Monthly Archives: May 2009

Traveling

Posted on by

I’m on my way to the International Horn Symposium by car so I have several nights in hotels on my way. I’ve never used a practice mute before. I borrowed one (Yamaha silent brass mute without the electronics) and used it for the first time two days ago. It was weird. Very, very weird. The first thing – how to hold the horn. The mute takes up all the space in the bell. No room for a hand. This is pretty obvious but it didn’t occur to me until I stuck the mute into the bell. I tried holding on to the end of the mute, holding the edge of the bell, shoving my elbow against the mute – nothing really worked.

The second thing – really bad posture which is a consequence of the the hand problem. I found myself fairly hunched over once I found a somewhat comfortable place for my right hand.

Then there’s the sound or lack thereof. I was surprised how quiet the mute makes the horn. It’s hard to describe the sound. It’s not just softer, it’s got kind of an edge to it. I also found that if I wasn’t careful, I would play a ‘wa-wa’ sound similar to a trumpet with that kind of mute. I practiced for about a half hour  – mostly slurs and scales – and that was about all I could stand. Trying to play real music just didn’t work for me.

Yesterday the horn gods were looking favorably on me. I was originally planning to stop in Columbus, Ohio but when I got there I wasn’t very tired and I decided to push on. I went a little past Dayton and saw one of those exits with a bunch of hotels listed. One was a Hampton Inn and I like those so I decided to head there. I followed the signs and thought I had gotten lost. I had to follow this long, winding road (remember this is by an Interstate exit) up a hill. I had past the other hotels on the highway sign before following this road. I finally got to the hotel and at first I thought it wasn’t open. There was only one car in the parking lot. I checked in and asked how full the hotel was. Only 10 registered guests (Hmm – I wonder why?) I explained that I wanted to practice my horn and asked the desk clerk if she could put me far away from the other guests. “Yes – I can put you on the noisy side of the hotel by the highway. All the others are on the ‘quiet’ side.”  Two hours of practice – yes!

International Horn Symposium Day 1 –>

Quick endurance update

Posted on by

Several day ago I posted about how my endurance (see Endurance) has improved. I did an experiment where I added a third practice session in one day which added half an hour to my usual two hours a day.  I was hoping that the next day would be good and not show any ill effects from the extra practice the day before.

I can say that this was a success. I did not have any issues on the next day that I could blame on too much practice the day before. In fact, my chops were a lot less stiff than they usually are at the beginning of the day. I haven’t played for more than two hours each day since then but that’s because I’ve been busy, not because I thought I couldn’t do it. It’s quite a relief not to have to worry so much about playing in the morning when something  else – duets, band rehearsal, lessons, whatever –  is going to happen later in the day.

Traveling –>

Endurance

Posted on by

I’ve managed to get 2 hours of practice in almost every day since late January when I changed my practice routine from playing straight for 45 minutes and killing my chops to a play for 20 minutes then rest for 20 minutes then play then rest etc. schedule with a four to five hour break between my first hour of playing and my second. I am starting to see some real improvement from a few months ago both in my playing in general and especially with endurance.

I’ve been really busy for the past several weeks so I started to skip the 20 minute breaks for my afternoon practice session and just go straight through the hour. I discovered that I had no problem playing for that length of time and it didn’t seem to effect how I played the next day. Then about a week ago I decided to try going straight through the first hour also and I didn’t have any problem with that either. I haven’t seen any detrimental effect to the afternoon session.

The only time I still rest during the morning practice session is after the first Singer exercise – half note, half rest, half note, half rest, whole note, whole rest starting at F in the staff and going up to G above the staff – if I do it. At the end of this exercise Singer actually says ‘rest’ so I follow the instructions and take a 20 minute rest.

