Episode 3 - Marcus Grant
Episode 3 features Marcus Grant, a composer, arranger, educator, and director of the Trumpeter’s Multi-Track Competition. We talk with Marcus about his transition into teaching, TMTC, and advice he is for expanding our repertoire.
To learn more about Marcus and all of the resources and groups he recommended, check out the links below!
Marcus Grant - Website
Marcus Grant - Youtube
Marcus Grant - Instagram
Trumpeter's Multitrack Competition
Full Transcript
Carrie Blosser 0:01
Welcome to Diversify the Stand, the resource centered around listening, learning, and promoting diverse musical voices in music, through our podcast, website, commissioning projects, and more. I'm Carrie Blosser.
Ashley Killam 0:15
And I'm Ashley Killam. Join us on our journey as we speak with composers, creators, performers, historians, and music educators about the topics important to them, and music's betterment.
Today, we welcome Marcus Grant, a professional trumpet player, award-winning composer, and private lesson teacher for students of all ages and experience levels. Marcus serves as a Professor of Trumpet and Horn at Longwood University in Virginia. He's the founder and co-director of the Trumpeter's Multitrack Competition and Seminar, Marcus writes music of all genres and skill levels for every instrumentation with compositions that have been performed across the globe in more than seven countries. Marcus believes passionately in the promotion and the enrichment of quality music education for young people, holding the philosophy that everyone deserves the best experiences and education and that music is an essential element of those experiences. So we are so excited to talk again and to have you here, Marcus,
Marcus Grant 1:19
it's a pleasure to be here.
Carrie Blosser 1:20
So Marcus, as a recent graduate, and a new college professor, we'd love for you to talk about your experiences making the transition from student to professor, and what advice and support you would offer to others that are soon to be in the same path or are already on the same path?
Marcus Grant 1:36
Sure. Absolutely. And, and I appreciate that question. Because it's interesting, being a student and being a teacher, we sometimes underestimate the the drastic difference between the two, even if you're in a position where you may have been a teaching assistant in college as well, when you when you deal with, first of all, accepting your position, by the time you've done that the job force looks different from it did when you first started college, and some of the things that you prepared for from a fundamental standpoint will remain the same. But in terms of the specific opportunities that are available for your students, you kind of have to already make adjustments, even before you've, you've come into that first day, whether it's immediately after you're done as a student, or whether it's a few years, before, before you end up getting that position. It's very important to be able to stay kind of up-to-date with what's happening in the world. And that sort of regard, I will say one of the biggest challenges for me, and I think it was probably is probably common for many, many people who take this type of a track, is the assumption that I sort of inadvertently made as a student.
I went to VCU and studied with Rex Richardson and I went to Indiana University to study with Joey Tartell, both fantastic and incredible teachers. You know, both had teams behind them have incredible adjunct professors as well. The students were great and highly established music programs. Whether or not you end up inheriting an established music program yourself, or you're growing a program, that program it takes time to to create your own studio. You know, each each school has their own socio economic background, they have their own traditions, but then each teacher professor has their own traditions and when you're first starting out, you might not know what those traditions are from the get go. And even if you do, you've got a few years to to make that adjustment. When I studied with Rex, he already had a few years there and and his studio was kind of established in that dynamic. And same deal with with Joey Tartell. And so in my case, I couldn't go into my job expecting to just do it the way that they did it, because I had a transition stage that I had not witnessed. And so it's very important to be able to, to be able to be aware of that and to make the adjustments that are necessary in order to grow with your students do that department.
Carrie Blosser 5:58
That was the opening of Marcus Grant's piece, Fantasia, Jesus Loves Me, for trumpet and piano, performed by David Koch. Back to more questions with Marcus!
Ashley Killam 6:13
And at the time we're taping this, you have currently launched a really, really awesome seminar and competition. TMTC, the Trumpeter's Multitrack Competition and Seminar. We would love to hear more about that, how it got its start, but how it's currently going right now, what kind of have you learned from building all of that?
