Random Monday: Strike Aftermath, Horn Quality and Tokyo Police

A screen capture from a film on Beethoven. The entire clip is embedded under Random Videos.

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Conn-Selmer strike resolved?
The union strike at the Conn-Selmer plant is over, but in this observer’s eyes the conflict is far from over.

During the strike’s early stages, nearly 70 of the 238 workers crossed the picket line. The number grew to nearly 100 in the days prior to a deal being reached, both sides say. Conn-Selmer also hired about 100 workers to replace the strikers during the interim.

(More.)

This does bring up question of “how will this impact the quality of instruments currently being manufactured at the Conn plant?”

Survey on horns
Speaking of quality, a new Horn Matters survey was launched last week – “What Brand Names Do You Trust? ”

If you have not taken it yet, please do!

It will take about one minute to complete and the live results may be seen directly after taking the survey. As with the previous survey “Who’s Who in Your Horn Universe?”, the data will be compiled into a PDF report when the survey is closed at the end of this week.

Farewell to Shared Reading
A page of bookmarks at Horn Matters will be deleted soon, the Recommended Reading page. Google in its attempt to push people towards their new social media platform Google+, has decided to remove the sharing feature that supports this page.

C’est la vie.

Philips Meyers in concert
The New York Philharmonic is generously offering a free audio broadcast of a recent concert that features their principal hornist in an all Strauss program: the Alpine Symphony, Till Eulenspiegel and the Horn Concerto No. 1.

The broadcast is only available until November 18th, so listen to it now!

As a side note, I wonder if über-critic Allan Kozzin was there?

A dubious 20th anniversary
And speaking of critics – I once read Norman Lebrecht’s lurid tome “The Maestro Myth” and I completely agree with this recent opinion from The Horn.

This month marks the 20th anniversary of Norman Lebrecht’s controversial and highly tendentious book ”The Maestro Myth” , which purports to be an expose of the conducting profession. However, Lebrecht, who might be called the Glenn Beck of classical music journalism, does nothing in this deplorable book but create myths of his own, instead of debunking them.

The British writer is always attempting to stir up controversy in the classical music world with his sensationalistic screeds , which attack this or that famous conductor or other musicians and powerful administrators, but unfortunately, his concern for factual accuracy is at best questionable. The Maestro Myth paints a sordid picture of glamorous world famous conductors such as the late Herbert von Karajan as ruthless power-hungry money grubbers and egotistical tyrants.

(More.)

Practice tips
At the Music Collective - a nice list of practice tips that addresses practice scheduling, how to start on a new piece, how to work on difficult passages and how to know if you are improving.

Random videos

Fast forward to the 3:00 minute mark to hear Ludwig himself command with tempestuous authority -”Horns!!”

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A one man band of two tenor horns, tuba and percussion. Video embedding is disabled, so go here to see the fun.

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Danila Galuza, 8 years old, plays his French horn.

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It’s all in the eyebrows.

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Sarah lost her make-up bag in Tokyo Subway Police. The audio is a bit loud so be prepared to tweak the volume.

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