Intentional Musicianship

What does it really mean to serve your country as a musician? In this special Veterans Day episode of Intentional Musicianship   , retired U.S. Army Bandmaster Jeff Price reflects on more than 20 years of military service, the extraordinary people he served alongside, and the unique role military musicians play in supporting service members, honoring traditions, and representing the United States...

  Have you ever attended a music competition, heard the winners announced, and thought, "Really? That's not what I experienced!" Maybe there's a reason for that. In this episode of  Intentional Musicianship , Jeff Price explores the difference between how we evaluate musical excellence and how audiences experience a performance. A 2023 study examining 370 editions of international classical music...

How well do you know what's happening within 30 miles of where you live? You might be surprised by the musicians, organizations, businesses, and opportunities right in your own community. In this episode of  Intentional Musicianship , Jeff Price explores the arts ecosystem surrounding his home in Fairmont, West Virginia. Even after decades of performing, teaching, and attending concerts throughout...

Have you ever followed your GPS perfectly, only to discover you've ended up in the wrong place? Preparing a musical performance isn't all that different from planning a road trip. Whether you're performing a single piece or an entire concert program, knowing the notes doesn't necessarily mean you know where you're going. In this episode of  Intentional Musicianship ,, Jeff Price looks back at the...

What happens when an outstanding musical organization struggles to attract audiences while another performer has people spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars for a concert experience? Is it the quality of the music, the price, the audience, or something else entirely? Maybe understanding the marketplace can give us another frame of reference. In this episode of  Intentional Musicianship ,...

What Makes a Great National Anthem Performance? What makes a great national anthem performance? Is it the voice, the arrangement, the interpretation, or understanding the role you're being asked to play in the moment? In this episode of   Intentional Musicianship , Jeff Price draws on his experiences as a U.S. Army musician and Bandmaster to explore national anthem performances from a different pe...

What are musicians really getting from that familiar tuning note before a concert? It may be a slightly controversial question because the answer might not be tuning. In this episode of  Intentional Musicianship , Jeff Price looks at the traditional opening tuning note used by bands, orchestras, and other instrumental ensembles and asks what value it actually brings to the performance. For the aud...

Why does the sound at a live performance sometimes seem off? Some musicians disappear, others suddenly jump out, and our attention immediately goes to the sound technician. But what if the problem we hear is only the symptom, and the actual problem started much earlier? In this episode of  Intentional Musicianship , Jeff Price explores the difference between   fixing the problem and fixing the sym...

This may be before your time but when I was a kid I read  Choose Your Own Adventure books. You made a decision, turned to a different page, and discovered where that choice took you. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't. And sometimes you wished you could go back a few pages and choose again. Our musical lives aren't all that different. As we gain experience, we aren't starting from page one a...

What happens when you already have a good performance, but you think one small change could make it even better? In this episode of  Intentional Musicianship , Jeff Price explores the idea of  piloting the 1% . Make one intentional change to an already solid performance, test its impact, and use what you learn to decide what happens next. Inspired by a student's observation during a recent master...

Sometimes we know where we want to go, but we don't have a perfect map to get there. That doesn't mean we're lost. In this episode of Intentional Musicianship , Jeff Price explores how the unexpected experiences, skills, relationships, and even detours we collect along the way can become an important part of where we eventually end up. Through the stories of former students beginning their careers...

In this episode of  Intentional Musicianship , Jeff Price explores why strong musicianship does not always translate into a compelling live performance. Today's audiences are conditioned by film, television, and social media. Their attention is constantly guided through camera angles, movement, and intentional storytelling. When they attend a live performance, they bring those same expectations wi...

As musicians and educators, we spend our lives surrounded by sound, but we do not always stop to think about how that sound affects us over time. In this episode of  Intentional Musicianship ,   Jeff Price reflects on lessons learned from decades of performing and teaching, including his years with the United States Army, and how hearing health became part of professional responsibility. This conv...

Money is part of the musical ecosystem, whether we like it or not. But how and when musicians ask for support matters more than we often realize. In this episode of  Intentional Musicianship , Jeff Price reflects on an online holiday concert that felt less like a performance and more like an unnamed telethon, and why that disconnect matters. From there, he explores how expectations shape trust, wh...

In this episode of  Intentional Musicianship ,   Jeff Price steps back from techniques, tools, and optimization to focus on something deeper:   gratitude for the moment you are in . Drawing on personal perspective, shared musical experiences, and the realities of life on and off the stage, this episode explores how musicians and audiences alike often rush past moments that later become the most me...

Why do so many talented musicians walk into auditions hoping for a perfect day instead of relying on consistent preparation? In this episode of  Intentional Musicianship ,, Jeff Price reframes what it actually means to win an audition. The answer isn't perfection, luck, or peaking at the right moment. It's raising your average. Building on Episodes 38 and 39, this conversation explores what happen...

In this episode of  Intentional Musicianship , Jeff steps back from audition preparation and looks instead at the decision to audition in the first place. Rather than focusing on how to win an audition, this episode explores what an audition actually delivers once you do. Using real examples drawn from current orchestral job postings on audition aggregator sites like Musical Chairs , Jeff examines...

In this episode of  Intentional Musicianship , Jeff Price takes a thoughtful, personal look at school and graduate school as investments , not just financially, but in terms of time, opportunity, flexibility, and long-term life impact. Rather than telling anyone what to do, this episode invites listeners to ask two essential questions before committing to another program: Why am I doing this right...

In this episode of  Intentional Musicianship , Jeff Price Jeff Price explores what happens after a performance, when the music has ended, the applause has faded, and the internal conversation begins. Drawing from a recent studio recital experience, Jeff reflects on how joy can slip away, not because the performance failed, but because of the thoughts that quietly surface afterward. Comparison, ima...

In this updated trailer of  Intentional Musicianship , Jeff Price describes the thinking behind the podcast. Live performances don't just happen. They're built through hundreds of decisions made long before anyone walks on stage.   Intentional Musicianship exists to help musicians and educators create better live performances by examining everything that surrounds the music, from mindset and prepa...

In this episode of  Intentional Musicianship , Jeff Price reflects on a series of live performance experiences — from a surprisingly effective Halloween concert to holiday programs, world music showcases, studio recitals, and Winter Gala performances — and uncovers a unifying insight: Collaboration is not a gimmick. It's how music communicates. Jeff explores how contrast, collaboration, and though...

In this episode of   Intentional Musicianship , Jeff Price asks a simple but powerful question: What makes a concert truly unforgettable? Inspired by a recent faculty recital titled  Jeff Siegfried and Friends , Jeff reflects on how laughter, storytelling, pacing, and genuine connection transformed an already excellent performance into something memorable. We'll explore why audiences remember mome...

In this episode of  Intentional Musicianship , Jeff Price reflects on a recent visit to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto and the surprising realization that inspired today's topic: Museums preserve history… but musicians bring history to life. We'll discover how every performance becomes a form of time travel, a living dialogue between the past and the present, and how musicians, not artifacts,...

  In this episode of Intentional Musicianship  Jeff Price reflects on an unforgettable evening with the world-renowned Canadian Brass at the Robinson Grand Perfroming Arts Center in Clarksburg, West Virginia, a performance that showed what happens when mastery meets personality. This was epic. I was impressed how their legacy has been part of all the music I have perfromed in groups through the ye...

In this episode of  Intentional Musicianship, Jeff Price reflects on a community band concert that delivered something rare,  total alignment between promise and performance. After hearing a friend exclaim,   "This is the best band ever!" , Jeff unpacks why the Fairmont State University Community Symphonic Band's success went beyond great music. Their simple mission, to be an audience-focused ense...