are listening for? Try one time to listen for just let's say articulation, next time only for dynamic, next time only for music approach, etc. Then you can separate what you listen for.

Most people who goes to concerts just want to listen music and feel a connection between them self and the musician. Which is music. They mostly don't have a clue but still can separate bad performances to good ones. They just can't explain why.

You will figure it out, no doubt. Sound also has a lot to do with how you play musically, articulation and lot more I think.

Leif

Why do want to do that at all?

In my opinion the universal availability of samples of the believed top dogs leads to the uniformity I oberserve in orchestra sounds all over the globe.

They all play the same equipment, they all strive for the same sound. It's getting less an less interesting listening to classical music. If there were no Wiener Philharmoniker it would be very sad soundwise, just a generic global sound. There is no more "Berliner" or "Dresdner" sound, that once you could distinguish, like oder dislike. Today it's all alike.

Why not just look at the music, read the marks the composer wrote and do it like you think it should be. You've studied music, you've made your exam. You should be qualified to "blow your own horn", like Fergus McWilliam's book says...

Just a thought... :idk:

In college, I listened to the band Kansas quite a bit. I thought I had a good ear, but initially didn’t distinguish between the vocals of Steve Walsh and Robby Steinhardt on the earlier songs when they both sang with Robby’s voice sometimes taking lead.

As I listened to them more, I realized how different their voices were. I find tonal textures in voices and instruments fascinating. It’s just one aspect of listening, along with discerning rhythmic accuracy, good intonation, dynamic shading, articulation/pronounciation, and all the rest.

To the OP, try identifying just one thing at a time to listen for. When I was starting college, we had to listen to assignments for ear training - identifying chords and intervals. I was working on many of the same chords as Arban's work in my lessons. I found that the work spent on listening and identifying (and singing) chords improved my work at playing the chord studies on the trombone, and vice versa, playing chords and intervals improved my ears.

Start with something like that - then if you're working on dynamics in your playing, listen to different players on YouTube to see if they offer good examples of that. Keep expanding this to different fundamentals of playing. I find that often, confining your focus to just one thing at a time keeps you from getting overwhelmed.

Jim Scott