Thinking about Grad School? Think about your Music Theory Classes Now

Back on 4/14/05 I put up a short post on my original HTML blog about theory classes. As we are in the midst of auditions this post again came to mind, the target audience being younger undergrad horn majors who aspire to make it on the horn. First, the original post and some additional comments [...]

Random Monday: Bigger Better, Getting Rusty and Desert Dreams

Bigger ain’t always better
I suppose just about every brass player at some point goes through a “bigger is better” phase and ends up going a little too far. Isn’t a bigger mouthpiece like lifting weights – it will make me stronger, right?

Dr. Mouthpiece has a few words…

Rusty musicians get a chance
The Baltimore Symphony recently allowed [...]

Trumpet Video: Tre-Méndez

One unique thing we have at the Arizona State University School of Music is the Rafael Méndez Library, in honor of the legendary trumpet soloist, of which the online version may be found here. As is noted there, “The Library was established for the purpose of providing precise and complete information about the life and [...]

Things you can do with a Music Education Degree

One of the things I get to do every year as a full time college professor is produce an “Annual Review,” and one of the categories in the review is “Current Student and Alumni Achievements.” Thinking about those recently I realized that three of my former students from when I taught at the Crane School [...]

Raising the Tribe

Part 4 of 4 in "Symposium Lessons

It is not fun when an organization you are in falls apart. It does happen sometimes. Companies fold. A chamber group breaks up. Workers go on strike.

At the recent Orchestral Musicians Symposium some true horror stories were told. Representatives from the Phoenix, Tucson, Arizona Opera, New Mexico and Spokane orchestras gave updates of their current [...]

Follow the Leader

Part 3 of 4 in "Symposium Lessons

In pop psychology an interesting term comes up – “enabling,” as in do not enable an addict by supporting their habit in any way, shape or form.

Quite frankly, the word has gotten a bad rap – enabling can be a good thing too!

Enabling your leadership to perform well, for instance, can empower not only the [...]

A Cycle of Improvement

Part 2 of 4 in "Symposium Lessons

Many times, less is more.

If you are looking to fix a problem, a plan of action is required. Aggressively attacking a problem without a plan can waste a great deal of time and energy. It can also be disastrous.

Sometimes even in the most thoughtfully planned circumstances we might catch ourselves drifting – a little nudge [...]