An exploration of wellness in horn performance
The world has been turned upside down with the emergence of COVID-19 and of course, it has had an incredible impact on our lifestyle as musicians. I have been “quarantined” for the past month and thought that I would share some ideas on what has helped me and my students adapt to the challenges of […]
Do you have an upcoming audition or performance in a location that is considered high altitude? Have you ever noticed that playing in the mountains is different from performing at sea level? Do you dream of playing an alphorn in the Swiss Alps? Three years ago, I moved to Colorado from Wisconsin to begin a […]
The topic of the right-hand position is a notoriously controversial discussion for horn players and most of us have our own “school of thought” on how to utilize the right hand while playing the horn. I have had the wonderful pleasure of working with a variety of students from ages 8-70 and I have noticed […]
I often see discussions on horn related websites about where to locate resources regarding the history of the horn. Most individuals are directed to The French Horn by Reginald Morley-Pegge, The Horn by Barry Tuckwell, or online resources like Oxford Online’s New Grove Dictionary for Music and Musicians. While these are great resources, they can be difficult to locate […]
Every career tends to have its own form of occupational hazards. For musicians, the damage to our bodies can often sneak up on us over time and it isn’t silent. A research study published in 2013 stresses the prevalence of noise-induced hearing loss in horn players. While we are often aware of the dangers of […]
As musicians, we have all experienced moments in our practice where there is an immense amount of growth and joy in our practice sessions. Conversely, I am sure that we have also all experienced moments in our careers where practicing becomes a chore. What causes these two conflicting states of growth and how do we […]
Intonation can be a complicated subject to teach. Some students have the inherent ability to play in tune and others find this to be much more challenging. So, how do we go about teaching intonation? There are two fantastic resources that I have found to be immensely helpful in thinking about intonation as a subject […]
Welcome back, readers! I have finally finished course work and comprehensive exams for my doctorate, so you should be seeing many more blog posts in the near future! To dive back into this blog, I want to take a look at the scientific approaches to learning and their relation to music education. At the beginning […]
Summer 2017 This has truly been a special summer and I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to work with the incredibly talented students at Interlochen! As I began reflecting on what makes these students so incredible, I realized that there is so much that we can learn both as educators and performers […]
Rewiring the brain by using a technique called neuroplasticity has become a buzz word around the recovery of musicians with Focal Dystonia. I became interested in studying the effects of this concept in relation to learning in music education after hearing, researching, and experiencing firsthand the power of neuroplasticity. What is Neuroplasticity? To put it […]