Hello! How's it going?
I just wanted to post a little something here so you all know that I haven't abandoned you. Things have been going very well with my first semester of my DMA. My playing has dramatically improved already and I constantly feel as if my brain is oozing out of my ears from everything that I need to do. It's rather awesome :). I'm studying with the fabulous Rick Todd here at UM and I am absolutely 100% positive that I chose the right person with which to work in order to fix my problem areas with horn playing. For a few weeks I felt as if I was stuck in the 6th grade again because everything that I was (and still am) working on was fundamentals. Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. My whole concept of producing a beautiful horn sound has been retooled and I'm so much better for it.
I plan on posting a few things once the semester wraps up here at the beginning of December. I've been working on a couple of projects for classes and I really want to share some of the work that I've done. I'm taking an ethnomusicology class that provides an overview of some of the different musics of Africa. It's been a fascinating experience and has completely changed how I look at music from around the world. My iTunes and Spotify collections have dramatically increased thanks to this class. I'm working on a biography of sorts on a South African singer named Miriam Makeba, so I'll be posting that here when it's finished. I'm also writing a paper on Mozart and his compositional style for solo horn (as opposed to his orchestral horn parts). At the very least, I'll post here a biography of Joseph Leutgeb and his relationship with Mozart throughout his career.
Hang in there with me folks! I'll be back soon!
