jedscott

When I teach relative minors to my students, I always end with a call and response of them giving the relative minors to a given major key. I start with easier ones and build. What’s the relative minor of C major? A minor D Major? B minor F Major? D […]

I have a bunch of smart musicians in the Rockford Aces: guys who show a lot of interest in arranging and composing, and a lot of discrimination about quality. I almost never get an arrangement from them for the group. I think it’s their good taste that keeps them from […]

Did you learn mnemonics for notes growing up? I did. Every Good Boy, Great Big Diamonds, All Cows Eat, and so on. No matter how well you know your mnemonics, you can’t really read music. It’s a transitional phase. It’s like a five-year-old starts out sounding every letter to figure […]

For the new Rockford Choirs CD coming out on May 27, I had about 5-6 hours of live recordings from concerts last summer in Europe. That was far too much to listen to objectively, selecting the best version of each of 16 songs. So before I started, I developed this […]

At least half of the U.S. states have some sort of vocal jazz honors choir; for whatever reason, Michigan isn’t one of them. This is of course, surprising, because so many leaders in vocal jazz have been Michiganders: Steve Zegree, Duane Davis, April Tini, Greg Jasperse, and Sunny Wilkinson, to […]

There are amazing young artists everywhere in the country. But Michigan is the only place where they celebrate and are celebrated all at once. Roughly 1,000 Michigan Youth Arts Scholars are gathered right now on the campus of Western Michigan University for a weekend of rehearsals, performances, exhibitions, masterclasses, and […]

We all have pie-in-the-sky dreams. Most of the time, we look at them for a minute and then toss them aside. Not possible. But I’m here to say that a good dream, expanded to a plan of action, shouldn’t be ignored. If you can’t do it yourself, ask for help. […]

It’s Teacher Appreciation Week, and while I still haven’t had time to fully process the loss of Steve Zegree, today is the perfect day to begin reflecting on his massive influence on me and so many others as a mentor. Steve taught me to give generously, and privately. In February […]

In 1968, Andy Warhol famously claimed, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” At least in our current version of Warhol’s future, it’s not quite accurate. I think a better expression would be, “famous for fifteen people.” I know a lot of people who lead normal lives […]