- Flutist Terri Sánchez blogged like crazy this month, with many downloadable exercises and practice ideas. A few I liked included this one-minute warmup, these harmonics exercises, these 100 ideas for getting “unstuck,” and this advice on creating your own warmups.
- Heather Roche shares some clarinet works by female composers. (Check the comments section for more.)
- Flutist Jolene Harju does an interesting video experiment with expressive body movements.
- Clarinetist Jenny Maclay suggests practicing recovery from mistakes.
- Ed Joffe shares his experience with developing a multiple woodwinds graduate degree program.
- Flutist Andrée Martin discusses priority scheduling for practicing and for life.
- Barry Stees offers some tips and tricks for playing low, soft orchestral bassoon parts.
- Flutist Vanessa Breault Mulvey shares ideas on being observant of your own playing [update: link dead].
- Saxophonist Sam Newsome recommends slow progress. He also shares some interesting experiments in “prepared” soprano saxophone.
- Cate Hummel warns against some small but problematic flute habits.
Vanessa Breault Mulvey
Favorite blog posts, April 2017
- Bassoonist Anna Norris suggests showing up for auditions.
- Michael Shults switches between jazz and classical saxophone.
- David Freeman transcribes recorder parts for Stairway to Heaven (but plays them on an electric keyboard…).
- Michael Lowenstern addresses a bass clarinet reed question.
- Flutist Vanessa Breault Mulvey discusses squeezing’s detrimental effect on flute playing [update: link dead].
- Saxophonist Bill Plake discusses tone imagination.
- Flutist Jolene Harju shares ideas for getting the most out of your lessons. I also liked her “Fundamentals Workout Planner.”
- Jennet Ingle learns something about disappointing performances.
- Saxophonist Jay Brandford shares an Eric Dolphy anecdote about dedication to detail in practicing.
- Matt Stohrer shares his procedure for “setting up” a new saxophone. This is sort of a commercial post, but instructive about what a new instrument might need to play to its best potential.
- Flutist Jennifer Cluff explains anchor tonguing.
Favorite blog posts, February 2014
Here are some of my picks for some excellent woodwind-related blog posts from last month.
- Bass clarinetist Michael Lowenstern gives excellent advice on some topics (such as “biting”) that I think are not often taught well.
- Mark Catoe gives a workshop on teaching beginning clarinetists to cross the break. (Those are some mighty handsome fingering diagrams.)
- Chris Dunning takes us on a historical video tour of the saxophone in jazz [update: link dead].
- Clarinetist Adam Berkowitz manages the logistical details of a performance. Also: two habits worth having.
- Jennet Ingle bemoans the oboe’s caprices. “It’s not that playing the oboe is physically more difficult than any other instrument, it’s that the oboe doesn’t want you to get it.”
- Bassoonist Betsy Sturdevant chases the elusive high F.
- Oboist Patty Mitchell explains what it means to “know” a piece of music.
- Trent Jacobs gives a primer on amplifiers for woodwind players interested in going electric.
- Over at Music Collective, flutist Jessica Dunnavant discovers life beyond the university-teaching-job search.
- Timothy Owen offers some observations and advice on playing multiple sizes of saxophone.
- Clarinetist Heather Roche gives composers some insights on glissandi and air sounds, with extensive audio clips.
- Vanessa Breault Mulvey of the “Flying Flutistas” avoids “muscling up” on the flute. Also on the trapeze. Really [update: link dead].
- Cooper Wright gives his oboe a good cleaning.
- Woodwind player Ted Nash tells the story of how he nearly got adopted by Quincy Jones. “Part II to follow,” he promises.
- Meri Dolevski-Lewis gives some good common-sense tips to those working with a pianist for the first time.
Enjoy!