Writing
Articles
Writing on practice, repertoire, glissandos, mutes, and the working life of a contemporary trombonist — plus reflections on teaching, ensemble work, and FlowFrame.
-
How to Build a Click Track with Metric Modulations in FlowFrame
(Using Birtwistle’s Silbury Air) For years, metric modulation was the one thing that sent me back to a pencil, a calculator, and a lot of muttering. Here’s how FlowFrame turns it into two dropdown menus and how I used it…
-
Land of Winter: Resisting Easy Assumptions
I had a small epiphany today about Land of Winter (Donnacha Dennehy’s large-scale work for chamber orchestra, written for and recorded by Alarm Will Sound.). Or maybe, given my day job, an alarm sounded. The piece, in many ways, deals with misunderstandings.…
-
Beyond the Click : Six Real-World Ways I’m Using FlowFrame Right Now
I built FlowFrame to scratch a very personal itch: a practice tool that could keep up with the way musicians actually work. Since then, the app has grown in directions I never imagined… mostly because my own playing, teaching, and…
-
Built for Progress: Practice Tracking in FlowFrame
When I started sketching out FlowFrame, it wasn’t just about building a better metronome; it was about creating a space where practice tracking could feel focused, intentional, and rewarding. A place where structure meets flexibility, and where your growth is…
-
There’s No One Right Way to Make Music
If there’s a single belief that’s guided the development of FlowFrame, it’s this:There is no one right way to make music. Not in how you compose it.Not in how you teach it.Not in how you practice it. Music is shaped…
-
Built With You: How FlowFrame Grows Through Your Ideas
One of the best parts of building FlowFrame has been seeing it evolve not just from my ideas, but from user-suggested features. Some of my favorite features weren’t in the original plan. They came from musicians I admire, collaborators I…
-
Dividing Time – FlowFrame
Time, Sliced and Felt Time is the raw material of every practice session. When I began building FlowFrame in January 2025 I was staring down four uncertain years and trying to decide how I would make it through them. I…
-
The Art of Noticing
An Experiment in Musical Mindfulness You know that feeling when you’ve spent weeks with a piece of music, and suddenly you start hearing all these little details you missed before? The way a particular harmony shifts, or how two instruments…
-
Contemporary Trombone Excerpts – Ayres, In the Alps
No. 42 (In the Alps), Richard Ayres Melodrama for soprano and chamber orchestra (2008) No. 42 (In The Alps) by Richard Ayres is an orchestral trombonist’s dream: part Strauss, part Rossini, part Mahler, mostly hilarious. Here’s how the composer Richard…