Village Virtuoso

Educating and Inspiring Community Musicians

Rock Bands with Horn Sections

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Mainstream bands with horn sections (rock, pop, swing, funk, etc.) are becoming more popular, thanks to the public’s increasingly eclectic musical tastes. This expansion of wind instruments into rock and related sub-genres has evolved for many decades, ever since David Mason played piccolo trumpet for The Beatles’ hit Penny Lane in 1967. Bands with a lead […]

Eager for Easter

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Being an experienced trumpet player of quasi-local renown (okay, maybe extremely local), I sometimes get emails around this time of year from folks asking if I’m available for various Easter services. While there seems to be an unlimited number of trumpeters here in the Washington/Baltimore corridor, there also seems to be unlimited churches with organists […]

Audience Etiquette for Formal Concerts

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The “rules of etiquette” for attending a formal orchestra or band concert have been in place for hundreds of years, and they exist to help make a performance (whether amateur or professional) as enjoyable and distraction-free as possible for both the audience and the performers. Keep these rules in mind to make your concert experience […]

Priorities and Pragmatism

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Community concert band directors have more decisions to make than anyone else in the group, but sometimes it’s not about what you might think. Oh sure, they have to come up with pieces for the next program, perhaps following a theme. They need to know if certain parts will not be covered and remember how […]

Common Hand-Held Percussion Instruments

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Hand-held percussion instruments are important to the style and flavor of a musical piece. They can be found in both non-profit and professional groups, and are played more often in a band than in an orchestra. Hand-held percussion instruments are also called auxiliary percussion, or more informally, “toys.” However, they are certainly no less important […]