Marcus Grant 6:36
Yeah, absolutely. So and I think before even, there's, there's a really quick preface there. And there's that, you know, the reason why music isn't dying, is because we have less of this gatekeeper role that we used to have, you know, in terms of, you know, you audition for a symphony job and and, you know, you're in front of a committee, right? Or you apply for a teaching gig, right and, and you have a boss that might hire you. TMTC is a really good example of opportunities that you can create yourself, right and you don't necessarily have a committee of people looking on the other end doing some quality control there, just because it's new, and it's growing, and it's developing. And that's just not the type of, that's not the type of thing that we do in that sort of a career. TMTC is something that I'm really excited about, which is cool. Because we're in the thick of it here, you know, we spend about, you know, 30 hours of the 24 hours a day, you know, working and planning and preparing. And in this seminar session, we're also transitioning into the competition aspect of it, so it really kind of doing two things at once. We just had our first seminar session a couple days ago, at the tim we're recording this, it was fantastic. We had, we have 14 participants in the seminar this year, which was really, really, really cool. And the competition will be open up until the 15th, at the time that we're recording this, who knows, we might extend the deadline, in which case, you know, we'll have an opportunity, if you're listening to this, I would check just in case to see if we have closed or not. But yeah, we went into some really great information about microphones and how to how to know which one to use, how to, how to properly use them in your recording. And, and we'll be going into how to use a digital audio workstation to kind of maximize the the quality of set audio, and the next couple of seminars, we'll be doing the same thing with video later this month. And it's just really cool. Because it's something that as a, as a body, so to speak, as a community, there's not much information to that quality out there. And to be able to have that it opens a whole lot of different opportunities. Of course, we are marketing ourselves as a multitracking competition and seminar. And so putting together multiple different parts, and showcasing that in an audio and/or video format. With high quality, you can create some pretty pretty cool things. But it also allows you to be able to fully understand how to sound your best when it comes to recording yourself and your practice so that you know how to best improve and helps you to understand how to get more accurate takes and representations of yourself in a live setting when you audition for something such as the National Trumpet Competition, for example. Or you're applying for a job. And this information is just been really valuable. And it's been really well received so, it's been great.
Carrie Blosser 9:45
I'd love to hear kind of how you and your two colleagues formed TMTC a little bit about that, like entrepreneurial aspect, starting the business part of it and building it up?
Marcus Grant 9:58
Sure, absolutely. Well, obviously, it all starts with an idea. And unfortunately, in a lot of cases, that's where it ends. But it's it's one of those things where, you know, if you're if you're passionate enough about something, and it can be done, you know, why can't it be you. And the really cool thing about having a team of three, like the three of us is that we all have our own strengths and some of our strengths overlap, and some of them take place in areas where where another individual might be lacking in that department, whether it's an experience or whether it's, whether they had a horrible experience, and they want to avoid that and someone else is able to take it or whatever the case may be. And so we've been able to balance really well, the the tasks that are necessary to make that type of thing happen. We got together probably about the beginning of fall, end of the summertime and the three of us had been doing our own content creation up online. And I decided that we wanted to do a three person collab as as a YouTube video. And funny enough, that collab actually didn't end up happening until December, you know that that Christmas Eve, we released a cover of "Let it Go" from Frozen. And that was the first three person collab, we actually did. But as we had that meeting through the process, we kind of just organically transitioned into, hey, this is a skill that our community really needs. And even those who don't need it, I think would really, really appreciate it. Let's, let's see what we can do to to contribute this, and how can we contribute it in a way that it can, that it can stand from a longevity standpoint, that it's able to give back to other people, as well as support businesses and sponsorships and whatnot, to be able to to really just bridge the gap in this sort of a field that is is kind of not so well known among us, you know, they're there. I mean, recording engineers are, you know, have been around for decades doing really, really great stuff. We have professionals out in that craft, but you're not necessarily going to create an album in order to audition for grad school. So putting that together there was something we had decided. And at that point, the three of us, we've all kind of had our own sort of business and financial backgrounds separately. And so we kind of understood, okay, if we're going to