Doug Hill Visits ASU

Yesterday Douglas Hill was at ASU for a day of master classes and sessions. We had a good crowd with over twenty area hornists joining the ASU horn studio for the sessions, including students from NAU and U of A.

Many different things could be carried away from the day. For me personally it was extremely enjoyable to host Prof. Hill and I look forward to seeing him again.

I worked with many different teachers over the years but never studied with Prof. Hill. I met him, heard him present a master class, and shared a recital with him a few years ago at the Midwest regional horn workshop in Indianapolis, but really I mostly know him through his writings. The two most significant thoughts from the day for me are:

1. Douglas Hill is an extremely experienced teacher, having been at the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 1974. I knew that he was experienced from his writings and successes as a teacher but all master classes and presentations are not created equal. He had a lot of great points and really cut to the heart of things quickly.

2. His writings reflect accurately his teaching. Which is not news to those who know Prof. Hill but this is also something I have noted, not all teachers in person line up well with what they wrote.

His publication that seemed to generate the most interest in terms of purchases was Warm-ups and Maintenance Sessions for the Horn Player, a publication I have mentioned in this blog previously. This and quite a few other recent titles by Prof. Hill are available from Really Good Music LLC.