horn practice

“I didn’t have time to practice this week, I had too much to do.” It’s an excuse that everyone who has been teaching for more than 15 minutes has heard. It’s also an excuse that almost everyone who has played an instrument for more than a week has made. But […]

No Time To Practice

17 Apr, 2019 in Horn tagged first world problems / horn playing / horn practice / horn problems / horn teaching / horn technique / practice / productivity by Colin Dorman (updated 20 days ago)

As I write this, it’s just after the yearly Solo and Ensemble festival for my students, and so, of course, I just stumbled across an excellent resource for next year! The Kumamoto Horn Ensemble (KHE) The Kumamoto Horn Ensemble has been an active horn ensemble for almost 20 years, and […]

Top-Notch Resource for Any Horn Ensemble

27 Mar, 2019 in Horn tagged horn ensemble / horn playing / horn practice / horn teaching / music by Colin Dorman (updated 24 days ago)

In years of working with students on the horn, one of the most difficult concepts to teach (at least for me), has been the idea of musical phrasing. I imagine that this is (at least in part) because getting a strong set of fundamentals took me so long. I don’t […]

Teaching Musical Interpretation: Learn, Listen, Count

27 Feb, 2019 in Horn tagged horn playing / horn practice / horn problems / horn teaching / horn technique / music / practice / recording by Colin Dorman (updated 60 days ago)

So I’ve really been enjoying using my tablet as a digital music reader. It’s certainly been an adjustment (I’ve written about some of those here), but overall I really have been enjoying it. One recent upgrade that I made was for a relatively small and compact stand/tablet holder setup to […]

Upgrade to Digital Music Reading: New Stand!

13 Feb, 2019 in Horn tagged android / apple / chromebook / horn equipment / horn playing / horn practice / music / practice by Colin Dorman (updated 65 days ago)

Intonation. Almost everyone who has played any instrument with flexible intonation has been told that they are out-of-tune. In some of the middle and high school bands I work with, the director will go up and down the rows with a tuner, telling students that they are flat or sharp, […]

How Important Is Intonation? It Depends.

30 Jan, 2019 in Horn tagged horn playing / horn practice / horn teaching / music / orchestra / orchestra music / practice / rehearsal by Colin Dorman (updated 105 days ago)

Seth Godin’s blogs and podcasts have been a relatively frequent topic on this blog (and they’ll probably continue to be in the future), but his Akimbo podcast episode from October 10, 2018 really stuck with me. Entitled “You’re It”, this episode has the overarching theme of how the internet has […]