arrange • compose • conduct
If you’re too afraid of failure to play Wordle, I blame the education system. I heard recently about some high school students who had given up playing Wordle because the fear of breaking a streak by failing to guess a word was debilitating. They would rather not play it than […]
Writing a piece “without thinking” is a good sign you’ve done a lot of thinking for a long time. Every piece I wrote used to take my entire brain, and hours of work crafting the perfect solution to the musical challenge at hand. Today I wrote an entire arrangement for […]
Once upon a time, “Because I said so” was a valid answer to the question, “Why am I learning this?” No more. Young people are savvier now, more aware of the world and what matters, and more inclined to balk at learning material that they don’t consider to be of […]
On and off, I write weekly letters to my ensembles, emulating but by no means coming close to the legendary “Dear People” letters of Robert Shaw. On and off because my life commitments don’t always allow me to give these letters the attention they need soon enough to be useful. […]
As I’ve continued working on a jazz solo project with Shades of Blue, I’ve gotten a better idea of the interests and musical preferences of my students. As such, I spent a while this morning playing Album Matchmaker. For the last two weeks, I’ve been pushing them to listen to […]
When we’ve moved past notes and rhythms into singing for musicality, I really like to invite ensemble members to “Give three intentions for this run-through.” The intentions might be as specific as “I want to nail that transition on page 5” or as overarching as “Dynamics!” They might be a […]
We sing a lot about love in choir. I guess we sing a lot about love anywhere. My long-standing policy for pronouns has been that you should sing with whatever pronouns feel right for you to describe a loved one. Certainly for soloists, but I think it could plausibly work […]
When I bake bread (and I bake a lot of bread), I invariably get some flour on the counters. Whether it’s the mixer throwing some out of the bowl, the extra flour I spread on my cutting board to do a final knead, or just the inefficiency of pouring flour […]
I don’t think pointing out commonalities with other subjects is a good way to advocate for music education. Music is not mathematics. It is not science, it is not language, it is not history, it is not P.E. Music is music. I get rubbed the wrong way by the memes […]
Coming out of the profoundly complex, anxious, confusing, continuity-breaking last two years is going to take time. It’s going to take persistence, imagination, and a commitment to rebuilding the traditions that our students have become decoupled from. I say that because just in the last week, I’ve seen glimmers – […]