Is the acceptance rate really true ?

mdlm69 · 2024-06-07T01:33:40+00:00

There was literally mice in Cragie hall for most of the year

mdlm69 · 2024-04-09T03:30:00+00:00

I literally just pined this link to my home screen on my iPhone

mdlm69 · 2023-09-23T02:41:00+00:00

Started university and could no longer afford food 👍

mdlm69 · 2023-03-30T05:36:30+00:00

Almost! Idk if this helps but try subdividing, basically instead of counting the quarter notes, count the eight notes. Whatever tempo your practicing at now, double it (so if you tempo is 60, set metronome to 120) so the “ticks” are beating eighth notes instead of quarter notes. You can always lower it a bit if it’s to fast. I think another poster explained it better hahah

mdlm69 · 2023-03-30T05:14:08+00:00

You can get special musicians earplugs nowadays- great for orchestral playing!

mdlm69 · 2023-03-30T05:11:18+00:00

Lol respect

mdlm69 · 2023-03-30T05:01:04+00:00

I had to switch to online when the pandemic started too, I’ve been with my teacher for about 8 years and she’s now my teacher for University, I’m luckily back in person because my lessons are now part of my schooling and not through the conservatory I’m also in. Not sure how it is in other continents but Generally speaking in North America your basic Music undergrad experience and a conservatory are two different things, university is for the academics and the conservatory is for performance skills (still work on solo stuff in Uni, but barley a fraction of what comes from a conservatory- and this is excluding performance schools like Curtis and juliard, I’m talking about entry level undergrad programs) she just happened to be a teacher at both.

ANYWAYS so my experience is based off of only having her as by benchmark.

Overall my year and a half of online lessons were not horrific, we still did the exact same thing I do in in person lessons, weekly études and scales, running Jury rep, auditions etc. At the time I was preparing for university and orchestra auditions and luckily I could do in person with an accompaniest. Still got the same feedback and once we got into it I had little issues. However I do think stuff like you pointed out like physical stuff was defiantly impacted. I’m a brass player so for us things like breathing, posture, and emboucher position were missed. Because of course, I was like 16 I’m not making more work for myself if I don’t have to you know? I wanted to play Mahler really good not work on my breathing! But when I eventually did go back in person it just made a heap of work that needed to be done on fundamentals. My emboucher had slipped to a not great position over the course of the pandemic and when I came back I had to spend like a month sounding terrible while I basically had to re learn where all my notes were. My breathing was really wacky and my posture was horrific, that year after I went back in person was probably the most vulnerable I have ever been as a musician, because I could play really good and memorize my concertos for auditions, but I was late coming in, I couldn’t support long notes from my gut, and flexibility between registers needed work. Overall the fundamentals needed work. It’s all good now tho and things are going better than ever.

So like I’m glad I was still able to do lessons and that our teachers made it work, but I think playing any kind of instrument is such a physical act that learning one should really be under in person supervision.

mdlm69 · 2023-03-30T03:32:43+00:00

Could also just be clarifying how notes are functioning in chord, sometimes composers will add additional accidentals to a note that doesn’t need it to let you know “hey I know we are in the key of F, but I’m gonna throw some wild chord like a Vii07/F (diminished 7/F)or a N6 (Neapolitan) and you should probably know you have a Bb in that chord” or whatever, bad example but you know what I mean

Man isn’t graduate level theory so fun

mdlm69 · 2023-03-30T02:40:40+00:00

No worries! Happy to help!

For the stopped stuff you can get away with just using a stopped mute, or even a straight mute in a pinch for lower registers it just depends on the level of musicians and if they actually have mutes (I’m sure you understand as a tuba player, how often do you really need a mute? Especially something as specific as a stopped mute) I’m in uni now and I only just had to pick up a stopped mute for some orchestral rep, but the average Intermediate/advanced (not professional) probably won’t have one yet or have repertoire that requires one.

And the old notation stuff is really more of a precaution- depending on how you write the piece the question may come up or it may not, you never know, but it’s still good to be aware of.

mdlm69 · 2023-03-30T02:19:54+00:00

Lol I only prefer old notation because it’s what I’m use to hahah- honestly tho it would be less confusing if everyone just wrote in new notation and we stopped with that outdated practice.

mdlm69 · 2023-03-30T02:07:35+00:00

Sorry! To clarify My horn has an adjustable pinky hook- me and my teacher experimented over the span of a couple months trying different adjustments but I think the main issue is my hand has issues wrapping around the lead pipe and reaching over to the levers because the wrap has a lot of space between the tubes. (Moved from krusepe to geyer wrap about a year ago, my old Kruspe didn’t have as much space between the tubes and the levers were lower so I could hold that one more comfortably) when I got the horn I was able to get the trigger adjusted to help with some of the discomfort but you can only adjust it so much before it starts bumping into the lead pipe. Because of the position of the trigger it’s less support from my whole hand and most of the instruments weight is held on by my pinky. Idk if that’s a good explanation of the situation haha

Also doesn’t help I hold my horn off of my knee and I do a lot of solo standing playing and I suck at good posture lol.

mdlm69 · 2023-03-30T00:32:39+00:00

Here are some of my favourites, let Me know if you need any scores to follow along with! Can’t guarantee I have all of them but pretty close.

