Napoleanic Conductors

With graduation today at Arizona State University the big news is President Obama giving the commencement address outdoors at Sun Devil stadium in near 100 degree weather! But for me professionally the big event will be the fine arts convocation on Thursday, as an era will formally end and a new one begins. Professor Gail [...]

A classic bit of hilarity from the Clown Prince of Denmark. I nearly spewed coffee out my nose while watching this video of Victor Borge in his early days. There are so many rapid-fire puns and double-entendres that I had to watch it 2-3 times to get them all. The comment sections at YouTube revealed [...]

An experiment, a Jaded Clam and some conclusions – continued from Part I. One month ago I installed a unique tracking device on the old Horndog blog as an experiment. It tracked users’ mouse events — including whenever text or images are highlighted and/or copied. For 4 weeks, it collected data. The results were surprising [...]

Several works call for muted Wagner tuba, particularly by Strauss and Schoenberg. A horn mute will not work and really mutes for any other brass instrument won’t work. They traditionally have been very nearly custom made for a particular set of instruments. If you need one in a pinch what will you do? Last year [...]

Mondays — a good time to reflect. For giggles I have joined the new San Francisco Symphony Social Network. It is almost identical to the Facebook interface. I am hoping that it will in time prove to be a music-centric place of exchanging ideas and inspiration.Principal hornist Robert Ward is being featured in an “Ask [...]

A few days ago there was a tip posted on the horn list that Jasper Rees, the author of A Devil to Play (previously released in the UK as I Found My Horn) would be appearing on NPR this weekend. He wrote: I thought I’d alert you to an interview I’ve done with the NPR [...]