The other thing I have noticed is that if I don’t get two hours of practice in every day I play significantly worse the next day. When I first realized that this was happening I was surprised because for most other activities rest usually improves things. But I’ve noticed this consistently now and I can pretty much guarantee a bad day if I miss my second hour of practice the day before. I have not tried taking a whole day off and then seeing what happens with my playing. What will be really interesting is to see what effect the layoff on my way to IHS in Macomb (I’m driving from Long Island, NY) has on my playing. I’m hoping that several days off will have a beneficial effect. I expect to get plenty of playing in once I arrive. I am bringing a practice mute but I doubt that I will want to practice instead of moving on toward my destination.

This evening I decided to try an experiment and see if I could play for another half hour. I already did an hour in the morning followed by 3 hrs rest and then an hour in the afternoon. I added the half hour after another 3 hour rest. I think I played similarly to how I played earlier today. I did notice that arpeggios got a lot easier. On the other hand, tongued notes were not as crisp.  I didn’t feel as though I was playing on my teeth which is how I feel if I am overdoing it. Range and tone were okay. 

I’ll have a good idea about the outcome of my experiment tomorrow. If I can get in an hour of practice in the morning and survive band rehearsal in the evening then I will call my experiment a success.

Quick endurance update –>

A really good lesson

Posted on by

Finally. I actually managed to play close to how I play when I practice by myself in front of Lynn, my teacher. It’s been a long time coming. Usually I’m just nervous enough to screw up, in some way or another, almost every passage I play during a lesson. That’s followed by my statement, “I usually don’t play this quite this badly”.

At the beginning of the lesson I didn’t do a good job with the arpeggios starting on middle C. I don’t typically have much trouble with these (my opinion, not necessarily Lynn’s) and I was thinking that maybe this lesson wasn’t going to go so well. Fortunately things improved a lot. Again, my opinion but at least I was happy.

We started working on arpeggios that start at low C with the goal of getting to third space C with an embouchure shift from low to high somewhere around middle C. I can do this from high to low pretty easily but not from low to high yet. Occasionally I can do this without the embouchure shift but the tone is bad. I got some really good instructions about how to go about working on this shift. I don’t worry too much about how I play when the lesson is on new stuff. I’m just happy that I understand and remember  (I forgot to take notes) what I need to do.

Next up was the Singer #4 exercise. (See A lesson in basics for a description of this and the Kopprash exercise.) This went well and I started to think that maybe this would be a good day after all. The Singer #4 exercise is not one that I beat myself up over if I don’t play it all that well. I’m still learning to do it right so I’m happy with any improvement. 

Kopprash #2 followed the Singer exercise. This exercise went really well. In fact, Lynn said it was the best she had heard me play it. She was right. It was the best I’d ever played it. Now that hardly ever happens at a lesson. 

Time for Kopprash #19. This is basically an articulation exercise – all 16th notes, some slurred, some stacatto. We’ve been working on my stacatto tonguing for at least a month, maybe two, and it’s been slowly getting better but even this was good today. My assignment for next week is to pick up the tempo.  

Onward to Mozart 3, 1st movement and then Strauss 1. There are several passages in both pieces that we’ve been working on. I messed up the rhythm a bit (actually you can’t really mess up the rhythm ‘a bit.’ It’s either right or it’s not) but I got the notes. I’ve had plenty of lessons where I miss more notes than I make so it’s a really good thing if we are only working on the rhythm. By this point I have concluded that I’m having a very good day. I don’t really know why but I’m not complaining.

We finished up the lesson playing some Brahms duets. Even these went well. I remember when I used to get lost or play a wrong note and stop every few measures. I probably stopped once or twice but I played better than I have in the past. So, as I wrote at the beginning, finally a good lesson.

This is a picture of my dachshund Frankie’s butt, taken today, as he hides under a chair during my afternoon practice session. He also passes gas at every lesson.    

What my dachshund thinks of my playing.

What my dachshund thinks of my playing.

Endurance –>

International Horn Symposium

Posted on by

I’ll be attending the International Horn Symposium in Macomb, IL early next month. This will be my first symposium and it will be a fantastic learning experience for me. I’m really looking forward to going.

