by Katy Carnaggio
Beyond data and drills, there’s you. Your imagination. Your preferences. Your sound. Last month, we explored why great horn playing relies on predictive reasoning (our ability to anticipate sound before it’s made). Next month in Part II, we’ll dive into the cognitive science behind how to train that ability. But before we get to the methods, let’s start with the most important variable: you.
Improbable.
A word sometimes playfully associated with a Verne Reynolds etude. But you also sit down in your practice room, turn to any page, and with just air, flesh, and metal, make meaning. Maybe you’ve felt it—that moment when it’s not just sound, but something that feels like you.
Music is improbable. Music is beautiful. Music is afraid of nothing.
And so are you.
As Bill Bryson writes:
“Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result–eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly–in you.”
Embracing your improbability is where beauty, boldness, and creativity in music-making begin. Individuality precedes technical precision. Like learning choreography, we follow the steps, explore timing, and repeat until we’ve made the dance our own. And it feels like flight.
So let’s develop some wings!
Here are five ways to get to know your “choreography” of the horn. Try one, or cycle through all five over the week. Notice how your internal model of sound begins to take shape.
- Play an excerpt in the style of your favorite color. Then try a contrasting one.
- Channel another musician. From Katy Woolley to Taylor Swift—anyone works. Let their energy and phrasing shape yours.
- Use nature as a resonance map. Embody a thunderstorm, ocean tide, or hummingbirds through your breath and articulation.
- Dance with the metronome. Treat it like a partner.
- Play a phrase as a gift. Once for someone you love. Then again, as if it’s from them.
Imaginative, preference-based practice isn’t a distraction from the “real” work—it’s a legitimate, evidence-informed tool for technical growth. Each time you return to one of these prompts, you’re collecting data on what thoughts and images lead to the sound you want. That’s predictive reasoning in action.
We’ll dive deeper in Part II. Until then, may your practice be improbable, beautiful, and fearless.
