John Ericson

Bad Conventional Wisdom, part 4: “Dropping the jaw” in the low range?

Some players seem to think this is bad conventional wisdom at least, as they found that “dropping the jaw” did not work for them....

Bad Conventional Wisdom, part 3: The dreaded topic of too much mouthpiece pressure

Another topic I want to address in this series is mouthpiece pressure. We have all seen the page in the Farkas book where he...

Bad Conventional Wisdom, part 2: Tonguing misconceptions

Returning to the story of 2008 and my teaching and playing, I faced a reality that I did not do what I thought I...

Bad Conventional Wisdom, part 1: Background, and a breathing story

As I shared in a workshop presentation back in 2010, I became a better teacher in 2008. I generated an article for Horn Matters...

Mailbag: How to hold a Concert Mellophone

Getting back to the mailbag, a question came in a while ago on how to hold a traditional, concert mellophone. The short answer is I...

New: 30 Modern Preparatory Etudes and Solos

Stuck in Kopprasch? Tired of the same-old-same-old? Looking for a group of short, contemporary etudes and solo horn works? Just in time to brighten up...

On the topic of “Flow Studies”

I recall a point in my Doctoral studies, I was taking a pedagogy class led by a trumpet player, and he used the term...

Podcast: The Low Horn Session

As part of my ongoing series of podcast “workshop presentations,” we come to the topic of the low horn, always a good one. The...

Looking for positive horn content in a difficult time?

A big tip of the hat to David Cooper, principal horn of the Chicago Symphony. A student of mine at ASU (thanks Jeremy!) pointed...

Workshop presentation: Playing the Wagner Tuba

Continuing the series of short podcasts on topics in the form of workshop presentations, filling a need with all the cancelled workshops this year...