• Creating a Syllabus for Your Private Studio

    Creating a Syllabus for Your Private Studio Chances are, your band director, theory professor, music history teacher, or studio professor are very familiar with syllabi. Most institutions require educators to maintain up-to-date syllabi outlining their expectations, objectives, assignments, and overviews for their classes. For students, these are the papers you probably pretended to read and then threw away after they were distributed on the first day of classes (and frantically searched for during finals week to calculate your grade). A syllabus is a valuable tool not only for educators, but also a great resource for students. Syllabi allow educators to organize their ideas for a class while simultaneously providing students…

  • How to Test Equipment at Conventions

    How to Test Equipment at Conventions For musicians, conventions and conferences are wonderful opportunities to hear concerts, attend masterclasses, and peruse exhibits for music, tchotchkes, and equipment. These events are great places to try equipment you might not have access to otherwise, but making sure you find your best setup at these venues can be tricky if you are not careful. Here are some tips to select new equipment among the cacophony of the exhibit halls: Scout out the exhibits for the booths you are interested in trying their equipment. Plan to test their equipment during low-traffic hours (it’s typically slowest when the exhibits open or during lunchtime). Testing equipment…

  • Da capo

    For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Jenny Maclay, or Jenny Clarinet, as my friends call me.  As you might have guessed, I’m a clarinetist. I’ve been playing clarinet for about sixteen years now, and it is the most all-consuming, incredible, stressful, exciting, daunting, frustrating, enjoyable element of my life. Ever since I began playing when I was ten, it’s hard to remember my life without music – friends I made in band, school band trips, All State auditions, late-night practice sessions, recitals/performances/competitions – it always seems like my memories are centered around clarinet.  My clarinet and I have grown together in a symbiotic way, and…