Portal

(edited 17 March 2007)

   for 8-part virtuoso trombone choir
   Arranged for Nathaniel Brickens and the 2007 UT Trombone Choir
   mass ensemble performance conducted by Robert Carochan, UT Assoc. Director of Bands.
   Performance: Thursday 5 April 2007, Bates Recital Hall


(edited 26 November 2006)

   I. La Fille aux Cheveux de Lin (The Girl with the Flaxen Hair)
   II. Golliwog's Cakewalk
   for Trombone Quartet with Bass Trombone Soloist (September 2006)

Arranged for performance with the Minor Fourth Trombone Quartet (Austin, TX), these two movements show two different characters of the bass trombone. Every part is a joy to play. An excellent pair for professional recitals and other live performances.
Live recording sample.



    for 4-part Trombone Choir (2000)
    score sample (pdf)
Originally composed for Nathaniel Brickens and the University of Missouri-Columbia Trombone Choir, this work earns regular performances at the Univ. of Missouri. It also appeared on the UMKC Trombone Choir concert in the spring of 2005, and hides in other midwest US trombone libraries. The farthest reach: Melbourne, Australia, in the Grainger Wind Symphony's chamber music library.



    arr. for 6-part Trombone Choir (2002)
    score sample (pdf)
As performed by the University of Texas at Austin Trombone Choir, this arrangement is dedicated to Troy Marsh (Prof. of Trombone, Univ. of Missouri-Columbia). In the 2004-2005 academic year, this arrangment was performed by the UT Choir, the UMKC Trombone Choir, and the Univ. of Missouri-Columbia choir.
Live recording sample.



    Five duets in contrasting styles for Tenor & Bass Trombone (2001).
    score sample (pdf)
Written for Kansas City trombonist and good friend Nathan Goodson. First performed on a student recital in 2001 and later revisited in 2004, these are fun, advanced duets. I have yet to meet someone who wasn't excited about them.



   Carol of the Bells - a 3-minute swing fantasy for trombone quartet
   Chorale Pack for Intermediate Players - an introduction to good chorale style
   Reinhold Gliere, Concerto for Harp & Orchestra arr. by Will Sudmeier
      for large trombone ensemble
      first movement edited and set for performance by the UT Trombone Choir (2006)
   4 Hymns for Intermediate Players - four hymns in easy keys (F, Bb). Intermediate.


Many other works available - contact me with your inquiry.

(posted 18 June 2006)

Listening and Hearing

Can you hear everything coming out of your TV? I hear more than many of my friends. The 'problem' is "flyback noise," a high frequency squeal (~15.7Khz) emitted by the flyback transformer on TVs and CRTs. You can read about flyback transformers on Wikipedia here. Google is a good place for more anecdotes and comments.

I had two reasons to get rid of my TV when I started graduate school. First, I figured I would spend too much time playing Nintendo rather than doing my homework. Second, I am annoyed by the high-pitched squeal of televisions. Family and friends often call me kooky, but I've met fellow hi-hearers.

Using my laptop and a small microphone, I decided to record and prove my observations once and for all. Here are the recordings.

  1. screen_test_1.mp3
  The original, raw recording. I snap my fingers a few seconds in, and my laptop battery starts to complain at the end. If you listen carefully, there is a faint squeal. The in-the-room TV buzz is heavy and piercing.

  2. screen_test_2.mp3
  Using simple digital editing, I dropped everything down a couple octaves. Now you can hear the squeal come and go as I turn the TV on and off.

  3. screen_test_3.mp3
  Drop the pitch further, and use a simple equalizer to turn down all the low frequencies.

  4. screen_test_4.mp3   Drop the pitch again and take out the room noise. The squeal comes and goes as I turn the TV on and off.

Just imagine this up five or ten octaves as you watch your favorite movies at home! I have edited the volume to make the difference clear, but note that the sound is obvious in a room with a TV. Even with the volume turned down or the audio on mute, it's easy to tell when a TV is on. The Trombone-L has had some recent conversation on hearing damage (and a superficial reference to TV squeal), hence my half-baked experiment.

edited 13 July 2006

I've limited this list to sites I honestly use. For more, go to Google.


Trombone.net- The Int'l Trombone Association
YeoDoug.com- Douglas Yeo's (expansive) Site
JayFriedman.net - Jay Friedman's gems of thought. Great reading.
Trombone.org- The Online Trombone Journal
Tom-Ervin.com- Tom Ervin's Site


Music for Brass.com - Brad Howland's Site
BertTruax.com - Bert Truax's Site
   (Bert's notes on James Stamp)


trombone.music.utexas.edu- The Univ. of Texas Trombone Studio
KelaHarp.com - Austin Harpist Kela Walton
Grainger Wind Symphony
The Boston Typewriter Orchestra
    Yes, they play typewriters. And it's excellent!

(most recent addition: 23 October 2005)

dpage homepage v0.47c: the original, from 4/2004. (23 Oct 2005).
Australia 2005: photos & review. (9 Aug 2005).
Int'l Trombone Festival 2005: photos & review. (26 Aug 2005).

(posted 26 November 2006)
A short update today - I'm finishing up the Thanksgiving holiday, but not much free time! Calendar update mostly. I think I'll call the page v1.0 when I get a blog going. Would be nice, but not possible on the current (university) server. I'll switch to a proper server in the upcoming months. Don't hold me to that, though.

(posted 13 July 2006)
Another update on the back-side, some minor style changes on the front. I've decided to go away from the "gill sans" font that I love - it just doesn't display the same for everyone.
For this newest update, I've tested the code on IE6 and Firefox 1.5. I like the consistency in display, spacing, style.

(posted 23 October 2005)
(From the middle of the update to version 0.50). I've re-styled almost all of dpage now, and recoded in CSS. If you have problems viewing any of the page, or know someone who does, please contact me. I'd like to try and make it right. I still have a few more pages to change over, then the original home page will be filed in the archives. Cheers, -denton

(posted 10 August 2005)
Another one of those things I've been meaning to do for years: post my compositions. Let it be so! Check out the Compositions section above. You want recordings, but I'll make a deal: You don't need a recording right now, so I won't advertise bad music, and I'll post some recordings before the one-year dpage anniversary. Fair! Cheers, -denton

(posted 30 July 2005)
The Portal is finally under way, starting with a few links and a change of the page formatting. Before long, the target areas:
recommended reading
handouts and tutorials
notes on undergraduate & graduate study
Let's hope for slow and steady progress in the months ahead! Cheers, -denton

(posted 22 April 2005)
I'm not going to say 'under construction' when it's not really under way.
Let's just say that this page will eventually include connections to my own
favorite resources. For starters, check out these great sites. Cheers, -d.