arrange • compose • conduct
How creative are you before you create? Before you write a note of your new piece… …make a word cloud of adjectives to describe the piece. To describe each phrase, each section. …draw a map of the shape, the way John McPhee would to craft an essay. …speak, dance, time […]
Once upon a time, I always thought like an arranger when I arranged, like a composer when I composed. Effective voicings. Timbre, texture, form, phrasing. I still think about all of those things, of course. But I prioritize thinking like the performer. Would I enjoy singing this? Would this read […]
A few years ago, Terry Gross got songwriting team Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine to talk about writing their classic “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” and in particular about the various versions of the lyric. They began by sharing the original penultimate lyric, which Judy Garland refused to sing: […]
I have said many times that living at the same time as Stephen Sondheim is a blessing akin to living at the same time as Mozart or Da Vinci. Starting today, we can no longer say that: Stephen Sondheim died today at 91. It’s a profound loss, but look at […]
I’ve been revisiting some old works of mine recently, and simultaneously thinking about the current musical trend of harmonic maximalism.* I love the rich harmonies that are at the heart of harmonic maximalism, but my heart isn’t in exploring that path. As I’ve looked at older and more recent works, […]
This is just a semi-regular reminder that arranging is composition. Aside from creating a melody, every aspect of composing is exactly mirrored in arranging. Key selection, shaping of form, orchestration choices, methods of development and creative adapting of the melody: these are all present in good arranging as well as […]
Piano/vocal scores have the most ambiguous tempo markings. Things like: Moderately. Medium Tempo. And my current favorite: Sturdy Ballad. I got to wondering today: why, oh why, are they so vague? I try to offer as much specificity as I can in my scores – often a descriptor plus a […]
Allow me to offer a first listen to my long-delayed canon based on Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky, best known for its appearance in Through The Looking Glass. I completed the piece in late-2019, and would have premiered it with the Rockford Aces at the 2020 World Choir Games. We all know […]
I was looking over a score I was finishing up the other day, and I absently thought to myself, “Oops, forgot to put lyrics in.” Only these were horn parts I was looking at. It’s how I know I’m a vocal writer at heart. There is so much I love […]
William Shakespeare is celebrated less for creating original stories – many of his best plays were adaptations of earlier works – than for the piercing language he used to tell the stories. The specific scenes, interactions, and dialogue he used are what make him the most celebrate English-language author. I […]