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.
Composer Sy Brandon has posted his work on the second of six movements of Divertissement, the new work for multiple woodwinds soloist. The movement, “Nocturne,” is for alto saxophone and piano. You can check out a synthesized recording and preview the score (using the Sibelius Scorch browser plugin). Go check it out and leave your comments.
I have released version 0.7 of the Fingering Diagram Builder. Mostly it supports some new instruments. Let me know if you run into bugs or have suggestions or feature requests.
Here’s what’s new:
Note that I do not play or own a Viennese oboe, an Oehler- or Albert-system clarinet, or a French bassoon, nor am I suitably fluent in European languages to 100% understand the related pedagogical literature, so I could really use some assistance on making sure these new diagrams look right and things are named properly. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have suggestions/improvements.
As always, I’m glad to hear from folks who are using the FDB, and to see the cool things you are making (websites, blog posts, books, posters, handouts…). The FDB generates thousands of images every month, which I think is pretty cool.
Here are some of the things that went on here at your favorite woodwind blog during the past year.
If you have read anything interesting or useful here during the past year, I hope you will consider leaving a comment, getting in touch via email or social media, buying a shirt or sending a donation, contacting me aboutadvertising opportunities for your relevant business, and/or pointing your all your woodwind friends toward bretpimentel.com.
Thanks for reading in 2015, and best wishes for the new year!
Rico seems to be continuing their push to get their reeds into players’ cases for an audition. I wrote a couple of years ago about their “Make the Switch” promotion, in which I scored some free Rico Jazz Select tenor reeds.
With their current promotion, through the Woodwind and the Brasswind, you order a box of your favorite non-Rico clarinet or alto saxophone reeds, and get a free box of the comparable Rico offering. The deal is good through March 7 or while supplies last, so I suggest putting in your monthly (weekly?) reed order today and scoring a free box.
I’m more than happy to try out some new reeds for free, and won’t hesitate to switch if I find them better than what I’m currently using. (*wink*)
In this installment, we look at why woodwind doublers do what they do.
Here’s my own breakdown of the most common types of answers. Many answers fit into more than one category.
Here is the complete list of responses, with only very minor editing, in random order.
Read More “Woodwind Doubler Census results, part 6: benefits”
This year was my first time attending the National Flute Association‘s annual convention, held this year in Charlotte, North Carolina.
I’ve been to conferences of all the other major woodwind organizations in the US (IDRS, ICA, NASA), and here are some things that I think the NFA did exceptionally well:
Like the other major woodwind conferences, the NFA’s is packed with so many events that it’s impossible to get to everything you want to attend. Here are a few personal favorites among the things I saw and heard (in no particular order): Read More “Report: National Flute Association Convention 2011”
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
I heard about this on the Klarinet list. Sad :-(
What a great man and musician. He will be missed.
Nabbed for my friend on Facebook. Thank you for the post Brett.