Their website says: Study horn playing with guest artists and distinguished horn teachers.

  • Enjoy directed playing experiences in classes, clinics, and horn choirs
  • Visit exhibitors to discuss horn study and playing
  • Compete in solo performance, orchestral playing, horn ensembles and jazz solo performance
  • Participate in clinics on specialized topics of technique, literature, and performance
  • Experience outstanding performances and presentations by guest artists and contributing artists of solo and chamber music for the horn

Wow. 

If any of you are planning to attend and would like to meet at the symposium please leave a comment and I’ll come up with a plan.

A really good lesson –>

Gizmos

Posted on by

Even though I know better, I keep trying out things that I hope will instantaneously turn me into the world’s greatest horn player. The two latest gadgets that I am trying out are the Dennis Wick Horn Booster and the AcoustiCoil.

The Denis Wick horn mouthpiece booster is said to, among other things, add more mass to the mouthpiece to help with projection, provide better control at louder dynamics, and better centering of pitch. Oh I wish this was true. I have tried it on and off for the past three months or so. I keep hoping that it will help but I really can’t tell much of a difference other than it makes certain notes buzz. Because of this buzzing I would use it for around a half and hour and then take it off and then try it again later in the day or the next day. I’m not 100% sure that it fits my mouthpiece correctly but I’m using a B12 Moosewood cup and that’s pretty standard.   

The AcoustiCoil is supposed to enhance everything – per their website: articulation, endurance, dynamics, intensity, intonation and range – yup, pretty much everything. Rather than my paraphrasing what their website says, please just check it out. If nothing else, it’s an interesting premise to read about. I have had slightly better results with this than with the Denis Wick Horn Booster.

The first time I used it I went straight to band rehearsal. I immediately noticed better articulation. In fact, I probably played the band music as well as I had ever played it at this rehearsal. I practiced with it in my horn for a few days but as the time passed I noticed less and less improvement – in other words, I played the way I always play. I would then take it out of the horn and it would seem that I played better without it but again eventually I would drift back to my typical capability. I’ve had it in my horn for two or three week stretches because I forget that I have it in. During those stretches I’ve had great days and horrible days. So the jury is out with this gadget. 

Of course (here comes the disclaimer) the results that I have obtained are exclusively mine. I’m not saying that these gizmos don’t work, they just didn’t work very well for me. It’s entirely possible that both these devices would work better for someone who plays better than I do. Most likely the expected changes are subtle and would more likely be noticed by an experienced player. Although I will always be a sucker for the latest gizmo, the real deal is that I will just have to keep on practicing.

International Horn Symposium –>

Two teachers

Posted on by

A few days ago I posted (A lesson in basics) about my grueling lesson with Scott Bacon who I take lessons from monthly. Thursday I had my weekly lesson with Lynn. I reviewed my lesson with Scott pointing out the specific things I wanted Lynn to watch for. In general I work on very, very specific exercises with Scott along with one piece of music that Lynn and I are working on if there is time. In my lessons with Lynn we go over the exercises I work on for Scott and then spend a lot more time on music. 

Lynn and I started with the low arpeggios that I always warm-up on. Low C – middle C – G – middle C – back to G and then down to C. This is the exercise that Scott stopped me about half way thru and said that I was closing my throat. It’s described in a bit more detail in A lesson and practicing. I worked on it a lot between Monday and Thursday and Lynn watched me carefully as I progressed up to third space C and back. She didn’t see me close my throat (phew) as I got higher but she did say that I am working too hard. I wasn’t really sure how to work less hard but I got it during the next exercise. 

After the arpeggios we worked on Singer exercise #4. The goal is to play the four note slurs (G-A-B-C; then A-B-C-D, etc.) as smoothly and evenly as possible. We spent some time doing this sequence on the mouthpiece only. This got me to relax, not work so hard (I got it), and just blow a nice even airstream. As you go up in the scale more air is needed but the volume and the smoothness has to remain the same. The exercise went much, much better back on the horn. 

