Beats By Dre Giveaway: Official Rules

Three Steps to Win The Beats By Dre Bluetooth Speaker
 

1. Subscribe

Subscribe to Shaun Johnson BBE's YouTube Channel. To do so, click here and then click the red "Subscribe" button. 

2. Watch 

Watch for two new video uploads per week. Complete step 1 and you will receive an e-mail each time we upload a new video.

3. Tweet 

Once you see that we've uploaded a new video, tweet it from YouTube within 24 hours. For each video you tweet, you will receive one entry in the Beats By Dre Bluetooth Speaker drawing!

How to tweet from YouTube:

That's it, good luck!

Shaun says, "Good luck...and may the tweets be ever in your favor."

Extra Details for the Curious People 
The Beats By Dre Giveaway will run four weeks: April 7 - May 4, 2014. All you need is one entry to win, so you can enter at any time during the four weeks. Remember though, you can enter as many times as you want! One winner will be announced on May 5, 2014 on BBE's Facebook and Twitter pages. 

Shaun Johnson BBE's YouTube channel will upload two videos per week. These videos will feature BBE's performances on PBS television. In addition to the two video uploads per week, three bonus videos will be uploaded at separate, unannounced times during the four weeks. If you tweet a bonus video within 24 hours of it's upload, you will receive three additional entries. 

Subscribing to the BBE YouTube channel will give you the best chance to submit as many entries as possible. Follow BBE on twitter and like the BBE Facebook page for hints as to when videos will be uploaded! 

Click here to watch the contest launch video that was posted on April 7! Please comment on this blog if you have any questions.  

Trombonology

In Wilson Meredith’s Broadway hit, The Music Man, it took “76 trombones to lead the big parade.” Why did it take so many? Nobody knows. Except, probably, Wilson Meredith. It’s amazing that 76 trombones were required for this parade when you consider the Big Band Experience needs only one—played by Steve Pikal.

Brass instruments make up a large part of a big band’s sound. And today we’re going to meet one of those instruments. Have you guessed which one? That’s right: the slide trombone.

The trombone is the only instrument with a slide. This makes it the trombone’s key feature (and the reason why the trombone stands out at brass family reunions). The trombone player (trombonist, if you will) slides the slide to change the pitch. The longer the slide is extended, the lower the pitch.

The trombone is also the only wind instrument that, in theory, can achieve perfect pitch at all times. Why? The slide, of course! Because the slide is continuous, a trombonist can play an infinite number of pitches. This is different from other instruments where the musician can only press down certain keys or valves.

So the trombone slide is remarkable, but what else is cool about the trombone? The most common types of trombone are the tenor and bass trombone, although there are several different kinds, including the alto and the soprano. Okay, so that’s not so much “cool” as it is a “fact.” Back to cool things about the trombone:

- It contains approximately nine feet of tubing.

- The precursor to the trombone is called the sackbut, which, let’s face it, is just fun to say.

- “Trombone” is the French word for paperclip (though maybe that’s a cool thing about paperclips and not trombones. Hard to say).

^*Wondering about the title? Tommy Dorsey, the great bandleader and master trombonist of the Big Band era wrote “Trombonology” in 1947. Take a listen.

Photo credit: ASCOM - Prefeitura de Votuporanga