The Necessity of a Regular Workout for Brass Players

After having not ran for more than three weeks, yesterday I could feel a noticeable "laziness" of my lungs and breathing when I picked up my horn. I have never been one to commit to running EVERY day, but at least two to three times a week is good for me. In my playing, this lung-work is a necessity.

After deciding to go out and "stretch" my lungs today by running a little over a mile, I feel like my lungs have been "stretched" out to full capacity once again. There is a noticeable gain in my efficiency of air intake and prolonged length of exhale. Perhaps what is more notable is the ease of better "core" sound production. Finding the center of the note was "easy" today.

I say all of that to say that I have once again remembered the need for a regular cardio workout. One amazing aspect of music is that it brings so many disciplines of life together. For instance look at the blend of mathematics, coordination, physical prowess, knowledge of history, etc. that it requires to be a "complete, learned" musician. Keeping all of these aspects in balance is what it is all about.

Grooveshark!

Grooveshark is a really spiffy online music site which allows you to search their online catalog of music and play it back. If you sign up for a free account, it even lets you create and save custom playlists! I used to use several services similar to this called Project Playlist and SeeqPod. Project Playlist (which until today remained on my blog) was breaking the links to many of the songs I had requested it play. Seeqpod has been in a "transition" mode for many months, and I had lost touch with it in the middle of last year.

But today I found the feature which allows me to embed a Grooveshark playlist on my blog!! It is terrific. I hope you are able to enjoy the pieces which I've linked to...Mozart's Fourth Horn Concerto (first movement) and Felix Mendelssohn's Hebrides Overture! Many more great songs to come!

A Long Time Since...

It has been an incredibly long vacation that I have taken from this blog...

A lot has happened since I last was posting on this page.

I feel a good topic for my first post in a while should give a bit more info about what I'm up to musically these days.

I graduated from The Ohio State University with a Bachelor in Music and was accepted into the Masters of Music program at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

I currently study horn with Pittsburgh Symphony Principal Horn, Bill Caballero.

CMU is a place where I am learning much about music from the immersive nature of the music program at CMU. Studying with Mr. Caballero is also such a tremendous experience.

What I have liked about CMU thus far can be summarized as follows:
1. Studying horn with Bill Caballero
2. Hearing the Pittsburgh Symphony on a regular basis (they are world-class!)
3. The Eurhythmics program at CMU is an outstanding area of study that I have enjoyed being exposed to
4. The Life of Bach class taught by Stephen Schultz -- a 15-week class discussing the entire life of Bach and his extensive repertory of music. What a great composer and what a model musician!

So life is extremely busy, but good...good to be back here!