QuickStart Clarinet Blog

I recently submitted an entry to the International Clarinet Association's Young Artist Competition. I have no idea how competitive my recordings were, but I know I was not in the top 3. Even though I didn't win, I learned some valuable lessons on what it takes to win that I think are worth...

I'm super excited to be sharing this resource that will have a hugely positive impact on the productivity of your practicing, if you actually download it and put it to use!

This is The Ultimate Practice Guide, which will help you to organize your practice and keep you motivated to get the results...

No, I will not stop with the Spongebob image!

I also won't stop sharing my ideas on how to get more out of your clarinet and musical journey!

So, let's pick up where we left off last week, and talk about analyzing music.

Most college students take theory and musicology courses for 2+ years that...

In last week's post, I went over how having a great imagination of how your music should go is probably the most important to your success as a clarinetist.

Now, how do you develop that imagination?

If you really want to get serious about clarifying that image in your head of how the music should...

I always say that playing clarinet is simple once you are able to break it down into all of it's separate parts, but putting all those parts together can be a bit challenging!

I have found, however, that there is one piece of the puzzle that plays a bigger role in the process and will almost...

Everything you need to know to be a great musician?!?

It seems hard to gather that all into one video or one process, and though there is probably some more fleshing out to do on this theory, I think you will find it to be quite insightful!

I first learned about the Grand Unified Theory in one of...

Today is the day! After a few weeks of pondering the toxicity in classical music and the reasoning behind it, today we are finally going to come up with some solutions.

So if scarcity and competition are the issues that lead to toxicity, the solution is very simply the opposite of that: abundance...

In my last blog post, we looked at all the ways that classical music is toxic, so today I want to explore why that might be.

Most of this comes down to scarcity and competition. Let's look at the examples of toxicity I listed in the previous post, again.

I have to play well enough to get a solo...

A brief warning before we get too far into this. This is a sort of half baked idea, and I would really love to hear your thoughts on this. I suspect I may make several more posts on this subject, and would love to get your input. I also hope to find a positive end to this, though I do expect that...

This wonderful Bob Ross GIF, in which he says, "Talent is a pursued interest. In other words, anything that you're willing to practice, you can do", was the perfect inspiration for today's blog post!

If you talk to professional musicians and ask them what some of their least favorite things to...