- David Wells has updated his excellent bassoon fingering charts.
- Oboist Cooper Wright discusses shaper tip widths.
- Clarinetist Victoria Soames Samek suggests there are better options than just circling problem notes in your sheet music.
- Bassoonist Kristopher King explains the usage of the little finger whisper key. (Warning: auto-plays music. If you have a website, don’t do that.)
- John Witt reports on the Carolyn Hove English Horn Masterclasses, days 1 and 2 and days 3 and 4.
- Bassoonist Betsy Sturdevant warns about carrying musical instruments onto airplanes.
- Jennifer Cluff offers tips for cleaning a flute (spoiler alert: she suggests letting a professional do it).
- On the WindWorks Design blog, J. D. Smith shares a do-it-yourself modification for the Yamaha WX5 wind controller.
- Christa Garvey does some facial stretches for a tired oboe embouchure.
- Bassoon professor Christin Schillinger offers advice for musicians choosing a college.
- Saxophonist Anton Schwartz recommends “back-chaining” as a practice technique.
- Oboist Patty Mitchell muses on her choice to be a musician.
The problem with “ethnic” woodwinds
I am trying to get away from using the term “ethnic” woodwinds, one that I have used frequently in the past as a catch-all for the instruments I play that aren’t modern Western woodwinds. The term was problematic from the beginning, since, for example, I was using it to include instruments like recorders, which fall squarely under the umbrella of Western music traditions, but are arguably period or historical instruments. Additionally, I find that the term “ethnic” increasingly grates on my ear as too ethnocentric and limited a view, and incompatible with my real attitudes concerning music from cultures and traditions other than my native ones.
Dissertation: Woodwind doubling on folk, ethnic, and period instruments in film and theater music
My doctoral dissertation is now available online through the University of Georgia library, entitled Woodwind doubling on folk, ethnic, and period instruments in film and theater music: Case studies and a practical manual.
Review: Ben Britton’s A Complete Approach to Overtones
A review of Ben Britton’s book A Complete Approach to Overtones: Vivid Tone and Extended Range, a broad-based approach to improving every aspect of saxophone tone production (particularly tone, intonation, and response).
Favorite blog posts, May 2014
Hand-picked high-quality woodwind-related blog posts from around the web, May 2014 edition.
The amazing shrinking woodwind section: increasing demands on woodwind doublers
21st-century woodwind players need to be able to play a greater number of instruments, from a pool no longer limited to the orchestral woodwinds and saxophones, at a soloist level on each instrument.
Did I play that “right?”
Execution of musical passages isn’t really about “right” or “wrong,” but rather about degrees of rightness. To borrow an idea from manufacturing or engineering, we might think in terms of tolerances.
Irish flute/whistle ornamentation symbols à la Grey Larsen, in Lilypond
If you are nerdy/awesome enough to be into (1) the pedagogy of Irish traditional woodwind playing and (2) open-source text-based music notation software, then you may want to check out my set of symbols for Lilypond.
Favorite blog posts, April 2014
Hand-picked high-quality woodwind-related blog posts from around the web, April 2014 edition.
Practice technique: anchoring
The “anchoring” technique helps you think about logical groups of notes, encourages effective phrasing, and trains your ears to hear notes in a new and useful way.