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Please follow these steps so you have the best settings for horn lessons. 1. Open Audio Settings A. If you are starting from the Zoom home screen, click on the Tools symbol at the top right. A new screen will appear with several options. Click on Audio. B. If you are adjusting audio settings when you are on a call already: 1. Click on the ^ symbol between your Mute and Stop Video buttons, on the bottom left of your Zoom screen. This upward arrow will open a menu of options. Click on Audio Settings. 3. You will see Speaker and Microphone options. You may want to adjust the input volume or output volume. For most of my students, about 70-80% volume works well for both. For those of you who have external mics: Under Microphone, check that your external mic is being used by your computer by clicking on the drop-down menu and making sure your external mic is selected. 4. Under Microphone: uncheck the option box that says "Automatically adjust microphone volume." You do not want the Zoom software to change your volume as you play. 5. Click on Advanced Settings, which is a tab at the bottom right of the Audio Settings screen. 6. In Advanced Settings, check the box at the top that says "Show in-meeting options to 'Enable Original Sound' from microphone." Once you check this box, your system will keep your original sound and not try to "fix" it. 7. On the same Advanced Settings screen, under Audio Processing, click the following: Disable, Disable, and Auto. You want to disable both "suppress background noise," which will otherwise lead to intermittent cutting in and out of your audio as the system tries to guess which sounds it hears are "noise." These steps will not take long to set up, but will provide a much better continuous audio experience for lessons! -Erika NB: Although an external mic is not required, it does make a huge difference in how well your sound is picked up and transmitted via Zoom. I strongly encourage students to consider investing in a USB external mic. They provide a truer image of your sound compared to your internal microphone on your computer, which is designed for talking voices and in addition is probably is a bit too far away from you and your sound. Here is a short video that also goes through the options if you'd rather follow a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MynQPhULNRU Below is a screen shot highlighting the Audio and Advanced Audio Settings you can change:  
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Well, this post was gong to be about best Zoom audio settings, but that's not how it came out!
The times we are living in have been so difficult and challenging, for so many, many reasons. I have been reminding myself that we are all doing the best we can, and that everyone's circumstances are different and often unknown. While some challenges may be obvious to those around us, others may not. Now, more than ever, it is hard "to see" what others are dealing with, given the distancing we are observing. I am grateful that I have a community of wonderful, online students that constantly bring meaning and joy to my life. Every week, my students inspire me, and help me continue to grow in my own learning and understanding. Thank you. And just one more idea to chew on: Music is powerful. Like so many other important, wonderful events, the IHS scheduled for August 2020 has been cancelled. Although this cancellation is a huge loss for so many, it is a small sacrifice in the big picture of the pandemic. Here in the greater LA area we have been sheltering in place since March 12th. I read somewhere last week advice about personal outlook during this challenging time. As hard as it is, the advice suggested, try to focus on what we have gained through this experience, rather than what we have lost. I am trying to remember this idea every day, sometimes with more success than other times. Of course, this advice seems terribly inadequate to the many, many families who have lost loved ones, in our own neighborhoods, states, and the entire world. Please do what you can to stay positive, help others, and help stop the spread of the coronavirus. And don't forget the power of music, whether you are listening or playing!
Yikes! Everyone-- I want to wish you good luck staying safe, healthy, and sane over the next few weeks! With all the uncertainty and stress, community members need each other's support more than ever.
I also want to share some good news--I am excited to be a contributing artist for the 52nd Annual International Horn Symposium in Eugene, Oregon in August 2020! I will present "Preparing and Performing Unaccompanied Horn Solos." Specifically, I will discuss notation interpretation, extended techniques, phrasing decisions, and presentation issues such as audience connection, embodying emotions, and staging. For more information about the symposium, please visit: http://www.ihs52.com. A big thank you to Lydia Van Dreel, the organizer of the event this year and Professor of Horn at the University of Oregon! I am excited to share the news of Alan Schlessinger's performance of the third movement of Concerto No. 1 by Richard Strauss. My high school student Alan won a solo spot at the Samohi's Senior Gala, performing the concerto's final movement with orchestra.
The year has been full of many exciting and newsworthy moments; so busy, in fact, that I haven't had a chance to keep the studio news online up to date! Between my own performances and teaching and my students' performances, the blog has taken a back seat. But fortunately Alan's performance was recorded and you can check out the recording on YouTube by clicking here! Alan is performing by memory and with refined, clean technique. He worked so hard this spring, and you can hear all the hard work paid off! He has beautiful phrasing and tone, clear high notes (listen to those gorgeous high Bbs!), and great articulation, stage presence, and intonation. Bravo, Alan! The fabulous 50th international horn symposium took place last week in Muncie, Indiana, thanks to the host, Gene Berger, professor of horn at Ball State University.
