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A few words on the warmup, your condensation, and sensitivity to others
In this time of separation during the coronavirus, it is a good time to rethink your warmup, to experiment, to work to improve technique, and a good time to be sensitive to others with regard to your...
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Workshop presentation: the Natural Horn session
Continuing a new podcast series aimed at filling the void created by all the recent workshop cancellations due to the coronavirus situation (surely there will be more cancellations? Will some go...
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4 charming works of B. Ed. Müller for horn and piano — a closer look
In thinking about horn repertoire, and teaching it completely online for the end of this semester, my mind turned to the question of what would I most want to highlight from my Rescued CD. The answer...
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Workshop presentation: Playing the Wagner Tuba
Continuing the series of short podcasts on topics in the form of workshop presentations, filling a need with all the cancelled workshops this year due to the corona virus outbreak, the topic today is...
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Looking for positive horn content in a difficult time?
A big tip of the hat to David Cooper, principal horn of the Chicago Symphony. A student of mine at ASU (thanks Jeremy!) pointed me to his YouTube channel, where he has posted in the past month 20 (!)...
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The Low Horn Session
As part of my ongoing series of podcast “workshop presentations,” we come to the topic of the low horn, always a good one. The podcast, episode 42 of The Horn Notes Podcast, may be found at the link...
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On the topic of Flow Studies
I recall a point in my Doctoral studies, I was taking a pedagogy class led by a trumpet player, and he used the term “flow studies” as though everyone knew exactly what he meant. One of his key points...
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2020: The summer of online horn and brass camps
Even in the best of years, many horn players have a limited ability to attend a brass camp in the summer. This year, however, a number of them in the past month have popped up online! They are set up...
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New: 30 Modern Preparatory Etudes and Solos
Stuck in Kopprasch? Tired of the same-old-same-old? Looking for a group of short, contemporary etudes and solo horn works? Just in time to brighten up a long summer of practice is a new publication, 30...
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Mailbag: How to hold a Concert Mellophone
Getting back to the mailbag, a question came in a while ago on how to hold a traditional, concert mellophone. The short answer is I have seen sources from the 1930s/40s that show the concert mellophone...
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Bad Conventional Wisdom, part 1: Background, and a breathing story
As I shared in a workshop presentation back in 2010, I became a better teacher in 2008. I generated an article for Horn Matters related to that, Beyond Farkas: A Workshop Presentation, but that article...
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Bad Conventional Wisdom, part 2: Tonguing misconceptions
Returning to the story of 2008 and my teaching and playing, I faced a reality that I did not do what I thought I was doing in the tonguing department. That fall (like every fall), I was working with...
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Bad Conventional Wisdom, part 3: The dreaded topic of too much mouthpiece...
Another topic I want to address in this series is mouthpiece pressure. We have all seen the page in the Farkas book where he has the horn on the shelf in an exercise to reduce mouthpiece pressure....
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Bad Conventional Wisdom, part 4: “Dropping the jaw” in the low range?
Some players seem to think this is bad conventional wisdom at least, as they found that “dropping the jaw” did not work for them. However, I must start with a spoiler alert. Dropping the jaw into the...
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Bad Conventional Wisdom, part 5: The mouthpiece
If there is one single piece of advice that has held back more players, it might be this quote from the Farkas book: “If the truth be told, no one mouthpiece or change of mouthpiece is going to...
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Remembering my teacher, Mike Hatfield
Who was your most influential teacher? It took me years to realize it, but my most influential teacher was F. Michael Hatfield (1936-2020), my major professor for my Doctoral studies at Indiana...
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Lessons in Vienna, part I: Setting up Lessons with Roland Berger
American hornist and pedagogue Nicholas Smith was able to briefly study in 1977 with Roland Berger (b. 1937), longtime solo hornist of the Vienna Philharmonic, with a focus on correct interpretation of...
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Lessons in Vienna, part II: Till Eulenspiegel
This series of articles expands on notes taken by Nicholas Smith in lessons with Roland Berger in 1977. He told me to pull out Till for our first excerpt. I played the usual first two calls and he...
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Lessons in Vienna, part III: Brahms 2 in depth
This series of articles expands on notes taken by Nicholas Smith in lessons with Roland Berger in 1977. Next he wanted to hear the Brahms 2nd Symphony excerpts. He explained that the opening solo...
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Lessons in Vienna, part IV: Brahms 3
This series of articles expands on notes taken by Nicholas Smith in lessons with Roland Berger in 1977. After finishing with the solos in the Brahms 2nd Symphony, Professor Berger turned the page of my...
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