Random Monday: Maestro Christie’s Chest, My Way or the Highway and Coming Up This Week

• The drill sergeant teacher
  This comic strip from Scott Meyer called “How to Teach” is both funny and brilliant.  Reading just the text at the top of each panel, Horndog is reminded of a few music teachers that actually use this kind of methodology — tear down a student to break their mold, then fill up the empty vessel with…um…wisdom.

• Alphorn serenade
  The horn tune in the finale of Brahms’s First Symphony was inspired by an alphorn he heard in the hills outside Lucerne, Switzerland. In an 8/18/09 article on the Lucerne Brass Festival, reporter Tom Service mentions its use in both old and new music.

• Silence is golden
  A few weeks back I wrote about silence in music and art and how quiet times give pause for reflection. An 8/31/09 article by Jan Swafford at Slate.com reflects on how a pause in music may be used to a devastating effect.

• Human interest or just too much information?
  I am not sure why this was news, but the morning news gang at the local Fox station last week babbled on about Phoenix Symphony Orchestra Music Director Michael Christie’s hairy chest.

  Once you get past the obligatory commercial, zoom ahead to the 2-minute mark. Horndog wonders if that old saying is true about any publicity being good publicity.

• Exercise for a life of music making
  In a story from the The Times-Picayune, Lousiana Philharmonic Orchestra principal horn Mollie Pate sets a fine example for fitness. Ms. Pate is in her 13th year with the LPO and is also in her third year as a sprint triathlete.

• Memoirs from a Holton supervisor
  I have never owned a Holton/Selmer brand horn — Farkas or otherwise — but I have taught plenty of students that played on them. In most cases, the valves were in poor shape and made a horrible racket. Slides too, would come loose on occasion. I had one student whose middle B-flat slide was so loose that in loud fortissimo passages it would fall out and crash to the floor.

  Contrast this with a time when I was a young horn student in Indiana in the 1970′s. A Holton/Farkas horn was a highly desired commodity. Professional players used them.

  What began as a reputable brand name that represented quality and innovation has really slipped over the years. Most recently, the Elkhorn plant is being shut down.

  This solitary post by Wes Hatch discovered on the horn-list discussion group last week sheds a little light on perhaps why.

• Big thanks
  Your comments of support for Horn Matters site are greatly appreciated. As with anything new and outside-the-box, there is an element of risk (and a little anxiety) involved. The response and interest has been very positive and this helps to give us the inspiration to continue forward.

  There are still some bugs to work out and we are still optimizing the site. If you spot a boo-boo, please let us know.

• This Week from Horndog
  Questions emailed to Horndog directly will be a serialized Q&A topic — “Questions from the Mailbag.”

For other items of current interest in music and the arts, be sure to check out the Horndog Recommended Reading page. It is updated almost daily.