Here’s the big advantage of working with two teachers. Scott talked about what he wanted me to accomplish from the exercise. I played the exercise over and over at Scott’s and eventually I got to ‘very good’ and ‘that’s what I’m looking for’ comments from Scott. The problem for me was that I really didn’t know exactly what I did to get to ‘very good.’ I could hear that I was playing the exercise much better. I know the goal but getting to the goal, not so much. 

Lynn provided the tools that got me to play the exercise correctly consistently. The same thing was true with Kopprash #2. Scott told me what he was looking for (this was my third lesson on Kopprach #2). 1 – enough air to get thru the phrase; 2 – legato tonguing; 3 – impeccable rhythm; 4 – very controlled dynamics starting from pppp and getting to ffff, as loud as I can possibly play, at the exact places in the music where the crescendo starts and stops. I never got even close to a ‘very good’ at Scott’s. Lynn had me start at the last three notes and play them as loud as I could. Then we went backwards. This way I learned how loud I needed to get and how much air it took to play those notes, my two biggest problems with this exercise. 

Scott also has techniques that helps me with the music I’m working on with Lynn. For example, (and this is just one of many) he taught me to set the metronome at double time to work with my rhythm issues. One interesting note about the metronome. Lynn and I discovered Thursday that once I learn the rhythm with the metronome, I actually play more spot on with the metronome off than with it on and I feel like I play a whole lot more musically. I would never have realized this at Scott’s since the metronome is never off. (Ugh.)

Fortunately for me, Scott and Lynn were able to meet each other and spend a bit of time talking at the Southeast Horn Workshop. It’s nice to know that when I say ‘Scott said this’ or Lynn said that’ at a lesson that we all know each other. It’s also good that inevitably if I say ‘Scott said this’ or Lynn said that’ that the response is always, ‘good.’ This two teacher thing would never work if I was getting conflicting advice. I think I’m learning a lot faster by having both teachers and I’m very happy that, so far, this is working well for me.

Gizmos –>

A lesson in basics

Posted on by

You’d think that after a year I’d be past needing a lesson in the most basic parts of horn playing. Alas, such is not the case. Yesterday I had my monthly lesson with Scott Bacon and it was illuminating to say the least. I was there for about three hours and we covered some warm-up exercises, Singer exercise #4 and Kopprash exercise #2. 

Between my lesson last month and yesterday, unbeknownst to me, I’ve adopted some bad habits. I started my lesson with the low slurs that I do to warm-up.  These start on the C below middle C and go C – up to G – back to C then C – G – up to middle C – and back and so on up to hopefully, for me, third space C. Well, I got to C – G – C – E – C – G – C and Scott stopped me. I was closing my throat to force myself to get to the higher notes. I wasn’t using air properly. We went back to just the first C – G – C so I could understand what my throat feels like doing it right and then continued on. Eventually I did it correctly.

It’s hard to describe what this sounds like when it’s wrong but it’s sort of like a huff into the higher note instead of a smooth slur. I was not doing this last month and I didn’t realize that I had started doing this until he pointed it out. Lynn, my weekly teacher, noticed last week that I was doing this a bit on the highest notes when starting arpeggios on middle C but I hadn’t realized that I was doing it on the low slurs.  Because I warm-up on my low slurs before my lessons with Lynn begin, she wouldn’t have noticed the problem on the low stuff. 

Scott and I then moved on to exercise #4 in the Singer book. This seems like a very straight forward exercise. Start on G on the staff and slur quarter notes (quarter note = 60) up from G to A to B to C, repeat and then smoothly drop from C to A and go from A to B to C to D, repeat, drop back to B and go to E and continue this pattern all the way up to high C if possible. To do this exercise correctly, the notes need to be dead on with the metronome, even in volume, rich in tone, with seamless transitions from note to note. Breaths need to be planned so they don’t happen during the four note slur. For me, this whole exercise is hard. Really hard. What’s worse is that Scott will say, “do it again, do it again, do it again” for what seems like endless attempts. Then he’ll say, “yes, that’s better” and even an occasional “very good’ and I can’t always tell what it is that I have done to get there. 

