Bill Locklear Custom Music LLC

Due to many requests I have decided to offer private lessons on flute, clarinet, saxophone, trumpet, f horn, trombone and tuba. For more information please follow this link:

Music Lessons

This excerpt from a recent comment by my extrordinarily wise wife Dora bears repeating:
"Music isn't primarily competition....it's collaboration - collaboration of instruments, of skill, of emotion, of direction...and especially of the breath." To this I can only add a heart-felt amen.

Kim Shuttlesworth was my partner adjudicator in sight reading for the South Carolina Band Directors Association northwest regional Concert Performance Assessment last week. She is the director at James Bowie HS in Austin Texas and an outstanding young adjudicator and teacher. It was a pleasure to work with and get to know her.

As an adjudicator as well as a listener it has ALWAYS been about the musicality. This past week I have heard over 60 high school bands perform music ranging from very easy to unthinkably difficult. The best, most enjoyable music I heard was played with sensitivity, style and grace, totally irrespective of the difficulty. I marvel at what the incredibly talented young people in these bands can accomplish. It's no wonder the All-State audition material has to be rewritten regularly to allow for how well they play. Still, though, the musicality of the organizations is what makes me judge bands all week then hurry to another high school auditorium in another state to listen to more bands. It is not the desire to hear who can play the most notes. It's melody, harmony, style and sensitivity that feed my soul and makes young musicians aspire to heights that as yet are not yet even imagined.