UPDATE 28 February 2023: Dr. Flegg’s Structured Practice Method has long since been renamed to the “Structured Practice Journal.” I’ve updated the links below accordingly, but am leaving the name since this article is from a long time ago… Announcing: Dr. Flegg’s Structured Practice Method! Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve written a post to this website. I’m happy to report that I continue to get close to 2,000 visitors every month in spite of this.

Yes, it’s official!!! After many, many years (nearly 8, to be exact) I am finally Dr. Mark Flegg. In May, I received my Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Michigan State University. My final lecture recital and document focused on the Sonata for Trumpet and Strings (or Piano), by Robert Bradshaw. I’ve know Robert personally, and have been very interested in his music, since I first heard about him back in 2003.

If you’ve visited my website in the past, then you can see for yourself that some things have changed around here! I’ve switched to a new hosting provider (the company that provides the physical computer and internet connection that house my website) and done some re-design of the website itself at the same time. There are two main reasons for the changes: My previous hosting company, iPage, wasn’t working out as well as I had hoped.

Let me start this post with a heartfelt HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY to each and every one of you!! [caption id=“attachment_375” align=“aligncenter” width=“460” caption=“The view from stage preceding the Bay City Fireworks Festival concert”][/caption] Today, as I write this, it is the Fourth of July.. Independence Day here in the United States!! I’ve just finished a very demanding week of performances. Now, for the first time in years, I have a couple of months in the summer that are virtually gig-free.

 I’m very pleased to announce that I’ve accepted a part-time faculty position with Wayne State University. Beginning in the Fall semester, 2008, I’ll be teaching undergraduate and graduate trumpet students in the Department of Music, College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts. I started my college career at Wayne many years ago, and I have wonderful memories of my time there as a student. I couldn’t be more thrilled to be taking on this new opportunity.

Tonight we had a total lunar eclipse, and the conditions were perfect for seeing and photographing it. This is an event where the Earth passes in between the moon and the sun, leaving it in shadow. The moon appears red during the total part of the eclipse, due to light refracting through the Earth’s atmosphere. This was the first time something interesting has come along for me to photograph with my recently purchased Canon SX100 IS camera.

Over this past summer I was contacted by photographer Lin Jones to see if I would be willing to participate in her current project, “Soul Mates.” Lin is a member of the University of Michigan Photo Services staff. “Soul Mates” is a personal project of hers, in which she is exploring the relationships between musicians and their instruments through photography. I thought the project was a great idea, and I liked what I saw of Lin’s work online, so I happily agreed to be photographed.

I’ve just added a new article to the Instruction area of the website, titled “How to Clean your Trumpet.” I’ve had a lot of students ask how to do this over the years, and this is a response to that need. Please take a look and let me know if you have any unanswered questions!

After many weeks of work, I’ve done a complete redesign of my website. Over the past year or so I have been increasingly disappointed with PHPWebsite as the “back end” of my site. While it is a very powerful package, the documentation was so heavily geared towards programmers and hard-core site developers, I felt it would take too much time to implement any new features to the site. I also was concerned that it would be too difficult to upgrade to a new version of the software, which was a concern since my version was quite out of date, and was vulnerable to several possible security problems.