Home > Articles by: Bruce Hembd

Articles by Bruce Hembd

Indexed in reverse chronological order.

Random Monday: On Display, Shocking News, a New Kid in the Block and Nerds Who Play French Horn

PUBLISHED: July 20, 2009, Bruce Hembd

Time to pause and navel-gaze. On display A web site project from last year — Esyst.org — was recently translated into a large booth display. It came out very nice! [Click on the image for a larger view.] This project had a very simple mission — a top-down approach to technology education — that inspired [...]

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Phoenix

Hacked Horn; An Electronics Experiment

PUBLISHED: July 17, 2009, Bruce Hembd

21st and 19th century merge. I am not exactly sure what this is but you can judge for yourself. Is it more science than art? Was the process of constructing this performance more valid and interesting than the actual performance? Aural Spans Performance from Michael Gjurich on Vimeo.

In the Horn Shop with Masters at Horn Craft

PUBLISHED: July 16, 2009, Bruce Hembd

A look behind-the-scenes. If I were to pick an different career for a different lifetime I would strongly consider brass instrument manufacturing and repair. The process is fascinating to me — it would be a labor of love. I once smashed a horn and thought for sure that it was beyond repair. A chair I [...]

Two Embouchures

PUBLISHED: July 15, 2009, Bruce Hembd

Random comparison. While watching the old Anvil Films movie of Dennis Brain playing the Beethoven Op. 17, something seemed a bit familiar. While the angles of the mouthpiece are different, the slight folding over of the top lip onto the mouthpiece is similar. It is difficult draw any conclusions — the pictures are blurry — [...]

Mr. Kopprash, Most Revered, Respected and Holy

PUBLISHED: July 14, 2009, Bruce Hembd

Last week, I posted a picture on Facebook sent to me from Tina Barkan. It was a snapshot of a humorous T-shirt from the Barry Tuckwell Institute. Of course this T-shirt is presumed to be just a good-humored joke. On Facebook it elicited some interesting reactions. Every instrument has a didactic method book like the [...]

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Etudes & methods, Photoshop

Random Monday: Growing Up, Artificial Lips, Jumbotrons and a Difficult Mistress

PUBLISHED: July 13, 2009, Bruce Hembd

Reflections on the week that has passed. Artificial Lip Mouthpiece From Will Kimball’s blog comes this oddity. “No embouchure required!” claims the advertisement. It appears to incorporate some kind of artificial, rubber lip that somehow is supposed to do the buzzing. Like Lauren Bacall once said to Humphrey Bogart, “just pucker your lips and blow” [...]

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Narcissism: The Fuel that Drives Web 2.0 (II)

PUBLISHED: July 10, 2009, Bruce Hembd

While it is believable that inherent narcissism may be inflamed by social networking, it is difficult to believe that something as fundamental as a void in empathy can be fostered or born from something so fleeting and trivial as online social networking. Narcissism is an inherent character flaw. And it is something formed in early [...]

John Ericson & Bruce Hembd
on the French horn, brass related topics, and the field of classical music.