The Musician's Way Blog

Joseph Robinson

Joseph Robinson was Principal Oboist with the New York Philharmonic from 1978 until his retirement in 2005.

In this interview with Gerald Klickstein for The Musician’s Way Blog, he speaks about music making, artistic development, and various aspects of living the orchestral musician’s life.

GK: Before your successful audition for the NY Phil, how did you go about refining the skills that enabled you to win that audition? Continue Reading

Chapter 2 of The Musician’s Way is called “Practicing Deeply, Part I.” It lays out principles upon which deep practice is built and provides frameworks that get fleshed out throughout the text. Here are the titles of the sections within the chapter:

Practicing Deeply
Habits of Excellence
Essentials of Artistic Interpretation
Mental Imaging
Warming Up Continue Reading

This is the first in a series of posts in which I summarize how I use The Musician’s Way in my studio teaching. Here, I focus on Chapter 1. Continue Reading

To make music in groups, we musicians require more than interpretive and technical know-how; we also need specific skills if we’re to work together harmoniously.

Given that we spend so much time practicing alone, however, are most of us acquiring expert collaborative skills? And are music schools supplying students with sufficient instruction in collaboration?

Frankly, I have my doubts.

Continue Reading