Tomorrow, Canada celebrates its 150th birthday. I love this country (warts and all): I’m proud of our arts and culture, our society, our national quirks and I’m especially proud to contribute to Canada’s future by working and teaching here. Many classical musicians in Canada feel detached from their nation’s composers. I think that’s especially true …
Happy Canada day! A round-up of Canadian music for trumpet Read More »
One of the most meaningful experiences of my life as a musician was a 2008 tour of coastal Labrador. Memorial University’s School of Music was my first academic job, and I had only been teaching there for a few weeks before I boarded a very small plane and set off for Happy Valley-Goose Bay with …
Labratour 2008 – exploring a surprising history in brass Read More »
Have you ever made a small error in a concert and thought to yourself, “This concert is a total failure! I’ve completely blown it!” Or have you been in the practice room and thought, “Tomorrow’s lesson is going to be a disaster! I always play terribly in lessons!” Or how about this one: have you …
On Thursday, I’ll be performing as featured soloist with the Toronto Winds. I’ll be playing Howard Cable’s Point Pelee and Jules Levy’s Grand Russian Fantasia at the Atlantic Festival of Music. The festival brings students from across Atlantic Canada to southwestern Ontario, and the concert will be held on campus at Western University.
In May 2001, just before I graduated high school, I was a member of the National Youth Band of Canada. This was my first real music festival and it was a huge event in my life. Not only was I amazed and inspired by the musicians I met, but I grew as a person and …
Yesterday we held our annual Brass Day at Western, where I teach trumpet. Every year I offer a clinic, and this year my class was called “The Power of Scales.” Basically I attempted to summarize this series of articles over the course of an hour. No small feat! Here is a copy of the handout …
Sunday Scales, special supplement: Brass Day clinic Read More »
Today’s exercise has it all: a living history, virtuosity combined with artistry and even a little detective-work thrown into the mix. We’re talking about the famous Abblasen call by Gottfried Reiche.
Last week, we discussed translating major exercises to minor. Now we’ll go a step further and look at some exercises in the other modes. To me, modes were just a bunch of Greek names I memorized during undergraduate music theory. I never practiced them and I never played them (as far as I knew). But modes …
This week we’re going to talk about minor – I’m sure you know it’s important, but do you actually practice it? In my case, I never practiced it much for two reasons: first, most exercises and etudes are in major keys; and second, the three minor modes make it confusing to translate exercises to minor. …
Building on our efforts of two weeks ago, we’re back with more Plog (see below) and another attempt at memorization by chunking. This time, we’ll look at an exercise from volume three, built around the major second (M2) interval: