Futomomo Satisfaction - Girl Bikini Trombone Band

This Japanese trombone trio preforms in bikini and plays their own pop/indie like music, as well as covers. The three girls are the main performers off course, but they are accompanied by 7 other good musicians. They myspace profile is www.myspace.com/futomomosatisfaction and some videos can be found on youtube. I must that they play the trombone better than they sing. It sounds like true japanese karaoke english. It is quite obvious that some off their fame is simply accorded to the fact that they dress only in bikini, but I can relate that it gets quite hot when you are standing beneath those heat radiating spotlights on stage.

Youtube profile: http://www.youtube.com/user/futomomosatisfaction
For people who can read japanese, their website: http://futomomo.nomaki.jp/suzu.html

What I find more musically interesting is the "solo" project of Suzuyakko called suzumiki, where she plays more integer music with only a guitarist as accompanist. Still she wears a rather silly costume which she changes with every new performance.

iBone - Trombone applet for iPhone

I don't have an iPhone, but I know you can do more with it than make some calls. This applet can be downloaded on iTunes, but the homepage is http://ibone.spoonjack.com/. I don't think that it is worth buying an iPhone for nor that it is any help in improving your trombone playing (except for practicing slide positions and notes), but it looks fun to try it. I can imagine that it is cool to have even for people that are not involved with music and such. The guy in this video is pretty handy with it.

Hands on music - Barbara Ivey

This oilpainting is made by Barbara Ivey as part of a series called hands on music. It is a very realistic painting and if you look very well you can see a very detailed reflection on the bell of the instrument. It looks like a great plain landscape and the stretched relfection of the trombone player. I find the sense of realism very intriguing.

Barbara Ivey states on her bio/c.v. that she has a strong Native-American heritage. You can see the strong influence of this fact through her works. If you want to see pictures of the whole set, go to http://www.barbaraiveyart.com/.

Flamethrower Trombone

This is a trombone that could intensify the myth of trombone deaths! Awesomely made, but not very handy if you need to play long parts.

Fisherman's Friend

I've playing is a bit hard because of a sour throat, I suggest you use a fisherman's friend or you will be playing on what feels an instrument like this for a while.

The large picture is available on http://adsoftheworld.com/node/34260

All the credits go to:

• Copywriter: Vanboon Sankhavadhana
• Photographer: 68 Studio co., Ltd.
• Designer / Illustration: Chaiyaporn Benyakusol
• Retouching: Somporn Inthong
• Other additional credit: Wareemon Benjapong

In da club - 50 Cent

This song is probably the best known song of rapper 50 cent. A fat beat with a cool base and some strings playing bombom.....bombom.............bombom. This is played by the trombone as G Ab F G Ab G.
I find this video funny, especially the guy in the back acting crazy :-)

Saxtrombone

The picture above is one of a six piston trombone invented by the famous Belgian instrumentmaker Adolphe Sax (1814 - 1894). (Taken from WikiCommons) Off course he is best known for the invention of the saxophone, but beside the saxophone he has experimented much in making other instruments like saxtrombas, valved bugles, saxhorns and so on. The six pistons of the saxtrombone make it possible to play all the six positions without a slide. There was an improvement on the correctness in play compared to other valved trombones from those days. In Belgium the six valved trombone has been a part of the official music education. It has also been used in various orchestras and the opera of Brussels for quite a while.

Bob Beecher: Variation on the trombone

A nice site that has been in use since 2000-2001 is the site of Bob Beecher where he describes the historical variations on the trombone that are made by men during the ages. It's worth checking out. The picture shows trombones in Syntagma Musicum (1614) by Michael Praetorius

http://home.att.net/~bobbeecher/trombone/trombone.html

International Trombone Week

The International Trombone Association declares the week of 5 - 12 April as their annual international trombone week. For events check this site: http://www.trombone.net/events/itw2009.asp. Sadly there are no events near where I live.

Personally I'm going to take some more practice time than normally this week. Maybe I want to finish my learning book soon, that would be a nice goal.

Trombone Icon - Snapfiles

This is made by me with Greenfish Icon Editor. It's a freeware program available on http://www.snapfiles.com. You can find lots of other freeware programs there as well and review them. A good audio editing program is Audacity which I use whenever I record some off my playing at home. It suits me, but don't expect pro software like Sound Studio (Apple).

A free scoreviewer is Notation Player. I tried it a few times, but because I have an old copy of Finale I use that to view midi and scores. I know Sibelius is also very reknown, but costly.