My Time at the ITG 2025 Conference
This year I attended my first International Trumpet Guild conference, which was held in Salt Lake City in late May. This was the 49th annual conference, which is one shy of what I can only imagine will be a huge anniversary bash, but it was a good idea in retrospect to go to a slightly…
30 Trumpet Players to Listen To
One thing I’ve noticed about music students that was probably always true, but seems extra evident in the modern era, is that most students don’t engage with the styles of music they practice away from the instrument. When I ask my trumpet students about their favourite artists, songs, and genres, I almost always get answers…
Endurance, Efficiency, Equipment
When I was in my fourth and final year of a general arts degree, which I had structured to basically be a less-intense Musicology major, I decided however foolishly that I wanted to pivot for grad school and shift my focus to Performance. I took an extra year between programmes, signing up as a non-degree…
Responding to some Published Problem Takes in Classical Music
Note from the author: I originally wrote this in the summer of 2022, and for some reason or another, I never got around to publishing it. I found this on my computer recently, and wasn’t going to bother posting it as it’s fairly outdated, but I decided to for two reasons: 1) because I thought…
The Trumpet’s History in Western Classical Music
(This article is a companion to my in-class lecture on the trumpet’s usage in the Western classical tradition, but it can be enjoyed on its own just fine!) The trumpet is a very old instrument, with a fascinating history in the Western classical tradition. The oldest surviving trumpets are currently held in the Cairo Museum…
The Wide and Wonderful World of Trumpet Music
This post is written as a playlist for my younger students, especially those with little or no background in classical music or jazz. The tone’s a little lighter as a result, but hopefully no less informative! Welcome to the world of brass music! If you’re here, that probably means you’re learning a brass instrument (and…
Keeping The Musical Drive Going When Everything’s At A Standstill
As of the time of this writing, we are less than one month from the one year anniversary of arts and culture grinding to a halt in Nova Scotia as a direct result of the global Covid-19 crisis. I remember the week leading up to it well. On Monday, Canada had its first Covid-related death,…
Three Of My Favourite Topics In Music Theory Right Now
When you first start to learn the rudiments of music theory, everything seems pretty cut and dry. Less of music theory, and more of music fact. C to E is always a major third, G minor always has two flats, there are four dotted quarter notes in a bar of 12/8. When you get to…
How Solfege Makes You a Better Sightreader (And a Better Musician!)
This is the first entry in a multi-part series about how to use music theory as a performer. Links to future articles will be included here as they are published. Two of the most common sayings in our brass studio, that are intrinsically linked, are “if you can say it, you can play it” and…
Matt’s Listening List: 10 Great Works of Classical Music (that are under 80 years old)
There sure is a lot of music out there in the world. As a young learning musician, it can be hard to know where to start when diving in to a new style of music, since there just isn’t enough time in one life to listen to everything. That’s why I put this list together:…
Matt Richard 