Articles in category: Found on the web (51 found)

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Doublers in the news: Hunter Diamond

Check out an interview (with audio) of Indiana University undergraduate student Hunter Diamond about his interest in woodwind doubling.

He’s hoping his skills on multiple instruments will eventually land him commercial gigs or even a position playing in a pit for musical theater performances.

…

“The most important thing now is to find something unique about my playing that I can market in a positive way.”

Flute Pro Shop interview with Tereasa Payne and Simon Hutchings

There’s a nice interview by Joan Sparks at the Flute Pro Shop blog, with two woodwind doublers who happen to be married to each other, Tereasa Payne and Simon Hutchings. They discuss doubling, careers, and married life.

I can’t imagine being in a marriage with anyone other than a musician. Everyone makes sacrifices for what they value in life, but the time and commitment involved in becoming, and being, a professional musician…it’s so time consuming, and emotionally challenging – I imagine it’s like being married to an athlete. That being said, given that we are both woodwind doublers, with different “primary” instruments, our marriage is perfect (in so many ways!!!) in the sense that we are able to advise and support each other to a greater degree than almost any situation would allow.

Check it out at Flute Pro Shop on the Road.

University of Northern Iowa offers new multiple woodwinds degree

The University of Northern Iowa is now offering a Master of Music degree with a multiple woodwinds (3-instrument) emphasis. A few points of interest, according to degree information from their website:

  • Students take 6 credit hours of study on a “primary” instrument, and 4 hours on a “secondary” instrument, and must “demonstrate proficiency” on a third. Presumably the third instrument must either be at a suitable proficiency level upon entering the program, or the student must study the instrument without the additional credit hours counting toward degree completion.
  • Students using oboe or bassoon as one of their three instruments must take an appropriate reedmaking course. This, I guess, means that students choosing both oboe and bassoon must take both reedmaking courses. And the reedmaking course must be completed even for the “demonstrate proficiency” instrument, which might not be part of the student’s coursework.
  • Students choosing flute or clarinet as primary or secondary instruments must take an instrument-specific pedagogy course, or presumably both if flute and clarinet are the primary and secondary (or vice versa).
  • There does not appear to be any special requirement (such as pedagogy or reedmaking) if saxophone is chosen as one of the three instruments.
  • The degree recital must include performances on at least two “of the five” woodwinds. Oddly, it is not specified that these must be the primary and secondary instruments.
  • Audition information from elsewhere on the UNI Music website does not make clear what is required for admission to the program.

See my hopefully-comprehensive list for more North American university/conservatory degree programs in multiple woodwind performance. (And please contact me if you see anything that needs to be added, removed, or updated!)

Farewell: Himie Voxman

Himie Voxman (1912-2011)

Influential music educator and longtime University of Iowa faculty member Himie Voxman has passed away at the age of 99. If you are a woodwind player, you have almost certainly used, at some point in your musical studies, something written or edited by Professor Voxman.

Check out the Iowa City Press-Citizen’s tribute for a nice overview of his life and career.

Still more woodwind blogs you should be reading

In what is turning out to be an approximately biannual roundup, I present the third installment of woodwind-related blogs that I’m enjoying, and you will too. If you’re late to the party, check out episodes 1 and 2. (In each case I picked at least one excellent blog that shortly thereafter stopped publishing new content, so take a look at today’s picks and see if you can guess which is getting the “Bret Pimentel, woodwinds” curse. Bwahahahaha.)

Tammy Evans Yonce

Tammy is a former classmate of mine (go ‘Dawgs), and a flutist and educator to keep an eye on. Her blog, just a few months old, is outstandingly good: important topics, carefully thought out, and clearly and elegantly written. Tammy writes about flute performance and pedagogy, with a special interest in making practice time really effective. A must-read.

Also check out Tammy on Twitter, and at her other new blog, the collaborative Music Collective. Read more →

Sam Newsome on not doubling

Sam Newsome asks the question, “Can You Double And Still Be A Great Soprano Saxophonist?”

As I see it, if you play the soprano using a set-up that’s comparable to a much larger horn, you’re not dealing with the soprano on it’s own terms. It’s being treated as an extension of a much larger horn, and not as a separate entity.

Go check it out.

Historical woodwind recordings on the National Jukebox

Photo, alexruthmann

The United States Library of Congress’s National Jukebox project makes American recordings from the days before microphones available for streaming online. This is a fantastic resource for recordings—classical, jazz, and more—from the turn of the 20th century until the mid-1920′s.

These recordings are not in the public domain, like you might think; Sony, the owner of the recordings, has given the Library of Congress special permission to stream them.

Naturally, I’ve been searching the National Jukebox for woodwind players, and here are a few of my favorite discoveries. Some of the gems include oddities like the Heckelphone and bass saxophone, and there are a few woodwind doublers in there, too. Take note of how woodwind playing, like recording technology, has changed over the past century!

To kick things off, here’s a nice tour of the woodwind section of the Victor Orchestra in 1912:

Read more →