Favorite blog posts, February 2014

Here are some of my picks for some excellent woodwind-related blog posts from last month.

Enjoy!

Maintaining direction in staccato passages

To make a legato phrase sound like a unified idea, all I have to do as a minimum is make sure my air doesn’t stop: my fingers and tongue delineate individual notes, but the sound is continuous. But with a staccato phrase, the sound stops. Make the notes sound like they belong together, without eliminating the space between them.

Sometimes staccato is neither “short” nor “separated”

A wind instrument doesn’t resonate in the same way as, say, a violin: when the wind player stops blowing, the sound stops immediately. But since our modern wind technique borrows so heavily from the bowed string tradition, in many cases it is necessary to imitate this resonance to achieve the desired effect.

Teaching multiple instruments in higher education

While I thoroughly enjoy the variety in my day, there are some additional things worth considering if you take on multiple instruments in a collegiate teaching career.

Favorite blog posts, January 2014

Hand-picked high-quality woodwind-related blog posts from around the web, January 2014 edition.

Tips for student chamber music groups

A few of my favorite basic tips I use frequently with my college chamber music students.

Playing flat on the clarinet

The correct solution to this problem is to take at least a few lessons with an excellent clarinet teacher. A good teacher faced with this problem will review the fundamentals of tone production with you: breath support, voicing, and embouchure formation. With some dedicated practice, you will almost certainly see your pitch improve (as well as your tone, response, and more).

Creativity, hard work, and beginning jazz improvisation

I occasionally teach a university course in jazz improvisation, geared toward beginning improvisers. Sometimes I think prospective students are afraid to sign up because they don’t consider themselves already to be musically creative. On the other hand, I have some students enroll in the class with unrealistic expectations about the results, thinking that they will … Read more

Required recordings, spring 2014

Here are the recordings I’m requiring my university students to add to their collections this semester (depending on which instrument they play). All are available on CD or for download from Amazon or iTunes.

Allan Vogel: Oboe Obsession

Amazon (CD) | Amazon (download)

Repertoire: Saint-Saëns Sonata, Poulenc SonataBritten 6 Metamorphoses after Ovid, Schumann Three Romances, W. F. Bach Duet, Shinohara Obsession.

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2013 in review

Here is a recap of some of my favorite stuff from the blog from 2013. Because hey, I’m on vacation too. The Fingering Diagram Builder got a new major release, plus a minor release. Development has slowed down a bit on this, not because I’ve stopped planning and working on improvements to it, but because it’s really working surprisingly … Read more