Year: 2016

Just in time for marching band season, I present you with these pearls of wisdom. I have played in and coached marching bands for many years. The flute is a

Healthy Brains Need Stimulation and Variety It seems that the field of neuroscience is exploding with research about how we learn, what our brains need to stay sharp, and how

Is Grit the Secret to Success In Music? I first heard about Angela Duckworth and her research on “grit” on a Freakonomics podcast. Duckworth talks about how persistence, not talent,

Embouchure Variations What does the “perfect embouchure” look like? I’ve been asked many times what a “proper” or “perfect” embouchure should look like. The answer is simple: There is no

Marking Rhythms (Miss It? Mark It! part 4) This is the fourth article in a series about “marking music,” providing visual solutions to problems musicians encounter during practice. Our brains

Miss It? Mark It! part 5 A new student arrived at her lesson this week with music beautifully colored. Last week, I had encouraged Madeline* to write in her music.

Chrome Music Lab Check out the Chrome Music Lab, a virtual playground for learning about acoustics. https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Experiments Chrome Music Lab – Fun with Acoustics! Click on something – anything – and

Flute Memes Social media is overflowing with memes for everything, including music. Flute memes appear on my Facebook page nearly every day. For your enjoyment, I offer a collection of my

Choir Practice. Many of my blog posts have focused on practicing the flute, but today we will look at some special considerations for choir practice. As a musician who wears

New practice research suggests ways to make learning more efficient. Thanks to cognitive researchers we are understanding more and more about how the brain processes information. A practice research study published in