Somewhere in the middle of this exercise he stopped me, asked me to stand up, and we worked on posture. Another area where I didn’t realize I had a problem. He stood me in front of a mirror, had me balance properly and hold the horn differently that I had been. In particular he wanted the lead pipe in line with my sternum and tilted down a bit more than I was doing. Then, while I’m standing there, we started on this exercise again. I did it over and over as he repositioned my body. Well, amazingly enough, it got easier and easier to do it right. This was a real eye-opener for me. The changes in my posture were subtle and they made a really big difference. The next challenge was to take this new posture and make it work sitting down. We went through the same playing and positioning routine and I got to the point where I could play the exercise while seamlessly changing from bell on the knee, off the knee and standing. I hope that I can remember enough to continue doing this right. This would have been a great time to have a video camera, or at least a recorder, at a lesson.

What can I say about Kopprash #2. Sigh. Scott expects the same diligence (rightfully so) with this exercise as he does with the Singer exercise. Add to that musical phrasing. Rhythm must be impeccable. Missing a few notes here and there is not the issue. It’s putting the whole package together – rhythm, phrasing, precise dynamics, breathing – that’s important. He has me play 16th notes for each quarter note to try to get the precision he is looking for. I think we spent at least a half an hour just on the first phrase – 4 measures. My assignment for next month is to just get this phrase and the next phrase of 4 measures as close to perfect as I can. 

I also talked to Scott about the intonation of my horn. If you’ve been reading some of my posts you know that I find the horn to play sharp, especially third space C. Well, Scott played my horn a bit while I had the tuner on and, of course, he played in tune. He made some adjustments of the tuning slides and then I tried the horn again. Murphy’s law kicked in here and I couldn’t play that darn C out of tune. Problem solved? Hardly. I got home and tried the horn and the C was as sharp as ever. I’m not talking just a tad sharp, it’s halfway on the tuner to C#. Easily hearable to anyone who has any kind of ear. 

If I’ve learned anything from this ego-bashing experience, it’s that it is just not possible to learn to play this beast of an instrument decently without a teacher. I was developing new bad habits even after playing for a year. Heck, I’ve got two teachers and I still developed these bad habits.

I know the notes. It’s all that goes into the notes to make music that requires a teacher. I would never have discovered the posture issue. I would always be sloppy with rhythm. I just don’t notice it if I’m slightly off when I’m playing by myself. I am a master at avoiding the metronome entirely and when I use it, completely blocking it out of my consciousness. When I’m practicing I don’t notice all the little things that need to be better. When I play back recordings of myself I can hear all these things that need work but often I don’t know what to do to correct them on my own. I’m very thankful that I have the luxury of having good teachers close by and of being able to afford to take lessons.

Two teachers –>

Practice gone wrong

Posted on by

I don’t have any answers for why I occasionally have very bad practice days. I actually don’t have any answers for why I have very good ones either. I’m just very happy with the good ones. It’s probably worth examining both sides in an effort to try to learn what’s going on. 

Yesterday morning was one of those very, very bad practice sessions. It started out okay which they usually do. I always start my day with low register warm-ups and I can’t remember the last time I had trouble with those. I’ll get an inkling that maybe I’m going to have a bad day when I start the arpeggios from middle C and my chops feel a bit stiff and the tone is off. I’ve started off like this and ended up with a really good day so it’s not a sure thing that it will be a bad day which is good because I don’t want to end up talking myself into a bad day by over judging the first half hour of practice. 

