How to Survive Music School

 by Matthew Haislip

Imagine this: You are a junior music education major at a small university in Oklahoma with aspirations of one day enjoying a career as a teacher and performer. Your day is filled with strenuous wind band rehearsals, general and music education classes, painfully loud marching band rehearsals, and a quick bite to eat before heading to your part-time job waiting tables at the local Applebee's. Finding the time to recover from rehearsals and actually practice your horn seems impossible. You are becoming more and more frustrated with your obligations and you wonder how you will make it through your senior year with a student teaching internship, final degree recital, and graduate school auditions. Does this sound familiar?

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So You Want to Play Chamber Music?

A Brief Guide to Getting Started

By Ashley Cumming

Great high school band programs are fantastic for horns: we can play in the wind ensemble and orchestra, and we have some pretty cool solos for when we go to contest. But one of my favorite kinds of music rarely shows up before college: chamber music! Someone once called chamber music “a conversation between friends,” and I agree. We hornists arguably have the most variety in chamber music than anyone else: we can play in brass or wind quintets, with strings, and in groups of all numbers with wacky combinations of instruments: from horn, tuba and piano to horn, oboe and piano, to horn and harp or marimba! The horn is one of the most versatile instruments, and we have plenty of chances to shine – and performing is so much less scary when you share the stage with your friends!

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On Flying With Your Horn

by Eric Grunkemeyer

Although I've only just started graduate school, I've already had to fly, both domestically and internationally, with my horn more than I would have liked. So here are a few simple tips that I have deduced from flying with my instrument, and also some that I have been given by friends.

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Ringing in the New Year, Naturally

by Dr. Paul Austin

The horn is perhaps one of the most fascinating musical instruments. With its rough- and-tumble beginnings as an outdoor signaling device played by hunters or war mongers, today it enjoys its role as the heroic soul of the orchestra in concert halls played by professionally-trained musicians.

Currently horn students can get a boost in their training by gaining some knowledge about the natural horn. Perhaps this information can unlock a few mysteries about the valve horn, as well as give the satisfaction and peace of mind in leaving no stone unturned in their musical education.

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The Hornist's Essentials

By Cathy Lemmon

One of the frequently arising questions, especially for younger players, is, accompanying the horn, what the best tools and other items to have on hand and readily available are. It can take years of experience to boil down what these would be. Playing recently in a pit orchestra for a musical, I started looking through the pocket on the side of my gig bag for spare batteries for my stand light. I couldn't see them straightaway, so I started unloading what was in there. The more I pulled out, the more I wondered if someone had managed to put an "Undetectable Extension Charm" on this pocket. I hadn't realized I had collected that many "things". But, you know what? These were all items I've needed at one point or another. So, looking at these, I thought, why not put together an "essentials" list—a kind of hornist's "emergency kit"? This would be something that would present at least a useful starting point to helping a hornist be ready and prepared for situations that, as a musician, will invariably happen. These "situations" can be as simple as having a sticky slide or valve during rehearsal or as drastic as having a valve string break in the middle of a concert. To have on hand what is needed when it is needed will save you a lot of trouble and headache.

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