The Importance of Using a Tuner: Finding Your Perfect Pitch
Music is a beautiful language, but like any language, it relies on clear communication. Just like people speaking the same language can do so with different accents to their voice so too can musicians play the same note but with slight changes in the way it sounds. The pitch may be a bit high or a bit low, and over the centuries musicians have come up with ways to analyze these differences so that multiple musicians can better "play in tune." Just as proper grammar and pronunciation are essential for understanding spoken words, playing in tune is paramount for creating harmonious music. This is where the tuner comes in. For the beginner (or even the more advanced musician) it can be a vital tool for developing accuracy of pitch.
Scroll down to view the comparison chart of over a dozen different portable digital audio recorders.
Band directors tend to be Jacks of all trades. We know how to play every instrument in the band but yet we tend to specialize only on one, the instrument that we grew up playing. Once in a while in our teaching we will stumble across a difficult case, a student that for whatever reason is having difficulty understanding and executing the proper technique or embouchure for their instrument. .jpg)
Becoming a true master teacher requires more than just mastering a single instrument or topic, it also has to involve mastering the act of teaching as a whole. Finding new and captivating ways to capture a student's attention and get information down into their long term memory is of paramount importance and with a little ingenuity and introspection any teacher can learn how to do it.Â
All teachers will inevitably run into a brass student that struggles to produce a solid, focused tone, but even those with the most stubborn embouchure problems can be helped with a little common sense and more than a little ingenuity.
Mouthpiece pullers are not just tools for the band director's office. Students and professionals alike will often add a mouthpiece puller to their stash of equipment to provide a sense of safety when practicing at home or when away on a gig. Since a stuck mouthpiece can be a big problem and prevent you from closing your instrument's case, it is essential that you have a way to remove the mouthpiece safely while outside of the band room.
If you have an interest in music education or music performance, you`ll want to attend a college that will provide you with experiences and opportunities that will further your eventual career. There are plenty of factors to consider when making this decision. Here are a few to think about as you search for the right educational institute.
Breathing from the diaphragm is a vital part to singing correctly. Said differently, the breath is the gasoline that fuels our voices. Without the proper breath, a singer isn’t likely to progress very far. But explaining a process as abstract as breathing from your diaphragm isn’t always the easiest thing. That’s why I wanted to share a method that’s proven itself to be effective time and time again over the years I’ve been teaching this abstract subject. 
The modern metronome is an indispensable practice tool for musicians of any level of experience. Most student musicians and even some more experienced musicians do not realize how inconsistent humans are in terms of their perception of time. Our perception of time changes from moment to moment based on our emotional state. Music played at louder dynamics tends to rush, softer music tends to drag. Even a difference in age of the performers tends to produce differences in perceptions of "how fast time passes."
The recent swine flu (H1N1 virus) outbreak has scared a lot of people and made us all start taking the idea of hygiene and disease control a bit more seriously. In a school setting band directors are probably second only to the school nurse in terms of direct, first hand exposure to bodily fluids and exhaled air. It is in the nature of our craft that we have to physically adjust hand position or embouchure problems in an attempt to improve a student's playing abilities. Because of this fact, and with the H1N1 flu outbreak all over the news these days, it never hurts to refresh our memories on how to make sure that any illnesses that a student might have are not passed on to ourselves or to other students.