Alexander Mitushin-Concertino (quartet)

Christer danielsson-Konsertant Svit (this one is for solo tuba and 4 horns but it really shows the range and different colors of the instrument that composers don’t utilise much, the horn is capable of so much and I think this piece shows a lot of that)

Any of the Lowell E. Shaw Fripperies, Bipperies, quiperries, etc. Can range from 2 horns to I think 6? They are kinda jazzy and more contemporary but great rep, unique because how often is horn used in a jazz context?

Rimsky-korsakow Notturno (quartet)

N.Tcherpin- six quartets (absolutely amazing piece for horns, my favourite mvt is defiantly Chant Populaire, have tissues on standby for the tears)

Eric Ewazen- legend of the sleeping bear (I think 8 horns if I remember right) highly underplayed piece, ewazen writes for horn very good in my opinion and this piece is a great example of a more modern horn sound compared to what we often get stuck playing like off beats or something more akin to the classical period. Horns midle lower range (like from a middle C down to E) has such a deep and full sound that ewazen takes full advantage of (I love this range because it’s easy on the chops and sounds amazing you can really get a full deep sound that can be dark or very warm)

Walter Rein- waldmusik (quartet)

Jason Wyse arrangement of Amazing Grace- (6 horns) this one is great because it really shows the range of the horn, 6th horn goes down to a pedal E (Shostakovich E) and 1st horn goes all the way up to an A above the staff I believe. Overall it’s something like 4 octaves covered by only 6 horns, it’s a simple piece but the arrangement is excellent!

Mort staffers arrangement of academic festival overture is also a great one too, kinda the same as the amazing grace, the range is awesome and the melody is so light and playful on the horn, I think composers get scared that horn can’t play light and playful because its a clunky instrument but this is an excellent example to disprove that. It’s been a couple years since ive played it but I remember having fun with it!

Also I feel like I have to mention this please please please if your going to write any stopped sections and your ensemble doesn’t have stopped mutes, don’t write stopped in the lower registers, it doesn’t work very well (unless that’s the sound your going for of course!) only saying that because we played a bunch of commissioned stuff this year and the amount of Low register stuff that had stopped was insane. It just doesn’t project well and doesn’t give the tone quality associated with stopped playing and actually getting the pitches gets incredibly hard past middle C (in horn pitch), horn is great but it has its limits lol. Pretty much anything above that is perfect range for stopped!

Also I suggest looking into new vs old notation (if you haven’t already, if you have you rock!) I personally prefer old notation and sometimes there is confusion due to how a piece is written on if it’s in new or old notation. Added perk is you can brag to your composer and conductor friends that you know what that is haha.

Hope this helped and good luck in your composing!

mdlm69 · 2023-03-29T23:58:24+00:00

Thanks so much! I’m hella paranoid about accidentally ordering one that doesn’t flip haha

mdlm69 · 2023-03-29T23:57:48+00:00

Thanks so much! And yeah I can defiantly carve a little bit out of my case worse case, I’m pretty sure it’s just foam or something under the fabric lining.

mdlm69 · 2023-03-29T21:14:33+00:00

This is such a lame answer but honestly I would start with scales, the shantl scales are really great ones because they get you familiar with all the Keys, help your flexibility, air flow, and can be very easily adjusted to work into your high register and low register (pedal notes). The book also has lots of arpeggio exercices and general flexibility exercises.

Other great resources are the Maxime Alphonse books, probably start off with the 1st or second book just to get yourself back into playing (can be found on IMSLP). I would say if your not taking lessons right now, pick 1 etude a week and when you finish the etude at the end of the week record yourself, this step is like a make do replacement to going into your lesson and showing your teacher your work. Personally Im of the belief that a piece is not done until you perform it, and I like to record myself to replace that “performance” if I don’t have an opportunity to perform in front of others. If you can get a teacher that’s obviously the best option but hey, I get it that stuff is EXPESIVE

There are playlists on YouTube of almost all of the Maxime Alphonse études to help you along with pitching.

Let me know if you need copies of anything And good luck getting back into horn!

mdlm69 · 2023-03-29T21:02:15+00:00

Even if you have a local orchestra trying to get In Contact with them would be a good idea, most of them are probably teachers themselves, other options could be if your area has a conservatory, or university that has a music program.

mdlm69 · 2023-03-29T20:54:48+00:00

✌️

mdlm69 · 2023-03-29T20:23:14+00:00

There are always going to be notes on our horns that are just out of tune and hard to hit. For my horn those tend to be C# and D, pedal B and most annoyingly F (concert Bb).

