September 6 to October 26 - what did I learn?

I started this practice blog on September 6 and the final concert was October 26. That's 7 weeks of very focused, very intense practice and playing. What did I get out of this?

I believe my ear improved during this time. I attribute this chiefly to
1) playing between two very skilled trombone players and really listening for my sound with them, and their identifying notes for me that I was out of tune on, and my following through and really working with the tuner to lock myself in on the notes I was having trouble with;
2) the sight singing lessons I am doing with Rick - I feel that I am gaining a huge amount from these lessons both in hearing and singing pitch and in rhythm, which is surprising to me because I have had no time to practice in between the lessons; and
3) just all the time on the horn both in practice and rehearsal.

I learned that an hour a day on the horn on weekdays and an hour and a half on weekends is a lot of time allocated from my life to playing, and not at all a lot of time in the sense of what I could actually use on the horn in order to improve significantly.

I believe that my overall playing ability, articulation, sight-reading, and legato tonguing is better, again from playing so much, from working on the material one-on-one with Jack, and from playing between such good players. Also from concentrating so hard on trying to play this material just as well as I could.

That's all the lessons learned I can think of for now ... except that I need to get out my clef books and start working methodically on reading tenor clef!