• Listen to numerous recordings of trombonists such as Joseph Alessi or Christian Lindberg.
• Attend trombone solo recitals at your closest university or college.
• Take private lessons or attend master classes.

1. Look up all definitions and markings on the music, such as Largo cantabile or rin ƒ. Pencil in the translations.

2. Get a better understanding of the task ahead of you by sight reading the piece to the best of your ability. (Play it at a tempo that allows you to play approx. 80% of it correctly.)

3. Find appropriate alternate positions and breath marks. Write them in. (Make changes as needed as you learn to play the piece better.)

4. Play it again with a metronome set very slowly, (at a tempo where you play approx. 90% of it correctly.) Identify the measures where your mistakes are. Bracket each immediately.

5. Play the metronome game for each set of brackets:
   
   a.) Set the metronome incredibly slow (maybe even a sub-subdivision). This should be the fastest tempo that allows you to play the bracketed measure(s) correctly. Play the brackets at this tempo ten times in a row without a mistake. (Keep track of your tempos by lightly penciling them in above troubled area.)
   
   b.) Set the metronome up one notch (2-4 beats) and play the bracketed measures 5 times in a row without a mistake.
   
   c.) Repeat the process until you are up to tempo with step 2. If you make a mistake, lower the metronome a notch and try again.
   

6. Play the entire piece again at a slightly increased tempo from step 4. Repeat steps 4 through 6 until the piece is up to tempo.

• Decide what are the musical directives on the page that should be noted or exaggerated? (Dynamics, tempo changes, articulations)
• Decide what is the character/style of this piece? Happy, sad, fun, etc.
• Write a plot, story-line for the music.
• Decide what is not on the page that I can add? (Dynamics within the written dynamics, slight or dramatic tempo changes within the realm of good taste.)