Students have asked me on multiple occasions what it means to listen analytically/critically. Students often equate this idea with comparing one’s ability to that of another. Have you ever watched a video of someone playing a piece on your program and thought that person played it better? That’s a comparison based on an emotional response to what you’ve heard. That is also a perfectly natural...
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by Robert Fisher, Catoctin School of Music As we approach the winter months, many of us have prepare for the colder season. This includes pulling out those winter coats, turning off the outdoor water spigot and throwing on the water kettle to boil up your favorite warm drink! Winter tires, ice scrappers, snow shovels, mittens, scarves, knitted hats – you prepare for winter weather; however, do you spend the same time...
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by Jamey Mann, Catoctin School of Music “David Grohl Proves You Don’t Need Lessons to Rock” While surfing YouTube for new music and educational videos for my students I was dismayed to find the titled video above. I was hoping that the title sarcasm and the video would offer some insight in the work it takes to be a part of successful bands like Nirvana and the Foo Fighters. This...
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Every October I look forward to watching scary movies with my family – the campier the better. As any fan of horror films can attest to, a film’s soundtrack does a lot to build tension, forewarn the audience of danger, and generally adds to the more entertaining aspects of the movie experience. So, for this month’s blog I thought it would be fun to share a playlist of songs that...
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Welcome everyone! In my last post I talked about the “Mental Game” of practice, positive mental strategies to develop efficient practice habits. If you didn’t read it, I encourage you to go back and look at it because not only is it important for all musicians, but it also ties into this post quite a bit. Today I’m talking about the negative psychological factors of which we are all probably guilty....
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