jedscott

The coming revolution in online class offerings will be great for arts in schools. Right now, I regularly see students drop choir because they need to take, say, an algebra class. Or because they want a more rigorous academic transcript for college applications. In five years, those students who are self-motivated will […]

Eight things I’m thankful for: 1. An amazing family that understands and supports my passions. 2. A life that allows me to write music. 3. A career that keeps evolving into something that give me more joy and more opportunities to make music. 4. Gene Puerling. 5. Alice Parker. 6. […]

Is it hubris for me to edit Mozart? I am no Classical-era scholar, but when I wanted to do a certain Mozart canon with the Rockford Aces, the available scores had two problems. 1. The key was too high. 2. I needed a very specific text. Mozart’s original text is […]

I had a marvelous music theory professor at Western Michigan University. David Loberg Code is clever, with a dry wit and a passion for theory pedagogy, he thoroughly engaged me in three different classes. In the last few years, he’s been using some more unusual approaches to present theory topics. I trust […]

I’m a vocal jazz guy. As much time as I spend on other choral genres, it’s vocal jazz I always come back to when I need to refill my musical well. Trouble is, vocal jazz is a bit of a stepchild in the choral music world. In the panorama of […]

I’m in the process of mixing the third CD from the Rockford Aces. My students and their friends routinely ask me: when are you putting it on iTunes? On Spotify? I’m not. I am not in the music business. I don’t care about downloads or streams – I care about memories. […]

A mashup – two songs smoothed together through common beat, harmony, or melodic contour. It’s like a medley but tighter. For virtually any song you select, literally thousands of songs could be mashed up with it without much stretching. So the question becomes, why mashup? To me, the songs need more to […]

One of the great unexpected benefts of taking my students to the World Choir Games was the rare opportunity to “double dip” on pieces of music. All too often, choirs prepare pieces with a concert in mind, and then turn to new repetroire on the next rehearsal. You might spend […]