make this happen, and our goal for our release of information was December 1, and we ended up meeting that goal. There are a lot of things that need to take place, so we need to manage our finances, we need to talk about our logistics, we need to put together the details of every single aspect of what we're doing, how are we going to recruit to bring people into the seminar? How are we going to allow the seminar to tie into the competition aspect of things? Are we going to judge the competition? Are we going to have other people judge the competition? We actually have a fantastic A-list of judges, who we all very respect and admire very much and we're super, super grateful for them. You know, what are we going to, if we have a seminar, what are we going to talk about? What are the types of topics that need to be included? What are things that we already know and how can we build off of what we know, in order to, in order to sort of bridge the gap between what we don't know, both us as directors, as well as you know, the average individual in the music world, and in this specific case, the trumpet world. There's just a lot, a lot, a lot of things to consider, you know, and the fun part is sometimes is you know, we're going to have this competition, and we'll have these prizes, and these people would judge and we're going to bring out a social media account, and we're going to tell everybody about what we do. And yeah, it's gonna be great. But there's a lot that goes behind that process that maybe it's not necessarily taught in your degree just because it's not what you majored in, you might have majored in trumpet performance or music education, I happen to do both of those, you know, you're not going to learn but so much information about how to run a business, and everything that's associated with that, and how you pay your taxes at the end of the year and all of those considerations. The best thing to do is just to take those things, step by step, and to, and to take each one of those steps as they come up, fulfill that task to its fullest. I'm a really big believer of that there is not anything in life that I view as necessarily hard or difficult. It's just a matter of the steps that it takes to succeed. If you've never played the trumpet before, and you want to be a professional trumpet player, there's going to be more steps to that process, or those steps are going to take longer to accomplish than somebody who perhaps has a college degree and is already auditioning for, for places to be. But every staircase has climbed the same way. It's one step at a time, it might be a spiral staircase, it might be 52 stories high, it might be a straight up one storey staircase, it might be a bar stool.
But you approach it the same way. Whether you, whether you do that one time, or whether you do that 200 times, this is what I need to do today to get to where I need to be tomorrow. And that's sort of the process that happens with an organization like this. Like I said, we're in the thick of it right now and it's it's a never ending process, seemingly, right? We look up and we can't really see the horizon. We know what it looks like. But we're taking joy in that process. And yeah, we've gotten this done. And now we're going to move on to this. And so yeah, that's, that's kind of the basis and sort of conceptualization of how we move forward as an organization.
Ashley Killam 15:37
We would love to hear because you've I mean, you have amazing music yourself. And I'm sure in all of your recitals, just in seeing your YouTube, the variety of works that you program and record. We'd love to hear your perspective and your recommendations for educators, for performers, just in seeking the new works, programming composers, programming pieces that are outside the "standard repertoire," the "standard canon."
Marcus Grant 16:07
Sure, absolutely. I think it's, it's a shame to you know, we have really great standard repertoire out there. But it gets played so often, you know, if you if you if you, you know, start college and let's say you spend six years whether it's, you know, four years of an undergraduate, two years or master or if it's five, whatever the case may be, you know, and there are various sort of ways that we do that you're you're spending 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 years listening to dozens of and in some cases, hundreds of examples of the Tomasi or the Tunisian or, or the Hummel. And, you know, not that those aren't great pieces, but at some point there's there's a saturation element that's there and it kind of boxes us into this, you know, this, this situation where we we start to lose our relatability with with anyone who isn't a classically trained trumpet teacher or student. And that's a really big shame. So kind of going from that, my biggest suggestion just in general is to never close the door on a good piece of music just in general, you know, there there are opportunities. There are some times where I listened to, for example, a Rachmaninoff's, vocalise, you know, and oh, yeah, you know, this is for, you know, a singer. But isn't that what we're trying to do as musicians is sing through our instruments, and if I'm going to be a musician, who, who plays the trumpet, that's an effective thing to do, you can find some incredibly complex compositional elements in a Taylor Swift single. And, you know, if, if, if you're looking into that, and sort of doing like, maybe you do a harmonic analysis of it, you put a cover together, whatever the case may be, you're