Thursday, January 24, 2008

Clapping between movements?

Here's an article in the New York Times that reminds us that the notion of no applause between movements does not extend back through the annals of history.

Not only was it common for audiences to clap between movements (gasp) but even during the music.

Here's the article.


Monday, January 21, 2008

Lip Slur Errata

I have a "comment copy" of my lip slur book. Whenever I find something that is a mistake, I scribble the page number on the front cover.

It occurred to me that, if I lose that book, I'll lose all those notes.
Soooooooo...

Here are mistakes/corrections in the book as I've noticed them thus far:
p.18 #26, the 7th position mark should be placed at the beginning of the bar and, one line 2 the sharp 5th valve indication should be over the A, not the D
p.58 #38b. the 3/2 measures...not sure what I was thinking here. Best to leave them out, they don't serve a purpose, really
p.60 #39 a. 4th line. 6th position is a better choice than 4th for the last rip to a high F
p.65 #2a. 2nd line should be mezzo forte
p.76 #12 5th line should have a decrescendo following the forte, not a crescendo

Friday, January 18, 2008

Bass Trombone Heaven!

I'm thrilled to announce that we'll have two fantastic bass trombonists coming this Spring.

Matt Guilford
, bass trombonist of the National Symphony Orchestra will be giving a master class on Wed. Feb. 13th from 1:15-2:30 in the School of Music Recital Hall.

George Curran, bass trombonist of the Atlanta Symphony will be giving a master class and recital on Mon. Mar 17th. Master class will be in room 006 from 1:25-2:15. The recital will be in the recital hall at 6pm.

Blogworthy Music Links

This from a former student, Will Timmons:

Werning Icking Music Archive

(a bunch of material you can download free)

This (I think) from current student Alex Manley:

New York Philharmonic broadcasts on the web.

This is one I often go to get those pesky composer dates:

Composers Classical Music

enjoy

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

doo-doo Bolero

OK, this one's obvious, maybe, but still useful.

In a recent lesson, a student's Bolero didn't have good time. I took a deep breath and stood next to him saying, "doo-doo-doo-doo-doo..." in 16th notes.

Like this:





Hey, it worked. Even on the next run-through when all he had was the memory of my "doo-doo's"

Reminds me of Tony Chipurn, who always told me to play Bolero with "lazy 16th notes."

He was right on the money as always.

After all this time, you're posting about WHAT??

Everybody needs a hobby.

I don't collect baseball cards or build ships in a bottle. I do, however seem to have an unnatural obsession with warm-up routines.

I guess it is like trying to play the perfect game of golf. I enjoy tweaking and tweaking, trying to find the perfect compact little routine.

And so (ta-da!) here is my latest effort, the Daily Building Block Routine.

Inevitably, I use it for a while and then find ways to improve it and move on.

Oh well, at least this new routine doesn't really violate that whole daily routine menu that I posted last Fall.

If you're interested, you can download the whole thing and give it a spin.

Now that I've gotten this out of my system, maybe I'll start blogging again!

Oh yeah, I've got to figure another BoneWeek fanfare.