Category: Horn
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Bubbles and Clicks and Bumps (and Mouthpieces), Oh My!
Although I don’t use these terms at all in my teaching, bubbles, clicks, and bumps are an important thing for teachers and students to be aware of. These terms are used by horn player (and composer/conductor) Gunther Schuller to describe various imperfections in articulations, slurs and the slotting of notes. Over on the Horn Matters…
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Trigger Phrases to Improve Performance
Using one or two words to improve your concentration or establish the character of a piece is not a new teaching technique. I know I’ve personally heard about using these kinds of “trigger words” for a couple of decades. These are especially useful to establish the mood or style of an orchestral excerpt. In most…
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Outdoors with a Tablet: Pros and Cons
It’s no secret that I’m a fan of technology, and that I’ve enjoyed using my tablet as a music reader. While originally I was looking forward to the convenience of always having the music I needed at my fingertips, I didn’t anticipate one of the more unique use-cases for digital music reader – outdoor gigs.…
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Prepare for Fall Band Camp (and Auditions!)
It’s almost September, which means high school and band camps are well underway (or done). One of the hardest shifts that most brass players make is the switch between “summer chops” and “band camp chops”. Most brass players play very little from June-August. Even those that do practice usually don’t practice a lot. Definitely not…
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Simplify Practice Decisions: The Practice Menu
One problem that comes up a lot with students, especially younger students or when there aren’t clear short-term goals, is what to practice. When the All-State music comes out, or if there are upcoming seating auditions, then the practice plan becomes clear. But one thing that separates the average students from the outstanding students is…
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It’s not just a punchline – the “Probability-Based Drummer” is a real thing.
While this almost certainly belongs on the tech part of my website, rather than the music portion, I just really love the phrase, probability-based drummer. I can think of a few probability-based musicians I’ve known in my life, and I think I’m going to start using that phrase instead of saying they have “bad rhythm”…