performer – Ed Castro's Blog

Conversations With Developing Musicians

While teaching music to small and large ensembles, the type of questions I often get asked is related to how musicians should practice. Therefore, I recommend reading several books for musicians to gain personal knowledge and introspection about developing a practice routine. These books have helped me think about the practical applications of learning music…
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Conversations With Young Brass Players

When I find myself engaged in conversations with younger performers, the conversations tends to lead into questions of “how and who”. “How do you practice that?” and “Who do you listen to?” These two PDF’s help me in my own evaluation of my practice habits and what I listen for as I continue to develop…
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Teaching Orchestra and Band in a Digital Space: Day 1

It’s hard to imagine how someone could remotely teach an interactive music class like an orchestra or band, but given the current situation, with Seattle being the epicenter of the Coronavirus, this is now my new reality as an instrumental music instructor. This week starts our three-week (or until further notice) experience teaching and learning…
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Surprising to me still

When I think about things that upset me, I’m often surprised about the things that get me amped up and blood boiling. There are the usual thing like humans mistreating one another or lack of empathy toward suffering. You know…war, famine, wastefulness, bigotry, bullying, unnecessary shaming, miss using bacon to make other foods taste good,…
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This might work out

I recently changed the curriculum of one of my classes to be a more project-based class. My want and desires are to give students an opportunity to dig deeper into a musical subject. As to not make my classes all about performance. It seems as if the only context given for learning about the history…
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‘Fame’ High School Stages Sit In

Very proud of my alma mater. As a music teacher, I couldn’t agree with these students more. Good for them. Please read this article.
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The Composition Game

I was recently asked to participate in a pilot program connecting me with an artist of the same discipline to work with me and coach me achieve an important next step in my career. My peer mentor and I talked about using music composition as a way of stretching out to meet some artistic goals.…
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Give these two a listen…

Toward the end of the school year, a few of us were sharing cool music and videos of performances we thought were really cool. Even after the end of the school year, I find myself looking up these videos and listening to some of these performances. Here are two that stood out and are still…
Read more: Give these two a listen…
Rabbit Hole and then Jennifer Hudson…

Sometimes I start listening to music and looking up different videos, just to see if I find something new and interesting. This time I landed on Jennifer Hudson. I must have listened to this about five or six times. Her inflections and phrasing are simple and beautiful. The kind of music making that makes me…
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Finals week approching

DCI finals are approaching and I am catching up with videos on Youtube and Facebook. Of course, this starts me down the rabbit hole of reminiscing. I start to think about all the years of drum and bugle corps I marched. In 1990 I started marching in a drum and bugle corps in the Bronx.…
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Tag: performer