Tag: horn problems

Here you can view a specific archive, or you can go to the homepage.

Performance Day Preparation Template

Here in Kentucky, it’s time for All-County and All-District auditions, and coming up next month is All-State. One of the things I hear quite a bit from more advanced students are questions about how to plan out your day (or days) when you have an important performance or audition. While you should (hopefully) be ready…
3 Quick Tips to Reduce Nerves in Performance and Auditions

For musicians, some anxiety just before and during performances is an all-too-familiar problem. Some musicians feel twinges of excitement, while others can suffer almost-crippling sensations. Getting nerves during a performance seems to be especially common for classical musicians, and while nerves can be distracting in any context, they can be especially destructive during auditions. Rob…
Performance Anxiety: Classical vs. Pop Musicians

An interesting blog post over on BulletProofMusician.com takes a look at the difference in levels of performance anxiety between traditionally-trained classical musicians and musicians in other genres. The blog article looks at two different studies. One study by British researchers used 244 musicians, of which about half were classical musicians and the other half a…
Book Review: The War of Art by Steve Pressfield

Since I’ve become a bit of a productivity nut, one new thing I’m going to try out over the next few months is adding some reviews of some of the best books that I read that I find insightful, inspiring, or just plain useful. I’m going to start this off with Steven Pressfield’s . Overview…
Interview(s) with Julie Landsman

I think that it goes without saying that Julie Landsman has had an incredible and inspiring career. Julie was the principal horn of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra for an incredible 25 years (1985-2010), a teacher at Julliard since 1989, and has long been a proponent of mind and body balance and conditioning in horn playing…
Looking to Remove Bad Habits? Two Strategies You May Not Have Tried

Too much pressure. Incorrect mouthpiece placement. Too much “smile” in the embouchure. Lousy right-hand position. Too little attention to intention. These are some of the bad habits I’ve had in my playing over the past 20+ years of playing the horn. These bad habits weren’t learned overnight, and moving past them also didn’t happen overnight.…
Keep Your Face in Shape – Embouchure Health Thoughts

Embouchure health is something that is probably not talked about enough in most brass-playing groups. While you’ll find hundreds of discussions on how to play high(er) or loud(er), or what mouthpiece is the best, you won’t necessarily find a lot of discussion on how best to manage the very sensitive muscles and tissue that brass…
Chicago Symphony Orchestra Horn Hangout

The Chicago Symphony is probably best known for their incredible brass section. The sound of the CSO brass section has been a legend for decades, and one of the core components of any great brass section is the French horn section! In this episode of Horn Hangouts, Sarah Willis sits down with all five members…
What do “playing musically” and the mellophone have in common?

Nothing. Well, almost nothing (I kid – mostly). John Ericson, Horn Professor at Arizona State University, and one of the founders of the French horn website HornMatters.com, has a book about playing the various marching horns called A Mello Catechism: A Guide to the World of Mellophones and Marching Horns. This book discusses the history, technique,…
No time to practice? Here’s how to do it!

The past couple of years, I’ve been on a pretty big productivity kick. I’ve read books, blogs, downloaded apps, and watched Youtube videos, all in an effort to try to maximize my ability to do things quickly and effectively. I’m still pretty far from where I feel I should be – productivity wise – but…