jedscott

A Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. -Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching But the first step isn’t the hardest. On a thousand mile journey, you’ll have times when you can’t see the destination and can’t see how far you’ve come. You’ll desperately want to quit. Begin, yes. […]

Yesterday I talked about the power of spending ten minutes per day on something. P.S. Let me let you in on a secret. Practice is addicting. Once you get into a ten minute a day habit, you’re going to start stretching it to 15. 20. 30 or much more! Here’s […]

If you spent 6 hours a day for two work weeks on a skill, how much better would you get? That’s two weeks of 9-4, Monday-Friday with an hour for lunch. How good would you be at yo-yoing? How much more efficient would you be at washing dishes? Long division? […]

I missed my Monday night rehearsal this week. It hardly ever happens, even if I’m pretty sick, but tonight it was unavoidable and for the best of reasons. This Saturday I was in Rhode Island and Massachusetts to celebrate my grandmother’s 100th birthday. I thought I was able to plan […]

Yesterday was my grandmother’s 100th birthday. As I watched her get up from her chair to greet the many family members visiting her Massachusetts home, I thought, “if I can stand up that fast at eighty I’ll be happy!” She lives at home and continues to share new stories from her […]

Why I Don’t Mind Auto-Tune If you listen to pop music now, it’s hard to find anything competently produced that doesn’t use some auto-tune software to improve the intonation of the singer. As a rule, I don’t have a problem with that. Using current technology to improve the overall production […]

Time was, a student would say “who is Stevie Wonder?” Or “I’ve never heard the Mozart Requiem.” And I would bemoan our culture. How can they not know these things? What is wrong with our society that a seventeen-year-old doesn’t know this? But no more. Now I say this: I […]

Starting a new habit? Maybe daily practice or blogging or early rising?  You will slip. You’ll miss a day or two in your quest. Perhaps you’re about to hit double digits on a practice streak when you miss a day. Missing a day isn’t the end of the world unless […]

The ACDA Michigan 2014 Fall Conference was a great and weird experience for me. Great because it’s always valuable to reconnect with colleagues, share trench stories and get inspired. Weird because I was missing half of my brain. My wife and I have been attending conferences together since January of […]

It might be surprising to you, but I’ve had an incredible response from my choir members (boys age 15-18) when I have included mindfulness meditation in my rehearsal plan. Maybe it shouldn’t be so surprising – American teenagers are clearly overstressed and spiritually undernourished. Plus, in my experience choir members […]