A thought about how to practice the exercises

I felt like I had a breakthrough in practicing the other day.  I was practicing whole-tone scales – two octaves up and down – the way I have for years.  Suddenly, it seemed really boring, mechanical and wasn’t going anywhere.  It occurred to me to repeat...

“From a Dream” available now!

Folks, as I said last month, “From a Dream” is available in the store now (downloadable pdf only).  Also, on SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/user-208612136/fad-hns you can hear the entire piece.  I’d love to hear your thoughts on playability – I found it quite...

Happy New Year! New piece for 5 Horns!

Greetings, Jazz Horn aficionados!  To kick off 2024, I’d like to introduce you to a piece I wrote several years ago titled “From a Dream.” I hadn’t listened to it for a while, but when I heard it again recently I realized that I want share it more broadly.  I’m now...

The Value of Circular Breathing

Here’s a video of the exercise number 4.1 from “Exercises for Jazz French Horn” I have a plan to make some more and better quality videos showing other exercises and playing actual musical phrases.  I won’t go into teaching how to do it,...

Some Great Blogs

Here are 3 blogs I highly recommend.  Do you know of some others I’ve missed?  I’d love to know about them!  Enjoy! Abe Mamet’s blog documenting his research into Julius Watkins and more; this includes links to some fantastic videos and other...