Category: Horn

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Learning Strategies: Block vs. Interleaved

There are two major learning strategies: block and interleaved. Which one is best?
Why You Shouldn’t Have (One) Warmup Routine

What do Lay’s chips and warm-up routines have in common? You shouldn’t have just one!
Dropping A Dime On Mouthpiece Measuring

I’m reminded of an excellent way to quickly “measure” rims without any fancy tools.
Most Effective Learning Style Feels the Worst

Active vs. Passive learning: sometimes the best medicine is the most bitter.
Memorizing =/= Learning

Telling a student to memorize something is not the same as telling them to memorize it. Seth Godin explains.
Eldon Matlick and A New (To Me) Tuning System

In a recent blog article over at James Boldin’s Horn World blog, James discusses a recent visit to the University of Louisiana-Monroe by Dr. Eldon Matlick, who is the Horn Professor at the University of Oklahoma. His blog article briefly covers some of the topics that Dr. Matlick discussed with the ULM Horn Studio, and…
MobileSheets Pro Tips

I’ve really been enjoying my digital music setup over the past few years. But the amount of flexibility and the sheer number of options available in the Android app I use (MobileSheets Pro) means that the learning curve (even for a tech-savvy user) can be extreme. To help make things a bit easier for other…
Practice Recipe: 3 Parts Focus with 1 Part Distraction

Practicing a musical instrument can be a frustrating experience. Lots of hours focused on just getting one or two small sections perfect, only to be faced with more the next day or week. However, practice isn’t just about focusing on small details and getting individual notes correct. At least part of your practice time needs…
When NOT to Practice

How to plan your practice is a topic that I’ve covered before, but there’s a lot more to getting in “enough” playing than just sitting down for a practice session. The typical recommendation from the ever-popular Farkas book is that you need to get in 3 hours of practice per day, but there’s definitely more…
Pre-Performance Rituals

If you’ve watched just about any sport, you’re certainly familiar with athlete’s and their love of rituals. But, it turns out that even arbitrary or even silly rituals can have a meaningful impact on your performance and reduce anxiety. The important thing is not necessarily what you do, but what you call it. A Ritual…