arrange • compose • conduct
The last time I was on a retreat was in 2019, and this weekend I’m (with school approval and as safely as I can) on a retreat with the Rockford Aces. I’ve noticed a trend in my own retreat planning towards more human connection and away from actual musical rehearsal. […]
In rehearsal, I heard myself say, “It’s your group – I’m just here to help you achieve your potential.” I really believe that. I call them “my students” or “my singers” but they don’t belong to me. On the other hand, “their director” is a good description – my role […]
Our society has long been obsessed with marking the differences between “Generations” (basically arbitrarily marked) like Z, Millennial, X, etc. The obsession has seemed to ramp up in recent years. The truth is, there are some noticeable and consistent differences in generations over time, though I think that they’re detectable […]
How often do you have students who are “totally planning to audition…when I’m 100% ready.” Perhaps they’re not feeling knowledgeable enough, or have a tuning problem or a tone problem or a vibrato problem. In my experience, those students almost never actually get close enough to 100% to audition. Because […]
A lot of the students I teach and conduct in ensembles end up spending two, three, even four years with me in the same ensemble. How do I handle the problem of repeating myself? My impulse is to either apologize to returning students for the repetition or to skim through […]
My preferred place to be when walking into a rehearsal or class is three steps ahead. I want to be far enough ahead to anticipate any questions, to be prepared with accurate answers or advice, and to guide my students smoothly forward in their learning. But you can’t always be […]
Like many others, I struggle with the ethics of using [Popular Streaming Service That Underpays Musicians]. In the end, I stream music regularly because the convenience and educational advantages are too much to ignore. That said, there are several steps I take to ensure that the artists I love are […]
I’m in love with the mental challenge of working on two versions of the same song. Currently, the Aces are learning a TTBB version of the Star Spangled Banner, while each of them is learning an SATB version in their curricular choir. It’s hard. It’s especially hard if you’re singing […]
I love a mix of recipes I know by heart and recipes I’ve never made before. I have so many things in my weekly repertoire whose recipes I don’t even look at anymore – I bake and cook from memory many times a week. But life gets stale if you’re […]
My least favorite part of September, I told my students in rehearsal tonight, is all the sight reading. Sure, we’re reading music all year long. But the balance of reading and polishing evolves over the course of the year, and in the beginning, it’s much more reading than polishing. It’s […]