Starting this fall, because of starting my DMA, I will be strictly limiting the amount of non-horn brass I play.
Since I'm going to school to study horn, I'm going to spend my time almost exclusively on the instrument I'm studying. That said, I am somewhat hesitant -
Most of my income is from performing and recording. Horn makes up a minority of that. Choosing to focus on horn is cutting off a majority of my income, which is a risky move. But I'm not the horn player I want to be. As long as I'm spreading myself this thin, I can't be.
You can still ask me to play the other brass. A gig is a gig. Don't hesitate to ask, especially if we have an established relationship.
However, I will not be accepting any gigs that don't also involve horn in some way - no trumpet or trombone only gigs for example.
On horn, I can play in any genre with confidence. I can play classical, jazz (straight-ahead, Latin, Bebop, fusion, big band), metal. Mellow, aggressive, fast, slow. If it's doable on the other brass, I can handle it. This will be more and more true as I focus.
For those of you who have supported me in my career so far, thank you. You've pushed me to greater heights than I could have ever gone on my own.
I still want to serve you all, just by taking my skills on my primary instrument to a new level.
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Orchestration tip:
Not everything needs to be epic.
The trend right now is for orchestral music to be "epic", like all the time. What I mean by this is loud, heavy, intense textures making use of *huge* orchestras. Film music does a lot of this, video games too. 1/6
But an issue I hear a lot of is that the music flatlines after a relatively short time. It's epic...then epic...then more epic, etc. It's not really that exciting to listen to on its own for more than a few minutes. Even more, there's this war to out-epic other orchestrators. 2/6
Musicians, especially professionals, have spent years mastering their instruments. They can play with intensity at all dynamics, and convey many emotions at all dynamics. You can use this to your advantage. Epic sounds moreso if there's a lot of contrast around it. 3/6