Magazine Articles
The tale of a school, a school principal and a clarinet
I want to share with you a very precious and inspiring musical story about what should happen at every school.
The school is an inner city Catholic School in Christchurch. For many years Catholic Cathedral College has been suffering from a declining roll due to the changing demographic of a spreading City that is seeing the centre of the town taken over by commercial business. Cathedral College, situated right beside the …
Some Other Things Wind Teachers Need To Know
In the course of the last two weeks I have lost track of how many instruments I have had to hurriedly fix for students so they could play in an ensemble or have their lesson. One saxophone with a key that wouldn’t close correctly was fixed with three bits of very skillfully place sticky tape. Flute springs were put back in place via instructions over my webcam and a baritone …
The biggest new development in teaching for decades
For many years I have been teaching students in remote areas of Australia via video conferencing and some of my earliest of students have now graduated from Illustrious tertiary Music Institutions with multiple degrees.
When I first embarked on this daunting task the technology was expensive, unreliable, scarce and my colleagues were justifiably skeptical.
Now that I am spend much of my time in New Zealand I have been delighted to have …
Clarinets that have owned me
I didn’t actually want to play the clarinet as a kid growing up in New Zealand, it was the trumpet I wanted to play. However some family friends who were coming to visit us couldn’t find a cheap enough trumpet so they bought from a busker in London a terrible old clarinet that needed to have repairs done every other week. It did have a new case which was its …
The Music Food Chain
As I write this article I am in the Upper Hunter Valley running workshops and visiting schools to talk to their principals about a major musical project sponsored by a coal mine which I am developing across this area.
In the course of today I hosted a school concert where I explained to the kindergarten class what a trumpet is and how the sound on the flute is made. I have …
Exciting times for adults at the Christchurch School of Music
My definition of an optimist is a 92 year old who goes out and buys a clarinet for himself after participating in one of my Australian summer camps for adults who have never played a musical instrument before and cannot read music. I believe passionately that it is never too late to learn.
So, on my arrival at the start of 2005 as the new Musical Director of the Christchurch School …
The Great Clarinet and Saxophone Bite
Wherever I travel giving clarinet and saxophone classes, I find that clarinet and saxophone players often make life unnecessarily difficult for themselves by biting.
I need to explain exactly what I mean by biting before you get too worried because although biting is not a life-threatening situation it does in my opinion shorten one’s life as a wind player. Why would anyone want to practise an instrument that causes so much …
Back to the Grass Roots
For nearly 19 years whilst I was teaching at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music I always knew that I had the teaching job that many teachers dreamt about. I was so busy with a large teaching load at the Conservatorium I did very little teaching outside of the Conservatorium until I started working with outreach students scattered far and wide across NSW.
Now that I spend a large amount of my …
Students far and wide
These days I spend my life commuting between Australia and New Zealand and in both countries I have students scattered far and wide. My students range in ability from almost complete beginners through to University students preparing for graduation recitals.
My students at Auckland University seldom see me as when I am in New Zealand I am in the South Island yet they are some of the most motivated students at …
Historic Wind Masterclass
In my last Woodwind Wisdom I wrote about the trials, tribulations and jubilations of being a schools visiting instrumental music teacher and, in contrast, I promised you that my next article would be about the classes I would be giving at the Royal College of Music in London.
On May 21st musical barriers were dismantled between wind students at Auckland University in New Zealand and the Royal College of Music in …