Martin, if you just read a horn forum to become a better player, you might reading at the wrong place, as there are just very few professionals as contributers. Contributions by non professionals might be interesting for discussion, but they are not designed to make you a better player.
We have a similar case in the recent horn call, where a Non-specialist with nearly zero experience on the particular field write wrote an article or book about the use of Wagnertuba. He has received a strong critic for that by the long time expert Shelley Civil. William Melton (on the other hand) wrote extensively about the history & the use of the Wagnertuba & was lauded for his great & true effort. Martin, following a discussion does not require that you agree or not. It is also a brain game. The whole thing about the shorter valve & the assembly history was also initiated & continued by colleagues missing the required informations. They also seemed not to understand the acoustical & physical relations between horn construction, intonation, pitches & available pitches due to inadequate informations (studies) & experiences with related instruments. It seems to me, that a lot of folks look at things just from a very particularpoint of view. One thing comes to mind reading your last sentence (happy practising): isn´t a lot overpractised ?? Isn´t it much better, practising just things needing improvement ? Isn´t it more important, to practise less, but very thoughtful. So time remains for reading music & listen to music - or reading other stuff too (art history, biographies, music theory). ============================================================================================= -----Original Message----- Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:29:34 +0100 Subject: Fwd: AW: AW: [Hornlist] Re: Horn Digest, Vol 74, Issue 17 From: Martin Bender <em...@magma.ca> To: The Horn List <horn@music.memphis.edu> Begin forwarded message: > From: Martin Bender <em...@magma.ca> > Date: February 12, 2009 9:20:45 AM GMT-05:00 > To: c.j.l.w...@newcastle.ac.uk, The Horn List <horn@music.memphis.edu> > Subject: Re: AW: AW: [Hornlist] Re: Horn Digest, Vol 74, Issue 17 > > Just a thought here-- try and imagine how much progress one might > achieve by re-focusing the same amount of (extremely valuable!) > mental energy expended in debating this pedantic issue, to > practising orchestral excerpts. In utmost deference to those > involved, I believe that one's time is better utilized pursuing a > more result-oriented line of thought, rather than a tangential > exploration of arcane, esoteric minutia. > > Leave the epistemological exercises to the musicologists; apply > Occam's razor to this "shorter second valve slide issue" and answer > two questions: will it make me a better player? If so, how? > > Happy practising, > martin bender _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
