Things Horn Teachers Say: Ineffective Teaching
Derek Wright posted recently on something a teacher (not me!) said to him in a first lesson. The teacher asked him “do you have...
The Provocative Teacher
I don't particularly like to do this, but occasionally I encounter a student that absolutely needs to be poked with a stick. Repeatedly. The...
Technical Materials II: Standard Materials I Teach From
As mentioned in my previous post, in terms of materials I started out as I was taught but over the years began to experiment...
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...
From the Mailbag: A Horn Curriculum
A question came in from a reader who is enrolled in a horn pedagogy class, and I asked if I could answer it...
On Applying for a College Horn Teaching Position
Besides performing, a lot of advanced horn students have dreams of teaching the horn full time at the college level. In The Musician’s Way...
Things Horn Teachers Say: PC on Farkas
I have begun a project that involves closely reading a number of horn method books this summer. While I don’t at this point want...
The Space Between the Notes
Improvement -- a process of subtraction.
Music is the space between the notes.
This well-known quotation attributed to the Impressionist composer Claude Debussy can have many...
Size Matters; Big Horns, Little Hands
From the family archive.
A sister-in-law of mine once played French horn as a child. We like to swap stories now and then about her...
On Mentorship and Recovery from Abuse
This photo and the memories associated with it are among my most prized possessions.
This is Milan Yancich, the man who saved my creative soul....