gonna learn some really valuable things from that avenue, in the same way that you'll learn some really valuable aspects from playing the Tomasi or playing Intrada, or something of that sort. That's the first thing. But then the second thing is these things we have to seek, you know, by by nature of a standard being a standard, it pretty much sits right in front of us, we don't really have to look for it. But in addition to that, you know, the few dozen pieces that are out there that are in the standard repertoire, there's literally thousands of just really great and fantastic music. One of the things that I that I love to do is I love to sort of mosey around the the areas, the organizations and the projects that are that are commissioning that type of music, and promoting that type of music. And, and and in all seriousness, just being able to, to put yourself in a position where, yes, we are embracing what has always been there, what has always been seen as sort of, we can almost use the term gatekeeper. But in a different regard to you know, this is how you've demonstrated your mastery over the instrument and your your knowledge of what it is that we do as professionals. But doing that, and beyond that, also saying, if we're going to this, this might get a little bit into the sort of philosophical sermon type of thing. But if we're, if we're here to, to, to preach that music is for everyone, then there are there are composers out there, there are artists and performers out there, there's an audience out there that listens to, to music that fall entirely out of the standard and we want to listen to those people. What are the types of things they enjoy? You could be listening to a middle school player talking about megalomania, right? Or you could be on at at an HBCU talking about African American spirituals and anything in between, and to just not be afraid to not be afraid to to listen to that type of stuff. And if it's good music, hey, maybe I'm gonna perform this on a recital, maybe I'm gonna put a multitrack together and put up a YouTube video of it, maybe I'm going to maybe I don't necessarily perform it myself, but maybe I share it with people who I think would enjoy this type of thing. Maybe if I enjoy this composer, I should share this with another one of my friends who might like this composer as well. And that process, you know, it's it's, it's a process that will, you know, it takes a little bit of time we have to as a community, we have to be willing to do that, you know, by the masses. But it's something that will have a lasting positive impact on on how the diversity of our music is shown, you know, and and that way when you go do you go hear the Artunian Concerto you can sit down and listen and go, Ah, yes, I'm familiar with this. I haven't heard this in a while. It's been a while, you know, this really is a great piece of music, as opposed to Oh, my goodness, I'm going to pull my hair out. And I've heard this 12 times in the past semester. You know, and I think sometimes that we can, we can have that experience.
Carrie Blosser 20:58
So in addition to TMTC, and teaching, can you talk a little bit about other projects that you might be working on currently?
Marcus Grant 21:06
The answer to projects is yes. I do them all the time. It's funny, it's at, you know, a lot of my friends will oftentimes, they'll kind of tease me and make fun of me, you know, they're like, Man, you're really lazy. I wish you did fewer things. But you know, we just we love music and I think many of us do, but but not just you know, music from we talked a little bit about it from you know, from how we would expect to present it how it's been traditionally presented, but in all forms and in every way and I really do believe music is for everyone and that everybody loves music, whether they realize it or not. And so I don't know, I start projects, you know, in some cases on the daily, but some of the big things that I've been working on. I guess I'll start talking about my youtube channel I am currently putting together and this is a good sort of, you know, diversity in terms of genre, but I'm putting together a trumpet multitrack version of the featured piece of from the anime Sound Euphonium called Crescent Moon Dance, and it's one of those things where you know, We talk about solidified fundamentals, you definitely need to know how to play the instrument in order to play a piece like that, especially if you're going to limit yourself to the sort of homogenous context of a trumpet ensemble or trumpet choir. And I'm not gonna lie, it's, it's going to give me opportunities to make me a better trumpet player. Um, you know, but but there's a beauty in that, because that's, you know, that's, that's why we choose, I think, a lot of times those standards, right, when you pick up the Jolivet or the Tomasi, you know, you're you're, you're testing your skills and challenging yourself to expand those skills, it's going to kind of play the same sort of deal. I'm really excited about that, because kind of on a different vein of conversation, I know for a fact that that video is going to do pretty well on my channel, because most of the things that I've done while on my channel have been related to some sort of video game cover, or anime or that type of thing, the audience is just larger, right? The sheer numbers of people who, you know, watch TV shows is greater than the number of people that you know, buy tickets to be a front row of a symphony orchestra, a concert, you know. That's just a natural, you