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The breath used to play is the same breath used to sing. Whisper Tah, Too, or Toh (whichever you use) strongly for 4 beats. Now, use your throat to make the breath go higher like you were singing. Now go lower. Do not use your voice, just a…
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To tongue well, it is very important to maintain your tone while moving your tongue. A good way to practice tonguing is to say it out loud using Tah, Too, or Toh (whichever you prefer).
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One of the first exercises to practice is to play a note for 4 counts and rest for 4 counts. Use each note from the Low-Middle-High Warmup one at a time and play it over and over again with 4 counts of rest in-between. Do this 20 times or…
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It can be confusing trying to choose your first trombone as a student. There are established brands which are popular and have been for many years. There are more and more unknown brands which are extremely low in price and of equally low…
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The MOST important part of any band program is the beginners. I think all band directors will agree with that statement. Agreement with that statement and implementation are sometimes miles apart. For a band program to reach the highest…
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Whether your band’s instrumentation is stable or the loss of players through population mobility causes gaps in part coverage, there may be occasions when you’ll want bandsmen who can play more than one instrument.
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You teach elementary or middle school instrumental music and hear the sounds of marching band camp from a nearby field and think, "I'm glad I don't teach high school so I don't have to be preparing for school yet"! Or you teach grades…
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This is the second in a series of articles evaluating literature for band. Recently, the Wind Ensemble and Symphony Band at Rutgers started a new recording project for Mark Custom Recording of repertoire for the developing band. With this…
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Once you know the name of one line or space on any staff, you can use the musical alphabet to find the name of all the lines and spaces on that staff. On the bass clef, the first space is A. Using this alphabet, the next line up is B, the…
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I was very impressed by several statements that James Curnow made during his clinic with the students from the College of New Jersey Wind Ensemble at our NJMEA conference this past February . I think that his comments about score study were…
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