Feeds:
Playing Tips
EPN Travel Services proudly presents: The Playing Tip of the Month!
Enter your warm-up, rehearsal, performance, or teaching tip for a chance to win a special prize from EPN Travel Services!
Winning Playing Tips will be published in School Band & Orchestra magazine.
Previous Winners:
- Details
- Published: 06 November 2017
Too often, younger players try to begin playing before they are actually “set” to begin, resulting in poor entrances, missed rhythms and notes, and an array of other inaccuracies that otherwise might not occur if they simply take a moment to prepare.
Read more: Don’t Start Playing Until You Are Ready, Mentally and Physically
- Details
- Published: 08 September 2017
My long-time sax repair man showed me a trick that has saved me a lot of money on pad replacements.
- Details
- Published: 11 August 2017
Having worked with elementary band students for the past 26 years, I have found that having my Woodwind and Brasswind students think of the acronym AIM (Air in Motion) works a lot better than asking them to “support their air,” which can mean several things and become confusing.
- Details
- Published: 20 March 2017
Saxophone and clarinet players: look in the mirror, place the mouthpiece in your mouth with your normal embouchure and don’t play. Look at the lips and chin surrounding the mouthpiece, start to blow air into the mouthpiece until the reed vibrates. There should be no change in your lip, chin or face muscles from not playing to playing. If there is a clenching, or tightening of the area of the face surrounding the mouthpiece, you are choking off the reed and not allowing it to vibrate properly. The reed must be free to vibrate across the tip and both side rails. This will produce a more focused, rich, resonant sound full of overtones.
Mike Iappica
Parsippany Hills High School
Morris Palins, NJ
- Details
- Published: 13 February 2017
Don't practice until you play something right - practice until you can't play it wrong.
Lauren Bushong
Gaylord High School
Gaylord, Michigan
- Details
- Published: 09 January 2017
Record yourself playing a song and compare yourself to professionals playing the same song. Ask yourself questions like, "Do you sound like a professional playing? Do you have dynamics? Do you have the right intonation?"
Gillyoung Koh
Marple Newton High School
Broomal, Pennsylvania
- Details
- Published: 13 December 2016
Recently, I saw various sections resting and oblivious to the music that was surrounding them. I stopped the group and began asking the various sections: who has the melody? Those sections were caught off guard, so I invited them to listen as the other sections played again: this time hands skyrocketed with the answer. Later, I asked sections who were playing at the time if they knew who has the melody. Those sections were unresponsive: so I asked that they play softer to listen for the melody. After playing through the excerpt again, the sections knew the answer and learned to listen for the melody.
Paul Herrera
San Jose State University
San Jose, CA
- Details
- Published: 13 November 2016
I get many phone calls asking for help because "I oiled my valves and now my horn won't play." The best way to avoid this is to oil valves using this simple method:
- Press the first valve down.
- Remove the first valve slide.
- Put a 'squirt' of oil in eac tube.
- Press the first valve down.
- Re-insert the slide.
The oil will travel through the connecting ports to valves two and three. If you do this each day before you play, your valves will never stick and the valves will always be in the correct slot!
Jim Manzo
Retired MS Band Director
Retired US Army Band Director
Current Private Instructor, Beorne, TX
- Details
- Published: 07 October 2016
Imagine a story as you perform, whether the music at hand is an etude, a concerto, or a set of scales. Have a constantly evolving picture, a storyline in your mind’s eye as you connect mind-to-body, body-to-instrument, instrument-to-music, and the music will transcend itself. If music is a language, then why shouldn’t the notes tell a story?
Kelly Hung
Hinsdale Central High School
Hinsdale, Illinois
- Details
- Published: 01 September 2016
A great practice method is the Penny Game. There are three versions of this, so it can be tailored to the student. Put ten pennies on the left lip of your music stand. The goal is to get all ten pennies to the right. Easy version: If it's played accurately, move one to the right. If it isn't accurate, leave one to the left. Hard version: Accurate = move right; inaccurate = move one back to the left. Sudden Death version: Accurate = move right; inaccurate = move ALL pennies back to the left, and start over again!
Liz Harwood
Kasson-Mantorville Middle School
Kasson, Minnesota
Directors who make a Difference
For over 20 years, School Band & Orchestra Magazine has been honoring amazing music educators from all 50 states. That's more than 1000 educators recognized for their outstanding contributions to music education programs!
Do you know a fantastic K-12 instrumental music educator who is deserving of recognition in SBO? Tell us why he or she should be featured in SBO’s annual "Directors Who Make a Difference" report.
On the Road
Do you have a story to tell about taking your school music groups on the road? SBO wants to hear about it!
