Playing a brass instrument requires a refined ear. This interactive session provides strategies to help brass players actively hear the notes on the page. Educators will learn to incorporate solfége into instrumental instruction with songs and games to develop fundamental pitch, rhythm, and harmonic skills. Demonstrations will show how to teach students to become more self-sufficient with activities that build polyphonic sense, tonal memory, as well as transposition and sightreading proficiency.
Natalie Grana
- Biographical Information
Dr. Natalie Douglass Grana is a hornist and educator based in Chicago, Illinois. Her integrative approach to teaching horn through singing and inner hearing has garnered international recognition, and she has worked with hundreds of students to develop fluency as performers and complete musicians. Dr. Grana is on faculty at Lake Forest College and DePaul University in Chicago and previously served as Assistant Professor of Horn and head of brass at Utah Valley University. Her pedagogy is inspired by Zoltan Kodály, and she spent the 2015-2016 academic year on a U.S. Fulbright Grant to the Kodály Institute of the Liszt Academy of Music in Hungary. She has spoken at International Horn Society symposia, has been a keynote speaker for NAfME, and has served as a visiting academic at Oxford University. She has been a guest artist at some of the world’s finest musical institutions, including the Royal Conservatoire of the Hague (Netherlands) and the Royal Academy of Music (London, UK). She has taught at the renowned Kendall Betts Horn Camp since 2013. Her book, “A Singing Approach to Horn Playing,” is available by Oxford University Press. She is an active orchestral and chamber performer, including tours under the batons of Lorin Maazel and Krzysztof Penderecki and performances with musicians like Josh Groban, Idina Menzel, and Mannheim Steamroller. Dr. Grana holds a D.M.A. in Horn Performance from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music and an MM in Horn Performance and BME in Instrumental Music Education from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.