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      If you are having difficulty with a particular passage of music (try as you might, you just can't seem to consistently get it to come out right), try following these simple, yet effective "rules".  The following article contains execllent guidelines to successful practicing for performance, or just for overall improvement of your musical skill, and it works for all instruments and levels of playing ability.
Practice Makes Perfect
by Jason LeBrun and Mark Schiffer
(originally published in the March 2009 Windway, SFARS newsletter and republished with permission from the authors)
The summary of the rule is:  If you can play the selection five consecutive times* correctly, increase the tempo on the metronome; if you play the selection five consecutive times incorrectly, slow the tempo down.
*this could be as few as three or as many as ten times,...

Many members of the American Recorder Society (ARS) have had the pleasure of attending workshops with a number of fellow enthusiastic recorder players.  Some have played in an entire roomful of recorders under the direction of very capable and patient teachers.  However, this is only a hint of what it is like to play in a recorder orchestra.  In a workshop setting, although we make the music presented sound pretty good, the time we spend on preparing it is relatively short, so finessing the sound and balance often goes by the wayside.
For anyone who has not had the experience of playing in a recorder orchestra, one might liken it to being in an expanded ensemble with the entire family of recorders and multiple musicians playing most parts.  Naturally, due to the nature of our beloved instrument of choice, this creates challenges in tuning with others playing the same part, as well as blending with the other voices in the group.  But with practice, the resulting skill in blending of sound and awareness of intonation not only strengthens the sound of the large ensemble but enhances the pleasure of playing in small ensembles with just one person per part.
Another challenge for some is learning to follow a conductor, which, when playing in the large group is really essential, as our ears can deceive us.  As experienced ensemble players, we are used to listening carefully for the beat and tempo as “agreed” upon by the group.  When there are twenty or more members of the orchestra, however, it is nigh on impossible to match the beat by “feel”, so we rely on the steady direction of a conductor.  The trick is to watch carefully for meter or tempo changes, downbeats and cut offs.
One such recorder orchestra is the American Recorder Orchestra of the West (AROW),...

I recently talked to a woman who works for a youth orchestra. She had just auditioned a number of oboists, and the majority had obviously been given faulty information.
Oboists use their tongue to articulate. If you aren't...