Category Teaching
Why Your Degree Title is Wrong
Students in colleges today put so much emphasis on their degree titles, on their specialty. Now, I firmly believe that to be great at what you do (and I believe anything less than great isn’t worth doing), you do have to specialize, in a sense. But I have a serious problem with the structure degree […]
Sightreading Sundays / Aug. 26
This week is back to basics. Simple rhythms and all in the diatonic key. This should help younger students especially to feel more comfortable playing different “chunks” of a scale (not always starting on the tonic note). Download the Sightreading Sundays PDFs here.
Sightreading Sundays / Minor 2nds
Sorry for the lateness of this post today. Just got back from Indianapolis and the DCI World Championships. It was a great time, but now I’m back in the swing of things. Todays sight-reading focuses on the interval of a minor second, in a waltz feel. It is a basic range with only a few […]
Sightreading Sundays
Feeling very chromatic today. Useful to get you out of the comfort zone and mess with your muscle memory a bit. Download the Sightreading Sundays music here!
Sightreading Sundays
Something short and sweet for you and/or your students to sightread. Check back every Sunday. Feel free to pass these around. Download Sightreading Sundays music here!
Sound Bites / Air Movement
Move the air at the proper velocity immediately to avoid “scooping” the notes. The band camp season has officially begun for me, so I’m finding myself saying little statements like this all the time.
What Others Say / Will Durant
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” —Will Durant, summarizing Aristotle, in The Story of Philosophy (1991) Good advice for all the high school musicians heading to band camp soon. And for anyone in the practice room.
Sound Bites / Telling a Story
As musicians we must always remember to be storytellers. No one will listen if you don’t tell a good story. What’s your story?
Sound Bites / Staccato
Seen on Twitter (@HitzTuba): “Staccato does not mean short.” Right. With my students, I refer to staccato as detached instead.
Long Tones: The Pursuit of a Life in Music 