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I’ve been thinking a lot about what it is to be a truly professional teacher and player, vs a part-timer, student, amateur, or somewhere else on the spectrum between casual enthusiast and top tier practitioner. In the book “War of Art,” Steven Pressfield talks about the difference between professional and amateur ‘weekend warriors’ at length.…

A very short blurb about trumpet technique. One problem I think I hear a lot from young players is a timing issue between air, pulse, and fingers. All three. And it is an easy fix: be patient. Be patient on the note changes. Wait until the very last moment to move your air, your buttons,…

Here’s a question. Do you think that anyone purposefully plays out of time? What about out of tune? This question has been bothering me a lot lately. When two sets of intervals are played, one in tune and one out of tune, we know which one is which. We know what intonation sounds like. Similarly,…

I love cheese. (A little too often,) I can sit down and finish an entire block without realizing it. I’ve been thinking a lot about cheese lately. As cheese is to a mouse, what is our cheese as musicians? I had the great pleasure of working with Mireia Farrés over the course of a week…

Trumpetverse! I’ve got two exciting bits of news for you. Whitney George Consortium First, I am honored and excited to spearhead a consortium to bring to life a new piece by the amazing Whitney George. We ran a consortium from June through July, and it was a runaway success (thank you to all who participated).…

This is a risky post, but it is a subject that has come up repeatedly over the last couple of months. Let’s imagine that a professor of a student who applied to this person’s studio reached out, a person I do not know, and that I am not associated with in any way (surprisingly, as…

One problem I see increasingly prevalent in higher education is a decline in teaching musical literacy. I began to realize this problem back in my time as a graduate student, one day in a cold February, sitting in a wind ensemble dress rehearsal as we hacked through Michael Colgrass’s Winds of Nagual. It’s an amazing…

I have seen an increasing number of musician Instagram accounts that espouse a “holistic” approach to musicianship. The party line is related to practices like yoga, meditation, and how work/life balance will benefit a career or are ingredients for some form of musical growth. Today, I would like to break this argument apart a bit…