UW-Whitewater students should check out electronic music and composition specialist (and UW faculty) Jeff Herriott’s blog. It is an interesting read, and full of day-to-day music department info. Also, check out his regular website. Jeff regularly brings interesting guest artists to perform at the university, and many of my students have taken his classes and worked for him. He has really added a lot to the music department at Whitewater.

I will be playing in the orchestra for the Lyric Opera’s production of Der Rosenkavalier through March. Come see it if you can!

If you’re looking for Jamie Aebersold Play Along tracks, I’d suggest checking out www.playjazznow.com.

Scott Bakshis just made principal bass for Illinois All-State Orchestra. Scott is a junior at Libertyville High School and also plays in the Chicago Youth Symphony. He has been studying with me since 7th grade. Great job, Scott! 

A website everybody should check out is practicespot.com. This site is mainly useful for pre-college students, but it has a ton of useful stuff for students of all ages. One useful tool is a random rhythm generator program, which will create an etude made up of the kinds of notes you specify (quarters, eighths, sixteenths, etc.). Also available is a random sightreading generator, which does the same thing with sightreading (you specify the possible key, time signature, note values, range, clef, etc.). There is also a scales manual that will print out only the scales that you are working on at the time. There are also a lot of useful practice logs, charts, and articles. Great site!