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Practicing the French horn.

On the initial setup of the embouchure, and other thoughts on...

Of my recent publications the warmup book has sold the best (more info on the book here). Teaching this fall a side point came...

Wellness, practice, and how to actually improve

This semester our guest for our horn day was Richard Seraphinoff. One focus was on injury and wellness, and that is a...

How to Practice Maxime-Alphonse Book 6

One book of studies many Horn Matters readers undoubtedly own is Maxime-Alphonse book 6. The etudes, besides being very difficult, are also very long....

More on The Art of (Slow) Practice

Back nearly ten years ago Bruce Hembd posted here a brief series (in two parts) on The Art of Practice: The Art of Practice,...

Rethinking the Warm-up, part 2

Recently I was pointed toward some relatively recent research that indicates that a less strenuous warm-up gets better results. For example, this article from...

Have more than one tuner

Not everyone out there is a fan of tuners. This fall I have been working on a specific warmup routine to improve intonation, and...

Change your tuner, change your life — and warming up to...

There are a number of tuners out there that go beyond the old basic Korg tuner that has been so standard for years. Students...

Developing a daily routine to enhance pitch placement

Last weekend I played a recital using four different horns (more here, all not my normal horn) and on three different mouthpieces (all not...

From the Mailbag: Why so many breath marks in Strauss 1?

We get a variety of questions and this one recently is one that I am sure is wondered often. I have a question that's been...

From the Mailbag: How to Play Solos Better

In the Horn Matters inbox this past week was this brief question: Hi! I'm performing these two pieces for a  exam next week. Any final artistic or...