Introduction - About Me

With a bachelor's degree in horn performance (Bob Jones University) and a master's degree in horn performance (Arizona State University), experience as a professional teacher, freelance performer, and horn repair technician, I believe I have an unusual set of skills and perspectives that I hope will make my writing and insight helpful to horn players all around the world. While I make my living with music, I still consider myself someone who is continually learning. By no means do I know it all!

A bit about myself. Outside of the horn, I'm a band director at a private school, piano technician, composer, arranger, and church musician. I have an almost- degree in piano performance (everything but the final recital, which I didn't complete the memorization of because I was working on getting into grad school on horn). I am happily married to my dear wife

Jocelyn, who is a brilliant math teacher and also a very fine viola player. We love the mountains, and when given the opportunity are very happy to be in a cozy house with rain outside reading books together (though we don't get that opportunity much in Phoenix!). My personal website can be found at jesseboydmusic.org

On horn specifically, I am a current member of the Phoenix Brass Collective, the Assistant Principal Horn of the Arizona Pops Orchestra, and play gigs around town when I have time (though that is not often!). I recorded my first solo album, I'll Sing Thy Power to Save, in 2021. The album consists of 11 sacred horn solos for horn and piano. I played both piano and horn on the album, and arranged many of the pieces. I teach horn professionally to students of all ages, and, of course, have owned and operated Boyd's Brass since 2017. I currently (at the time of this writing) play on an Engelbert Schmid double as my main horn, and have a wonderful Paxman 40X that I play any descant-worth literature on. I'm very much a horn nerd, and proud to be so!

This blog will likely become a hodgepodge of things until I begin finding the path that the blog naturally takes. I hope to write about horns, make comments on my YouTube videos, and who knows what else will come out of it! At any rate, though, I hope that this can be a helpful resource to horn players all around the world.