Favorite blog posts, November 2016

Student-selected online woodwind pedagogy articles, 2016 edition

What I want my class to get from the assignment is a sense of how to sift through the information (“information”) available online, taking into account the author’s credentials or sources, a common-sense evaluation of ideas, and applicability to a particular teaching situation. Be careful out there.

Simple and effective cues

Beginners to this often work much too hard at cueing, trying to execute movements that are large, elaborate, and confusing.

Woodwinds and “altissimo” registers

I recently had a saxophone student perform a repertoire piece with some altissimo technique in it, and a non-woodwind-playing musician asked me afterward about the instrument’s extended range. This led to further questions about “altissimo” on other instruments. The answers are a little complicated, but here is some information: The term “altissimo” suggests an extreme high … Read more