Barry Blogs

Harmony Knowing the harmonic underpinning of a line can lead to a convincing interpretation. In the case of Shostakovich you might not thi...

The Motives In this post, I'll examine the motives employed in the first bassoon part for Shostakovich's 9th Symphony . An underst...

The Score Using the example of the bassoon solos in Shostakovich Symphony #9, I'll explore different ways of building a solid interpre...

I'm Back! Due to an extremely busy schedule, I've had to suspend activity on this blog for a few months. Here's what my past...

What's In Your Bag -- Or Instrument Case? My daughter is a talented photographer. Among photographers there's a lot of discussion...

Beethoven and the Metronome Musicians have long puzzled over Beethoven's metronome markings.  To our ears many of his choices seem ...

Making Good Coffee When You Travel If you like good coffee, you know it can be hard to find when you're traveling. Everyone has their ...