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A student remembers Franz Strauss
Recently I was asked about the source of a great quote from the last student of Franz Strauss. Having made a solo CD of his music back in 2003, I have an affinity for his music. Below is an example of...
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Keeping the Chops Going amid Heavy Playing Weeks
I have had so many conversations with people about chops lately, but, thinking back, clearly many people get their chops into a bad place this time of year. Bad chops are no good; you cannot play high,...
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Growth Mindset and the horn player
The latest episode of the Horn Notes Podcast is out, and the topic is Growth Mindset. Guest for this episode is Nicole Deuvall, a former student of mine at ASU who is now focusing on the topic for her...
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You didn’t study Maxime-Alphonse?
With resistance being futile, Horn Matters recently launched an Instagram account. Check it out! hornmattersofficial The two first posts featured memes related to Maxime-Alphonse,** the etude book...
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Questions and answers on developing a college teaching career (and big websites)
Recently a group of questions came in from John Robinson, a trombone performance major at the University of Iowa enrolled in the horn pedagogy class taught by Jeffrey Agrell. One of their assignments...
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Ethics and College Music Admissions
There are two topics that come up every year in the world of horn and music admissions, both of which are timely in relation to the college admissions scandal that broke last week. The first is that of...
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Minimalist horn etudes
Years ago a friend pointed me toward Glassworks, the great 1982 album by the minimalist composer Philip Glass. Subsequently, in my horn teaching I have been struck over the years that there are a...
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Yet more horn podcasts to check out
Besides posting a couple new episodes recently, I was recently pointed toward a couple new or new to me horn podcasts to check out. First, to mine, I have two new episodes of the Horn Notes Podcast,...
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Brief review: Recipe for Success — a new method for young horn players
Anyone who teaches lessons to young horn players knows already, not only are there limited materials easily available to teach from, but also they are rather dated in approach. Myself, I have made the...
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If you still say “clams” for missed notes …
… maybe you are getting old. I have noticed something, confirmed by current students and a former student teaching at another school, the words used today to describe missed notes have changed. Back...
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Wellness, practice, and how to actually improve
This semester our guest for our horn day was Richard Seraphinoff. One focus was on injury and wellness, and that is a topic I have a conversation with him on in Episode 33 of the Horn Notes Podcast...
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Looking closer at the topic of breath support with Eli Epstein
Those familiar with my teaching know that I almost never use the term “support,” and when I do I add disclaimers about the word and what I mean. I have felt it to be too much of a vague term to use...
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Revisiting the “buzz pipe”
I’ve had phases where I made much use of a B.E.R.P. device for buzzing on the mouthpiece to work on improvement of accuracy. But there is another type of device; during his recent horn day visit at ASU...
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A look at the IVASI Horn Club Starter Kit
IVASI (Interactive Video Audition System International) is a product that should be familiar to horn teachers out there, as it has been available for many years and has been demonstrated at countless...
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Tempos and the Hindemith Sonata
Tempo choice is always an interpretation question. At the 2019 IWBC Gail Williams performed the Hindemith Sonata on her recital, and told a story about what tempo Hindemith wanted. The story is...
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On tight valve strings, thin oil, and alignment
Rotary valves can be a bit of a mystery for horn players and musical instrument repairmen. Three topics you should consider. Strings too tight. I’ve seen this more often than I would like. I think that...
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Take the 50% of the time practice challenge
Metronome. Tuner. How much do you use them in your practice? At Arizona State we have a new trumpet professor starting this fall, Joe Burgstaller. In his instructions to students preparing for their...
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Print books are back! And a brief production history of Horn Notes Edition...
The headline is correct, seven books of mine that since 2018 have only been available in Kindle format are available again as print publications. On topics including low horn, high horn, natural horn,...
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Mozart K407 – We should be playing this work more often
In my summer practice I’ve kept coming back to the Mozart Quintet for horn and strings K407, and the more I look at this the less I understand why this work is rarely performed. Sure, it is for horn...
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Introducing the French Horn Warmup Collection
With the summer project of converting my E-book publications back to being available in print versions, there were sections of several books that I wanted to compile together for my students to use,...
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