I insist that you check out the following woodwind-related blogs, listed in no particular order. Also see my previous roundups:
- A few woodwind blogs you should be reading
- A few more woodwind blogs you should be reading
- Still more woodwind blogs you should be reading
David A. Wells
David Wells is a bassoonist, educator, and scholar. His blog is excellent and rich in original, thoughtful, useful content. Try these on for size:
NeoSax
NeoSax describes itself as “a company devoted to accelerating saxophone evolution.” The website is actually registered to Curt Altarac of MusicMedic.com, and Curt is a frequent poster, so I assume there is a relationship of some kind between NeoSax and Curt/MusicMedic. In any case, several forward-thinking saxophone and saxophone accessory makers contribute to the blog, presumably to generate buzz about upcoming products. There’s some very nerdy/cool stuff going on there:
- NeoBass: Intonation Modifications/Corrections
- Synthetic Reed Experiments at Saxgourmet
- Prototype Update (The Jim Schmidt saxophone)
Clarinet Cache
“Clarinet Cache” is a regular column in the International Clarinet Association’s print journal The Clarinet, written by Kellie Lignitz and Rachel Yoder, and the Clarinet Cache blog is its expanded online version. It is a curated tour of online resources (an area that more of the woodwind print publications should be addressing!), so the blog posts themselves are mostly a springboard to other people’s websites; they have also done some straight-up blogging like their reports on ClarinetFest 2012.
Flute Builder
“Flute Builder” is one of several blogs launched by Powell Flutes last year (see also Repair My Flute and Teach Flute). Since it’s ultimately a Powell sales pitch, it isn’t entirely unbiased; still, it’s an interesting look at how high-quality flutes are made. A few recent sample posts:
Carlos Oboe
Carlos Coelho is my oboe repair tech of choice—his work and customer service are outstanding in every regard and shockingly affordable. I was introduced to his work a few years back at an oboe repair presentation he gave at Indiana University, and I was deeply impressed by the care he put into his work and by how easy he made it all seem. His blog is very new and appears not to be run by him personally (it’s written in the third person and with the general tone of press releases), but his first non-announcement post is meaty and hopefully representative of more good stuff to come:
Enjoy!