Author: Josh Gottry

Continuing on my earlier post about the benefits of choosing more accessible performance and practice literature, I’d like to now look at the potential for stronger reading skills and exposure to a larger catalog of music. Inherently all of these benefits are in some way related, but these two seem to be most clearly interdependent.…

It occurred to me recently that there seems to be a trend (likely influenced by social media and online performance videos) for students to select highly challenging solo literature, with the goal of surviving the performance with most of the notes recognizable and all their fingers still functioning. The key element missing in these performances…

I cringe when I notice a student lean, place something, or put their hands on a keyboard percussion instrument. It’s not a table, bookshelf, or recliner – it’s a musical instrument that has to potential to be the source of amazing sounds. I’ll save instrument care and maintenance for another day, but this reaction triggers…

Three new pieces just released from C. Alan Publications … FRAMED for percussion quartet PLIPLETS for percussion ensemble UPS AND DOWNS for percussion ensemble

Most of us musicians or music students wear “many different hats” in terms of our musical activities. Often those widely varying facets of our musical studies or career can overlap in a few select areas, and capitalizing on those overlaps can be extremely beneficial to us, both in terms of available time and an enhanced…

Now before sending me e-mails, posting on my Facebook wall, or commenting below, please let me emphasize the word “just” in the sentence above. Don’t JUST learn your scales. Even the most die-hard, old-school piano teacher would agree that learning scales, in and of itself, is worthless, unless you do something with them. So how…

MOLTO VIVACE arranged for percussion ensemble NORTHERN WORKSHOP for percussion ensemble STELLER’S JAY for percussion ensemble SUITE MARIMBA a collection for marimba solo or duo TAKE A SEAT a collection of exercises, grooves, etudes, and solos for cajon VENN DIAGRAM for percussion ensemble

The instrument itself is quite simple in design – a piece of metal shaped like a triangle. However, there is obviously much more to playing a triangle than holding it up by a string and hitting it with an old bolt or piece of scrap metal as it spins in circles. THE TRIANGLE CLIP: Before…

SIZES AND RANGES: Knowing the sizes and ranges of a standard set of timpani is critical for any timpanist. This information assists in choosing specific drums to be used and determining approximate location of the indicated pitches within the range of the drum. A complete set of timpani is typically 4 or 5 drums with…

PRACTICE! It is an instruction that every music student has heard many times. That doesn’t mean each one has done it or even knows how to do it. Simply being told to practice is like being told to learn, but without knowing what to learn, how much of it to learn, or some methods for learning.…