InterHarmony International Music Festival – Apply Now!

Have you ever wanted to play bassoon in Italy? I have, so I am thrilled to announce that I’m a faculty member with the InterHarmony International Music Festival (Session II, July 12-24). This fantastic summer festival takes place in the beautiful mountains in Tuscany (not too far from Florence). There is no age limit for applicants; […]

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GoBassoon Contrabassoon Reed Review

My goal with these reeds reviews is to describe the reeds I feature as thoroughly as possible so that you, a bassoonist with a different instrument, elevation, embouchure, etc., can decide if these reeds are right for you. I tested this reed on January 25, 2016 in Rexburg, Idaho (elevation 4,865 ft). The temperature inside was […]

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Selling Reeds to Students

Would you benefit from selling your own hand-made reeds to your students? How much should you charge? Is it worth it? There have been times in my teaching career where it has been a wonderfully convenient thing–and then other times when it has caused me way more stress than I bargained for. Learn from my […]

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Plastic Reeds

My first bassoon teacher used plastic reeds. They were thin and produced a weak sound, but I didn’t know any better. They were cheaper and easier to play on than cane reeds, so I played on them for a couple of years. Then I switched teachers. Whoa. I quickly learned that plastic reeds were the worst […]

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eCards with Custom Audio Tracks

In lieu of a Christmas recital, my studio sends out personalized eCards to friends and family. Check out our 2015 studio card. The music is a quartet arrangement of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel (actually, all the parts were read straight off of a piano part–easiest arrangement I’ve ever done.) The card will open in a […]

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Standing vs. Sitting

*UPDATE: See the end of the post for the product that finally got me standing My students love watching bassoon videos on YouTube. It doesn’t take very many videos before they start asking me if they should be playing the bassoon standing up. I have never been really confident in my answer, as I tried […]

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Virtual Recitals on YouTube

What do you do when your students have a conflict with a scheduled studio recital? I usually have one or two students in this boat, but this year it happened to over half of my bassoonists! All of my high school students qualified for the Utah State Solo/Ensemble Festival—and the festival just happened to coincide […]

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orchestralbassoon.com – A Review

Once in a while I find a resource that is excellent in every way. Orchestralbassoon.com is one of those resources. It contains performance scores, autograph scores, audio examples, historical notes, harmonic analyses–and the list goes on. It is a clean, thorough, and intuitive website that I return to again and again. I always learn something new. […]

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