I get more than an inkling about the day when I start on the Kopprash exercises. I know from keeping pretty copious notes what I would consider a baseline for each exercise. I establish my baseline when I first start working on an exercise. The first baseline is just reading through the exercise. It doesn’t matter how bad it is. If I miss almost all of the notes I’ll rate it a 1 or 2 on a scale of 1 to 10 and whatever that number is it’s my beginning baseline. As I work on the exercise that rating goes up as I improve usually to a 6 or 7. A 7 would be decent. Once my baseline gets to a 7 then I feel like I’m having a bad day when I give that exercise a 4 and a good day when that exercise gets a 9. If that same exercise starts getting 8’s and 9’s consistently then that’s the new baseline and dropping to a 6 or 7 would be a bad day. I’ve never given myself a 10 but I have some 9.5’s.  

I don’t consider any day a bad day if it’s only one or two exercises that get lower ratings. It’s when they are all down for the day that it becomes a bad day and if they are significantly lower then it’s a very bad day. Yesterday my 7’s were 2’s and 3’s. There was even a 1. I couldn’t even get the notes out. Yesterday this wasn’t just true for the Kopprash exercises, it was true for everything I tried to play. So it’s officially a very bad day.

The question is why. What’s different, if anything, to cause a day like this or, for that matter, a really good day? Last week I talked about a bad day after two evenings of band rehearsals without my usual practice routine before them. I did have a band rehearsal last night but this time I did my usual warm-up routine in the morning. I had no problem with chops at rehearsal. 

At first glance, it does point to the day with a band rehearsal as a possible culprit. However, I looked through my notes and I have had stellar days after band rehearsals. The only difference is that I practiced for a whole hour before those rehearsals and I ran out of chops at rehearsal. Could it be that not practicing enough is the problem? My notes do lead to that conclusion both for good days and bad days. 

What about other things? I didn’t sleep well Tuesday night. Hmm. Unfortunately I haven’t been documenting my sleep patterns in my horn notes. Maybe I should. What about nutrition? I am continuously on a diet so I don’t think that has any impact. I eat almost the same thing everyday. Exercise? That could have some relevance. Circulation is important for hornists and my exercise habits have been sporadic at best. Another thing that probably should be added to my notes. 

There’s always some discussion on the forums about drinking something hot or cold after practicing. Well I tried both yesterday during breaks and I didn’t notice any difference. I usually have a cup of tea during practice breaks but again, that’s not something I’ve been writing down. 

Then there’s proper breathing and posture which I try to pay attention to when I practice, especially on a bad day. I also wonder if I’ve unconsciously changed my embouchure just slightly.

These are all questions I have no answer for. The one thing I do know is that the more you have written down, the more likely you are to be able to analyze problems. Hopefully, today will be a better day.

A lesson in basics –>

The first year, a retrospective

Posted on by

May marks my first year anniversary of re-learning the horn. I’ve been thinking about how far I’ve come and what I did right and what I would do differently now that I know more.

I spent from May to August trying to learn on my own. Looking back, I should have gotten a teacher sooner. I did a lot of random playing during those months but other than getting sound out of the horn and then developing about an octave and a half range, I didn’t really improve. I played the same stuff over and over. I think I would be farther along now if I’d spent those months more productively.

Without a teacher I spent my time playing, not practicing. There really is a huge difference. I’d play everything from start to finish. Occasionally I’d repeat a measure that I messed up and inevitably I would repeat the same mistake. You’d think it would be obvious to slow the measures down to the point where they are playable correctly, to break the tricky passages into tiny chunks until they were right, but no, I’d just plow through everything. Now I’m close to meticulous about practicing correctly and, lo and behold, it works.

Of course there are always two sides to everything and if I had gotten a teacher before August I wouldn’t have the teacher I have now and that would be a shame. Lynn, the teacher I see every week is perfect for me. I learn a lot and I have fun. For an adult who is not trying to get a principle horn position I think fun needs to be part of the equation.

