The world-renowned American Brass Quintet will be holding a mini-residency at Brigham Young University November 11-13, 2008. For a YouTube promotional video of the group, visit here. All events are open to the public. The full residency schedule is as follows: •November…
Month: August 2008
The Comeback Trombonist
The Comeback Trombonist As a trombone teacher at BYU, I work regularly—3 or 4 times a year—with players who have just taken 2 years away from their horn (for their LDS missions) and are returning to playing. After helping numerous…
Questions for Chamber Ensembles
As coordinator of brass chamber music at BYU, I require that the groups I oversee rehearse at least one hour a week without a chamber coach. I have found that these ensembles seem to get significantly more done when they…
Brass Intonation Review
Due to the nature of the trombone (the slide), we have the unique ability to adjust pitch to almost any degree without sacrificing tone. Thus the trombone has the potential to be the most in-tune instrument in the band and…
Solo Performance Etiquette
Below is a handout I put together when I started teaching college and realized I should probably be helping students a little with some of the nonmusical aspects of recitals that sometimes go unsaid. Almost everything on the list results…
Section Etiquette & Professionalism
Professional etiquette is one of those subjects that, to a certain extent, people just pick up along the way. Below are a few bits of advice from my own experience that might help jump-start the process and save some grief….
Top 20 Tenor Trombone Excerpts
Below is a list of the 20 most-requested tenor trombone orchestral excerpts from a tally of audition announcements of 18 major orchestras. I use the list regularly in teaching excerpts to undergraduate trombone majors and consider it a kind of…