- Stephen Caplan embraces plastic oboes. Related: Elizabeth Brown lists some signs that your wooden oboe has a crack.
- Clarinetist Miranda Dohrman gives advice on building a freelance career.
- Jennifer Mackerras provides solutions for recorders slipping and sliding around in your hands.
- Peter Westbrook shares a 2003 interview with Herbie Mann, covering aspects of jazz flute playing, woodwind doubling, and more.
- Oboist Jennet Ingle offers some suggestions on a good mindset for solo performance.
- Clarinetist Jenny Maclay lists some reasons you might not be improving as much as you would like.
How to get 10 good reeds from a box
If you are getting less than 80% playable reeds from the boxes you are currently buying, buy different ones.
Discount on book and new t-shirts
I’ll keep this short: there are new bretpimentel.com t-shirts available, and everything in the store (shirts and the PDF of my book, Woodwind Basics) is priced at 1/3 off through Christmas Eve 2018 if you use coupon code reeds2018. Your purchases help pay for hosting and other site costs, and otherwise support what I’m doing … Read more
Planning breaths
When learning a new étude or repertoire piece, it’s common to practice at first with focus on the notes, often playing them at a slow tempo and/or divided into chunks. This is a good approach for mastering the needed finger technique, but it may neglect one of the crucial parts of a performance: breathing. In … Read more
Using sticky notes to focus my performance thinking
I might put in weeks or months preparing for a high-pressure performance. But all of that can fall apart pretty quickly if my head isn’t in the right place.
Favorite blog posts, October 2018
Hand-picked high-quality woodwind-related blog posts from around the web, October 2018 edition.
Bassoon jaw movement: survey of published opinions
I was under the impression that there were advocates of jaw movement in bassoon articulation. A skimming of some pedagogical materials at hand seems to debunk this.
Hi, come on in, you’re right on time for your lesson.
I have lots on things on my list for you today: we should double-check your rhythms on that etude, review those melodic minor scales that were giving you trouble last week, and discuss some finer points of vibrato. But something about your sunken eyes when I met you at the door, the way you slouched … Read more
Clarifying woodwind doubling goals
Should you be a woodwind doubler? I think it’s worth considering exactly what you mean.
Favorite blog posts, September 2018
Hand-picked high-quality woodwind-related blog posts from around the web, September 2018 edition.