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Ein Hand-enleben II – Getting the Conductor “Hand”

PUBLISHED: March 17, 2009, Bruce Hembd

Conductors and the Hand – an “old school” technique, continued from Part I. A big factor in the stop-gesture () described yesterday, is the facial expression of the conductor. A smile or blank expression in tandem with the Hand may be interpreted as one thing. Accompanied by a frown or a pained grimace, the Hand [...]

Ein Hand-enleben I – Getting the Conductor “Hand”

PUBLISHED: March 16, 2009, Bruce Hembd

On a common music director’s gesture known as “the hand.” Most wind players are familiar with two well-known quotes from composer (and conductor) Richard Strauss: “never encourage the brass” and “if you can hear the brass and woodwinds, they are too loud.” More often than not, these quotations are interpreted cynically – relating to macho [...]

Columbus Symphony Moving Backwards, at Least for Now

PUBLISHED: November 16, 2008, John Ericson

News on the Columbus Symphony situation has been something I have been following on my own this past year. Their lockout and recent agreement have been reported widely, as has the departure of their music director. This agreement leaves them with a base salary of $42,000. That number made me curious to review and compare their [...]

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Orchestra

Muting in Beethoven

PUBLISHED: November 4, 2008, Bruce Hembd

A gem for woodwind octet with odd mute changes. John Ericson recently wrote a post at the Horn Notes Blog about playing a stopped passage in Gershwin’s American in Paris with mutes. I ran into a similar situation. Beethoven’s Rondino (1792) is written for two oboes, two clarinets, two horns and two bassoons. It was [...]

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Chamber music, Mutes & muting, Orchestra, Stories

An Operatic Horn Resource

PUBLISHED: October 15, 2008, Bruce Hembd

Resources for opera excerpts are scarce.I just found a resource – new to me – for operatic horn excerpts:http://thehorninopera.com/This is a CD (no sheet music) produced by Richard Chenowith that demonstrates the most requested operatic horn excerpts. While many specific symphonic excerpt and part resources are currently available, those for opera are few and far [...]

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Excerpts, Opera, Orchestra

Nashville: A Bright Spot in the Orchestral World

PUBLISHED: August 17, 2008, John Ericson

Last week I joined the Nashville Symphony Facebook fan page and today a post in the Sticks and Drones blog, “Nashville: (Classical) Music City!” also caught my attention. My first full time job was as Third Horn in the Nashville Symphony and my good experience there left me generally more optimistic than some seem to [...]

The Art of Practice, Part II: Long Tones

PUBLISHED: July 30, 2008, Bruce Hembd

The oft-neglected long-tone.   In Part I of this series, I gave an overview of three basic components of the daily practice routine: Long-tones Scales Arpeggios With the students that I teach, without a doubt the most neglected component of their daily practice is long-tones. And this is a bit understandable: without the right mindset, [...]

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