*ITF 2022 WINNER* 'Lunch Time' for Trombone 4tet - Original Composition by Adam Schreiber

Adam Schreiber - "Lunch time" (2021)
performed by Adam Schreiber (trombones)
www.Adamschreiber.com

I wrote this piece last year and an earlier version of it was premiered on my senior undergraduate composition recital last April:    • Adam Schreiber Senior Composition Recital  
I recorded this version in November 2021 after only playing trombone for about 10 months. I had to splice multiple takes together to get a clean run but I think this recording turned out alright all things considering. Constructive criticism/ feedback is totally welcome. I probably used the wrong type of microphone for recording brass up close but it's all I had at the time. rip. Next time I'll maybe use a ribbon mic to record brass instead of a pencil condenser. I had the gain turned all the way down and it was still getting tons of signal.

The name "Lunchtime" came from a conductor/professor in my undergrad who had an odd sense of humor. On several occasions, we would have long orchestra rehearsals that ended late at night - like 8 or 9 pm - and on his way out of door of the building, the conductor would exclaim, "Time for lunch! lol." He said this at least 2 or 3 times, each time chuckling to himself despite no one else laughing or getting the joke. For some reason, this stuck with me.

This short but very fast-moving piece was originally the 5th and final movement in an overly-ambitious multi-movement work for trombone quartet that I never finished called "Honkin' Horns." It's got cool grooves, fast changing harmonies, cheeezy ragtime vibes, cheeezy british brass band vibes, dubstep? Basically, I tried writing a piece that had things I like but also tons of things that trombonists love: playing glissandi and blasting cool chords at Fortissississimo together - Bruckner style!
The previous movement before "Lunchtime" had all 4 players blowing their horns through woodwind mouthpieces for 3 minutes before transitioning attaca into this movement. That concept remains in the opening bass trombone solo where the player must use a tenor sax (or bass clarinet or bari sax) mouthpiece (and reed + ligature) to make that cool dubstep sound on their instrument before the real music begins.

In early 2020 while studying composition at ECU with Jose Martinez, I started sketching ideas for a brass quintet, largely inspired by Jacob Druckman's "Other Voices." Then the pandemic happened and everything changed, leaving me to set aside the brass quintet for a while. Finally, after months of being in lockdown and being inundated with nothing but negative and depressing news, I decided to quit all social media and try to learn a new instrument. In December 2020 after consuming hours of low brass orchestral excerpt videos on youtube during lockdown, I was inspired to buy a cheap trombone on facebook marketplace. I started learning on my own via youtube videos and trial+error. The idea was not to become a great trombonist, but rather to have fun, keep myself from going crazy, and to help myself as a composer and a cellist to better understand how to write for brass instruments. This as well as a masterclass/reading with trombonist William Lang helped inform my compositional choices for writing a trombone quartet.

After literally months of struggling to find players/ organize rehearsals during the height of the pandemic, I finally managed to get 2 awesome trombonists to multi-track record 2 of the parts each so I could edit them all together and put it on my senior recital in April 2021. The version that they performed was a lot different than the one presented here and was basically unfinished. There also just wasn't enough rehearsal time and the recording suffered as a result.
Months later, I had graduated college and had a bit more time on my hands but I needed to submit recordings for grad school applications. Out of necessity, I decided I'd try to re-record the whole piece to get it right this time. As fun challenge, I would try to learn and record all 4 parts myself. This required a LOT of practice but it was tons of fun and a great learning experience.
I would say that learning trombone helped get me unstuck out of my initial COVID - rut and helped get back to being happy, healthy, and extremely productive. I wrote a ton of music in 2021 that I'm very proud of and the trombone quartet was the spark that lit that fuse.

Thank you for watching! Subscribe for more music in the future.
I will be posting more of my original music soon so stay tuned!

Equipment:
Holton TR602 - Vincent Bach 12c mouthpiece
Yamaha YSL 448G - Yamaha 48L mouthpiece
Rode NT5 matched pair
Scarlett 2i2
Ableton Live 11
Dorico Pro 3.5
Sony Vegas
clarinet mouthpiece/ligature/reed for the beginning part

Big thanks to everyone who helped me with this project from start to finish:
My composition teachers Jose Martinez and Ed Jacobs,
William Lang for giving me the inside scoop on trombone writing,
Tim, Marshall, and prof. Matthew Driscoll of the ECU trombone studio
👍