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This past weekend I was honored to be featured for the monthly Horn Camp Connect session of the Kendall Betts Horn Camp. The video is below, and my portion begins just over one hour in. It starts with a presentation on “conventional wisdom” and five specific areas where it might be holding you back, and ends with an extended question and answer session.
I think the series of online events they created has been one of the best and most valuable contributions to the Zoom era of horn teaching. Besides the helpful and upbeat content, I like a lot that it is meant to be seen live. Not to knock the recent horn workshops, but personally I connect much better with a live event than an event that is largely constructed from recordings.
The Year of Zoom
Tomorrow — March 16 — is also an important date to me specifically as in 2020 this was my first day of Zoom teaching. The memory of the first two lessons will be long etched in my memory, it was really a challenge.
And I suspect it is still a big challenge, even if we have better microphones and are used to it. I did a quick Twitter survey, not scientific by any means, but it confirmed that the level of Zoom fatigue is really high. The sooner we get off Zoom the better.
I have noticed some specific trends and issues that players should be aware of, also touched on in the Q&A in the Horn Camp Connect session. The big two are dynamics and articulations. Practicing in unfavorable spaces with no ensemble rehearsals has really disrupted things. We can adjust and overcome!
Better Days to Come
Another question that came up in the session was what I thought the future would look like for music and horn. I tend to be an optimist that there is a pent up demand for music. Of course, the worry is that people won’t come back to horn playing, that they have become used to not playing. But I am still optimistic that the year of Zoom might instead enhance the newly visceral experience of playing music and to listening to music live in a room. It is fundamentally different than listening to a recording or practicing alone, and gives me hope that better days will come.
