Learning Your History

  After revamping the Better Know a Composer section a couple weeks back I started to think if I had ever really explained why I started it the first place. It might not immediately pertinent to horn playing, so many of you are probably curious why I thought it was important to be here.

Why did I start "Better Know a Composer"?

  Honestly, the reason I began this is because I was looking for a unique set of articles that I could write about weekly and would have the potential for continue for a long time. That's when I started thinking about how many composers are out there, and there must be tons more that I didn't even know about yet. On top of all that, I thought researching composers would be helpful going into college music courses and I'd probably have assignments that could double as research for my blog. And thus "Better Know a Composer" got its start.

  Beyond my own needs, I believe that knowing how to use proper style is one of the first things that separates players from musicians. Anyone can come up to an instrument and blow a few right notes, but it takes a true musician to convey the composer's message through an instrument. The only problem is, how do you convey this properly without knowing a few things about the composer?

  In a continuous effort to keep people from coming up on stage and playing Mozart like Mahler, and Richard Strauss like Johann Strauss, I hope these biographies can aid horn players of all abilities to reach the next step!