Favorite blog posts, February 2022

See the woodwind blogs I’m following, and suggest others!

A woodwind player’s introduction to: pennywhistles

The pennywhistle (or “tinwhistle” or “Irish” whistle) is common in Irish traditional music, and has found a home in some other styles such as southern African kwela music. They appear famously in movie soundtracks such as the Lord of the Rings movies and Titanic. Here are some important things to know: There are high-quality pennywhistles … Read more

Recital videos, August 2020

I’m pleased to share videos from my recent Delta State University faculty recital. I performed for a very small in-person audience due to COVID-19 precautions. All the repertoire is unaccompanied. The program begins with multiple-woodwinds repertoire by Samuel Adler, Kyle Tieman-Strauss, and Nicole Chamberlain (a world premiere of a commissioned piece), followed by some odds … Read more

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.

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.

From Google: Lord of the Rings on whistle, low A on bassoon, woodwind commonalities

Classes are canceled today due to a freak snowstorm in my little Southern college town. (Typical yearly snowfall: 0 inches. Yesterday’s snowfall: 5 inches.) So instead of teaching a woodwind methods class and rehearsing on contrabassoon with the university’s Wind Ensemble, I thought I would take a few minutes to do something I’ve been seeing some of my favorite bloggers do lately.

With some simple traffic-tracking tools, I can see what Google searches are leading people to my website. Most times, to my satisfaction, their search brings them to highly relevant content on my site. Other times I know they are not finding quite what they are looking for. So I’d like to address a selection of the searches that have brought people here unsuccessfully lately, and hopefully future searchers will find what they are after.

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Getting started with ethnic woodwinds: your holiday wish list

I’ve got ethnic woodwinds on the brain lately, and no end in sight since they are the topic of my doctoral dissertation research. If you haven’t added any ethnic instruments to your arsenal yet, here’s what I recommend for a relatively easy to play, low-maintenance, inexpensive, and versatile beginning to your collection.

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