John Ericson
Auditioning for college in the age of COVID
Any reader looking at auditioning for college music programs right now knows that they are looking at a changed scenario due to COVID.
Before this...
Tip: Building endurance in the age of no ensembles
With COVID, most horn players are finding themselves in an unusual situation, they have no ensembles to play in, and have not played in...
COVID and innovation in brass chamber music at Arizona State
We are doing something different than normal this semester for brass chamber music at Arizona State.
During the summer our large ensemble directors began exploring...
It is time to use some new etudes (with samples to try)
Especially in this time of COVID teaching, it is time to try some new materials. The same old, tired etudes seem especially old and...
DeRosa and Almeida: The Intimate Bach [UPDATED]
A great recording that is not much known by now several generations of horn players is The Intimate Bach, Vol. 2, which includes a...
Watkins, Schuller, and Barrows — Temptation, 1962
Following up on the recent post on jazz horn pioneer Julius Watkins, I made an effort to buy a couple more of his recordings...
Julius Watkins, jazz French horn pioneer
Talking with colleagues recently, a topic that came up was how some great players of the recent past are unjustly neglected today. In terms...
Making the most of your [COVID] horn playing, and a brief review of a...
Before getting to the brief review, I would like to open by noting that, as of the fall of 2020, COVID protocols are all...
Review: The Versus M1T mellophone mouthpiece. The one everyone has been waiting for
A new product on the market, and a game changer, is the Versus M1T mellophone mouthpiece.
Mellophone is, sadly, a hugely polarizing topic of the...
Lessons in Vienna, part IX: Lasting Impact on a Career
This series of articles expands on notes taken by Nicholas Smith in lessons with Roland Berger in 1977. This is the concluding article.
Most players...