I suspect most of you who read this blog already know who Arthur Lehman was. In case you don't, he was euphonium soloist with The United States Marine Band and author of the book and recording "The Art of Euphonium." And Simone Mantia was perhaps the first euphonium who became a world legend. He performed as soloist with the Sousa Band. Arthur Lehman wrote several monographs in 2008. In one he wrote about his memories of Simone Mantia and what he learned from this amazing euphonium ...
Most of us know John Philip Sousa as America's March King, and rightly so! But Sousa also wrote many other works. When I was in the Coast Guard Band we would occasionally perform one of his suites. There were typically enjoyable and sometimes had themes that were familiar from his marches. I recently discovered a reverie that Sousa wrote called Nymphalin. It has a pretty melody, and it struck me that it would work well in a recital or perhaps in a worship service. I arranged ...
I have been very pleased with the steadily improving musicianship and technical prowess I observe in the best of the current crop of players. It's not too surprising, I suppose, because students have much-improved access to professional performances they can use as inspiration. But maybe we could think a little more about our presentation as a whole, specifically the "visuals" of the performance. Some groups have done noteworthy (no pun intended) work here. If you have seen a ...
Almost everyone in the tuba-euphonium world surely knows about Harvey Phillips. He has had health battles in recent times and passed away this week. He was an inspiration to countless tuba players and other musicians, including me. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Mr. Phillips: "Mr. Phillips is highly-regarded in the musician and tuba communities because his efforts have brought the tuba to a much wider audience and helped to free it from its unfortunate popular image of ...
As I have mentioned in the past, the owner of Sterling, Paul Riggett, is constantly looking for ways to improve his brass instruments. Being a small company with limited resources (operating in a less-enthusiastic economy than one might prefer), Paul has had to be creative to accomplish this sometimes. A company this size can't throw money at new machines and tooling every time a new idea or fad springs up. Then again, these days especially, NO company can do that. But the Virtuoso ...
Some time ago I added a collection of hand-picked videos of brass music for all solo instruments, brass bands, and brass ensembles. It was dependent on the YouTube Video Player widget, but that came to have limitations. First, YouTube limited the length of the title list on each player collection to 50. Also, it was difficult to see what exactly you were about to view. There are currently over 1,000 brass videos in my collection. The euphonium collection alone has more than 300! Clearly the YouTube ...
Over the years I have often answered questions from players who just got a new instrument and are having trouble with intonation. This is especially likely when the old horn was a non-compensating instrument and the new one is compensating. The intonation tendencies can be different (or even opposite) between the two types. A major issue here is habit, which is very handy for some things (like when you practice scales so much that your mind/body system plays almost automatically after a point), ...
The electronic tuner is a practice tool, like buzzing devices, a metronome, and even a mirror. It can have great value if used appropriately. As mentioned before in this thread, it is helpful learning the tendencies of the instrument(s) you play. If you know a particular note is generally flat, for example, you can at least start heading the most likely direction as you seek to tune to the harmonies around you when playing with others. You ear can tell you that your horn has some problem notes, ...