A year ago my sightreading was atrocious. The pieces that I played over and over again I played because I knew what they sounded like. I rarely tried something new. I avoided 16th notes like the plague. At first, when Lynn and I used to play duets she would say, “It’ll be ok, you can do it.” Then I couldn’t get through more than a few measures without stopping. Now I’m much, much better at sightreading. I think playing in the band had a lot to do with that but I’m also much more confident about what I can do and I’ve learned just to keep going and play through the missed notes.

I’m very happy with my new horn but I wouldn’t recommend anyone buy one so early in the learning process. I was convinced that my Yamaha was causing a lot of my problems and it probably was to some extent but I should have dealt with it until I was capable of trying horns myself so I could make a more informed selection. On the other hand, maybe sticking with the Yamaha would have slowed down my progress. My new Hoyer is definitely easier for me to play but maybe there is something out there that is even easier.

I am also still having intonation problems with the Hoyer. I think this is most likely me but I tend to play sharp on the Hoyer even with the slides pulled almost all the way out. In particular middle C and third space C are very sharp. I don’t remember having those issues with the Yamaha. I didn’t play the Yamaha at all after I got the Hoyer but I should have. Once I did pick it up to try it the valves were stuck solid so it’s been up at Siegfried’s Call for repair. I am going to try it once I get it back. I’m hoping that I will still find it harder to play. I’m also hoping that the intonation isn’t as good as I remember.

One thing I can say with absolute certainty is to never buy a horn if you can’t play it at all during the trial period when it’s still returnable. I had surgery in my neck four days before I bought my horn. I was under doctor’s orders not to play for two weeks. This surgery was scheduled for months and I had told the doctor that I played the horn. He never mentioned anything about his ‘don’t play’ order before the surgery and it didn’t occur to me that playing would be a problem though clearly it should have. I had special ordered the horn based on recommendations that it was the right horn for me before the surgery and I felt pretty obligated to buy it (and I really wanted a new horn) and I don’t really like conflict. I’m not saying that it isn’t the right horn for me, just that I should have tried a few others first and I’ll always have that nagging question in the back of my mind.

At my lesson with Scott Bacon a few weeks ago I tried a geyer wrap Hoyer that he had just gotten in. I didn’t really notice anything that different except that it’s above the staff Ab was really, really flat and I couldn’t lip it into tune. When I went back to my Hoyer it was like putting on that comfy old flannel shirt that feels so good. This was a very reassuring feeling.

I am glad that I tried different mouthpieces. (See My Mouthpiece Saga.) The custom one that I bought from Tom Greer is excellent for me. It really feels good and I am playing better. I got one with a screw on rim so I can change shanks without changing rims. The custom shank I got from Tom is slightly fatter than a standard mouthpiece to try to help with the sharpness of the Hoyer. I think it helps just a tad. It’s interesting that the Hoyer mouthpiece is a touch sharper. I don’t really know if it’s the mouthpiece that is making the difference with my playing, I could just be getting better.

I’m really glad that I joined a band. It has given me a lot more confidence and I should have joined sooner. Lynn always told me that I played better than I thought I did and she was right. I was terrified that I would screw up at the first rehearsal but it went reasonably well. I got better at each rehearsal and now I can play almost all of the music we are working on. One of my big problems when playing something is starting, messing up the first few notes and stopping and starting again. Band has almost cured me of that bad habit.

I wish I could say that I’ve worked on lots of music over the year but I really haven’t. It takes me awhile to learn new music. I’ve been working on Mozart 3 for months. I worked on Nocturno for months before that. I’m close to finishing with Mozart 3 now which is a good thing because I’m pretty sick of it. I’m also working on Strauss 1. I’m progressing slowly but steadily with the Strauss. Now that I’ve put lots of breaks into my daily practice sessions I can practice longer each day and I’m improving more quickly.

I’ve learned a lot this year and I’m happy with what I’ve accomplished. I hope that I can take what I’ve learned and use that knowledge to continue to improve throughout the coming year. Mostly I hope there are a lot more good days than bad days.

Practice gone wrong –>