know, it's, it's a difference in niche. It's not that one is better than the other, you know, it's just just the size of audience. But I'm really, really excited about that. Obviously, TMTC is a big project that that we're working on the three of us together, but we're also, the three of us, thinking about potentially putting together recording and producing an album of trumpet ensemble music as well. And again, from a diversity standpoint, there's going to be likely some standards there from the trumpet ensemble repertoire, there's also likely going to be some covers there. And, and we're really excited about that, that aspect, just kind of showing that we can do you know that we can do all of those things. Aside from that, every every year, or about twice or so a year, I do a consortium of some sort, whether it's being invited to do one, which is always a great and fantastic honor. Especially when it's for where the cause and and and then there's at least one that I will start on my own. Of course, this year, it's a little bit more difficult. And I'm kind of attempting to revitalize one that kind of got tanked as a result of suddenly being plunged into the situation that we've been in for the past 10 or 11 months now. But, but every time we start those opportunities, it also brings an opportunity to, to meet new people to reconnect with people that perhaps we haven't seen or talked to in a while. And it's always a really great opportunity. So so that's why I don't really have a sort of straight answer is what projects are you working on. I work on projects all the time, because it helps me to communicate with my audience, but also sometimes my colleagues as well. And it can be a joy, especially going to, you know, if you go to a program, a school, for example, where you have, you know, musicians from all across the country or all across the world go into attend, well, you know, when you graduate, you're dispersed among various parts of the world, and it's very difficult to be able to keep in touch and interact with those people. So being involved in that manner is a really great way to kind of have reunions and such, while also being able to do your career in a way that that provides value to other people. So.
Carrie Blosser 25:42
So Marcus, we wanted to know, what's on your music stand this week? And how are you diversifying your stand?
Marcus Grant 25:42
Sure. And I really like that question. Because, obviously, it ties into the theme that we've been talking about, and the importance behind it. I'm putting together for my, for my YouTube channel, and hopefully it'll be out next month. If it if it isn't, then it'll just be out when it when it's out. But I'm I'm putting together an arrangement, a trumpet ensemble arrangement of We Shall Not Be Moved, you know, among the African American spirituals, and I'm really, really excited about it, for various purposes, you know. One, obviously, you know, it's something that I can relate to, from a cultural standpoint, but it's also something that allows me to sort of tell a fuller story about who I am as an individual. You know, as professionals, obviously, you know, there are literally thousands of professional trumpet players out there. And, you know, if you're just marketing yourself as I'm a professional trumpet player, great, you are one person in a sea. Right? And what is unique to what you are doing and to who you are into the things that you're passionate about. And that's one of those things you know, I'm certainly not you know, I'm not one of those people who, who tries to, you know, shove my my viewpoints and beliefs down someone's throat unwillingly, but I'm also willing to be very clear about who I am what I stand for. And I'm not going to sort of denounce any part of my past or my culture. And so it's going to be a really good opportunity for me to, you know, just make good music, have fun on camera, maybe do a few silly things, but also acknowledge the fact that, hey, this is a very important part of who I am. And it's something that is going to be a really great contribution to, you know, to the the trumpet community as a whole in terms of, you know, going back to good music is good music, you know, we can we can play the Tomasis, but we can also play, you know, the African American spirituals we can play, you know, all sorts of things. We can play pop music, we can play, you know, insert thing here, right, that goes from a to a composer standpoint as well. Not just genres, obviously. But, but that's what I'm working on this, these these next couple of weeks.
Carrie Blosser 28:06
Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us, Marcus.
Marcus Grant 28:08
Thanks for having me. This has been wonderful.
Carrie Blosser 28:49
Links to find out more about Marcus and his music are in the podcast description, and also on our website at www.diversifythestand.com.
Ashley Killam 29:15
Thank you so much for listening to Diversify the Stand. I am Ashley.
Carrie Blosser 29:18
And I'm Carrie. If you'd like to support us and our projects, check out our Patreon www.patreon.com/diversify_the_stand. Also the link is in our podcast description.
Ashley Killam 29:36
And a huge thank you to Trevor Weston and Whitney George, for allowing us to use their compositions in our podcast. The musical introduction is Trevor's trumpet duet fanfare for changes, and the ending music is Whitney's incantations for trumpet and piano. Both composers websites are also listed in the description.
Carrie Blosser 29:54
Until next time, what's on your stand?