It was a wonderful week of all things horn! Events began at 8:00 AM and lasted all day, including "night horn choirs" that started at 10:00 PM, for those with energy left after full days of recitals, lectures, master classes, perusing sheet music for horn, and trying out dozens of horns on exhibit. Professional players, professors, students, horn makers, and enthusiasts from around the world came. Somewhere along the way it was pointed out that "saying yes to something means saying no to other things." This point was made many times over at the conference, as quite often there were multiple events happening concurrently. Some of my favorite lectures included discussions about the horn as a jazz instrument, the evolution of horn pedagogy in the last 50 years, and Froydis Ree Wekre's discussion, "On being your own teacher." This very well-attended talk (all seats were taken and about 100 horn players sat or stood in the aisles) primarily addressed the mental and psychological challenges we all face in the practice room. I highly recommend her book to anyone serious about horn playing: Thoughts on Playing the Horn Well. I thoroughly enjoyed catching up with old friends and meeting new ones. It was also such a treat to hear the many new works for horn-- there were many exciting world premieres as well as some lost gems that were rediscovered and performed at the conference. I look forward to adding several of these great pieces to my own repertoire in the next year or so. Currently, as of summer 2018, my preferred platform for teaching online lessons is FaceTime. Skype and Google Hangouts also work well, but FaceTime seems to be most reliable, with the fewest connectivity, audio, or visual issues. Most importantly, the audio is consistent and in my experience FaceTime has less delay between the two sides of the call. It's probably only a few hundredths of a second different, but I notice the difference.
Skype's biggest issue is that it will sometimes "mute" one side of the call, when it incorrectly perceives that there is too much background noise. This happens usually when a student is playing a long note. However, here is a way to fix that issue. Technical Issue: How can I stop Skype audio from cutting out momentarily? Answer: This problem is usually caused by Skype overcompensating for what it believes to be loud background noise levels. Go into Skype’s Tools menu, then to Options… and select the Audio Settings tab. First, check that the HUE camera is selected as the microphone, and then uncheck the box below marked, “Let Skype adjust my audio settings”. Initially it is best to set the volume slider a little less than halfway along the bar. You can adjust this later to suit your preferences. Remember to save your settings before closing the window. The sound levels should now remain steady when you’re making calls. This information was taken from the following resource: https://huehd.com/ufaqs/microphone-cuts-making-skype-calls/ Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day!
In case you haven't had a chance to check it out, I highly recommend the IHS Excerpts page. Horn players worldwide are grateful to Daren Robbins, who created this compilation of horn excerpts. There are many wonderful excerpt books out there, some more comprehensive or more in-depth, but the great feature of this excerpt list is the accompanying collection of audio recordings. Horn players can easily see and practice the excerpts, and can also listen to the excerpts--in full context. There are several different audio recordings for each excerpt, allowing listeners to compare and contrast a multitude of styles, tempi, horn sound, etc.
If you don't know where to begin, I recommend listening to and learning Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5. Check out the horn excerpts now: www.hornsociety.org/hornexcerpts-org Scales are not always a favorite practice item.... many students aren't too excited about them. Why practice boring scales?
Ask any musician: Scales are essential--they are the building blocks of music. Thorough knowledge of your scales is comparable to fluency in reading or language. They are not the ABCs, but rather a much more integrated understanding of how words work together. I suggest that ALL students spend 5 minutes per practice on scales. If you invest 5 minutes into scales every time you practice, you will be amazed at how much you can learn, and how quickly. The key is to ALWAYS practice your scales for those 5 minutes. A complete beginner can spend 5 minutes per day working on the first 5 notes of the C scale. As the student progresses, the entire scale will be achievable. At this point, the student can also use the scale to practice other aspects of playing, such as tonguing more cleanly and slurring smoothly. The student can play the C scale in slow quarter notes, then play it again with two eighth notes per note, then with slurred quarter notes. The remainder of the 5 minutes of scale work is spent on learning a new scale, such as Bb. Once the advancing beginner can play both C and Bb scales, the C scale is now quite familiar, and can be played perhaps only once at a somewhat faster (but even) tempo. The Bb scale is emphasized by a few repetitions (slurred, tongued, etc). There is now time to add arpeggios to the scales. In a few more weeks, as both scales and arpeggios are familiar, another new scale can be introduced. Every week or two the student will be able to add on either a new scale or new arpeggio, and as more scales become more familiar, they will take up less and less of the 5 minutes set aside for scale acquisition. In this building block method, a student who practices regularly will be able to play all 12 major scales, one octave, with arpeggios, often within their first year of study. Intermediate students who are able to play all 12 of their scales one octave can spend the remainder of their 5 minutes of scale study working on adding the second octaves to scales and arpeggios. They may also begin minor scale work. Advancing students who are able to play all 12 scales two octaves and with arpeggios within five minutes can also work on minor scales, including all forms. Please note that advanced students may spend significantly more time with their scales and arpeggios. They may be practicing 2 and 3-octave scales in major and all three forms of minor, and may use scales to practice a multitude of other aspects of playing, including double and single tonguing, consistency between registers, dynamics, rhythmic patterns, etc. |
Erika WilsenHorn teacher and performer Archives
July 2020
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