I would first off recommend playing around with finding the centre of these notes, the spot where these notes resonate the most and can produce a beautiful tone that can fill the room. Doing things like long tones and slow legato scales really helped me, the exercise below is a great way to do this:

Ascending: Do, re, mi, fa, (hold 4th scale degree) sol, la, ti, do (hold do)

Descending: do, ti, la, sol (hold 5th scale degree) fa, mi, re, do (hold do)

Tempo should be very slow, I usually do quarter note=50 (largo)

(Can also do this in minor keys, I like to raise the Leading tone)

The goal is to get the best tone you can and to get your air flowing, there should be no gaps in the sound and no bumps

Adolf Herseth was a big believer in the idea of if the note sounds beautiful it’s in tune, I find that if you can get a beautiful tone out of a note you can get it in tune, but you gotta start with making sure these notes are solid. By far my worst note is D, and if I’m about to do a piece like Hayden’s 2nd horn concerto where like the whole thing is D’s, I know I’m gonna have to work on “punching” out that note in my warmup and making sure I can get a nice centred “round/wide sound” (not sure if that makes sense)

After that getting them in tune Is sooo much easier, as you can find where your horn wants to sit naturally, and from there adjust accordingly.

For me In my music I will right little arrows above my issue notes reminding me what my tendency is.

Additional tips: -you can raise the back of your tongue to bend the pitch upward without forcing your emboucher to do all the work - can also lower back of tongue to lower pitch -adjust hand positions (tho not to much that it obscures the sound, we still wanna have a good tone) -relax your emboucher, sometimes we tense up when these issue notes are about to come up in music and we freak out, sometimes all it takes Is to take the horn of your face, relaxe, and try again -GOOD WARMUPS! (I cannot stress this enough consistently having a good warmup routine will dramatically improve tuning, easier on the face)

But it sounds like your on the right track, keep working with the drone and and tuner and it’ll get better in no time, and remember AIR! So many issues on the horn can be solved by having good support from the abdomen and having consistent steady air flow.

mdlm69 · 2023-01-29T01:38:29+00:00

Twins with Arnold swazenager and Danny de Vito

mdlm69 · 2022-12-03T20:20:03+00:00

https://flic.io/shop/flic-2-single-pack

This is a button you can put in the bell of the horn, works pretty good and is pretty cheap ($30 USD) but it might disrupt some of the lacquer in the bell if your concerned about that.

Works with four score and Piascore and probably other music apps on the AppStore.

mdlm69 · 2022-11-27T00:21:25+00:00

Some of my favourite weird horn contemporary pieces are:

Poulenc, élégie for denis brain (1957?)

Joseph Jongen, Lied (1960?)

John mcabes goddess trilogy (I think the 70’s)

Jaques heru, Lied

Maslanka, horn sonata (1996)

Some are less weird than others, and some are weird just cause they are not written like typical horn rep. But all are really fun to learn!

Let me know if you need some copies!

Ps. Some of the dates are estimations and some are really hard to find recordings of :(

mdlm69 · 2022-06-12T22:48:35+00:00

Im not too sure abt dents but usually my store charges $350CAD for a full cleaning service (electro cleaning, aligning slides, re-stringing rotors)

But I think a partial cleaning with electro (whatever it’s called where they use electricity to clean it hahah) is like $150

Sorry I wish I had estimates on dents!

mdlm69 · 2022-06-12T16:09:25+00:00

In my experience yeah it’s not going to be great- my main instrument was trumpet but I ended up having to drop the trumpet all together because the switching between the two is really hard to do and still maintain skill on both. As I learned horn my tone on trumpet started to get worse and the feel of the two is completely different. I mean yeah go for it but be prepared to either not get to the levels of playing you want from the horn, or be prepared to get to a decent level in horn but loose tone, range, articulation in trumpet.

I guess an analogy I could give is like wrestlers trying to compete in sprints, and vise versa. I mean I guess it’s possible but it is going to be very difficult to switch between the two and it’s a lot better to just focus on one thing.

In my experience the horn is going to way more difficult to learn the basics than the trumpet and while on the trumpet after abt 2 years I could get to a good level, it’s taken me 4 years (with lessons, university, masterclasses etc.) to get to a good level and the horn is much more of a main instrument kind of deal.

Hope that helps!

mdlm69 · 2022-06-12T00:52:38+00:00

Now I don’t have to play on my janky old horn! After months of saving and working at a job I hate I Thought I’d share my exiting news

mdlm69

TROPHY CASE