How Do You Tune Your Band?

Tuning is the responsibility of each individual in the ensemble. Directors can’t really “tune” the band. The best results occur when the director guides the student’s skill development to match pitch with the players around them. Playing in tune, like any skill, and learning to match pitch has to be worked on a little bit…

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Simple Steps to Cultivate Your Best Marching Band Sound

A colleague of mine once asked, “Do our bands start sounding bad right before a contest or did we finally start listening?”  The earlier we start to really listen, the better our marching bands will be. As with concert band, jazz band and chamber ensembles, it takes daily cultivation and development over a long period…

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Breathing Clinic

Have you worked on breathing lately? While it may sound simple, there’s nothing better than breathing exercises to help get your band ready for action. The following are some teaching concepts you can use to teach dynamics and concepts of crescendos and decrescendos. All exercises are to be done by blowing air through the instrument…

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