As the newly formed Low Brass Collective, our research and scholarship involves two important components of our musical development. Firstly, through performance practice, which all the members of the LBC take part in, we apply daily research on developing our skills on our individual instruments. Every person has different problems and challenges, yet the goal is to have the result of an outstanding performance and to communicate more effectively artistically through our instruments and the music we create. Like the laboratory, we utilize a variety of techniques of trial and error, using mentors (our professors), guides, and different parameters to ensure our skill development as well as using tools regularly like metronomes, tuners, and recording devices to train our ears more effectively.
Our second area of research involves the creation of some of the pieces we will be performing as part of our presentation. Each semester, the music majors in the UNG Low Brass Collective must create a composition or arrangement of a song that involves the trombone, euphonium, and/or tuba. The students research the original piece of music, make alterations and adjustments (range, key, rhythms, etc.) to recreate the work in a way more acceptable to the limits of each instrument. These decisions are both artistically motivated by sound and by the practical matters (limited range). We then error check, practice them and make any necessary revisions based on input from our professor.