arrange • compose • conduct
Take some time tonight starting at 7pm to check out the premiere of my friend Jeffrey Cobb’s new major work, The Lesson of the Lark. Based on a children’s book by his wife, Laura Knight Cobb, it’s a concert work celebrating the centenary of women’s voting rights in a work […]
Dish management is the secret to a successful Thanksgiving don’t you think? For a while I thought it was oven management – the flow chart that dictated when each baked dish would slip into the oven so that everything was hot and ready at roughly the same time. But a […]
One of the strategies I’ve been using to find new reharmonization in my arranging involves writing outer lines first. Melody comes first, always. Then, a strong counter-line in the bottom voice. It might be linear, contrapuntal, or functional (fourths and fifths). With those two written, it’s a question of exhaustively […]
Directing focus is a big part of what I think about as a conductor: How do we direct focus towards the voice part with the melody? How do I direct focus away from myself and to my students? How do I maintain the ensemble’s focus on the music at hand? […]
I spend part of most days writing music. And a small but significant portion of that time, every single session, is focused on musical clarity. Why focus on clarity? Alice Parker says that only 5% of the music you can imagine can be notated, so why worry so much about […]
Great songs don’t require rhymes. Great poetry doesn’t, either. So why do so many have them? From Shakespearean sonnets to the Beatles to Stephen Sondheim, rhymes have a massively important place in the creation of both song and poem. But none of it is required. The art form includes them […]
The romantic image of creators is one of drawing inspiration from the world and translating it at the piano onto staff paper. Perhaps you revise as you go, or in a draft process, but in essence you are creating in real time and putting it on the page. I would […]
I make no secret of my admiration for Tom Lehrer – an admiration that I came by naturally, thanks to my dad’s love, which followed his introduction to Lehrer’s first record by his sister, who heard Lehrer around Harvard in the early ’50s. Simply put, Tom Lehrer is the most […]
Composition lessons are generally full of careful feedback – I try to mix positive and constructive responses, while always being mindful that I, the teacher, shouldn’t force my own musical vision onto the student. But sometimes the best feedback to give is simply, “More bars.” Write more. Write more. Write […]
Chess offers infinite variations and joys – it rewards strategic thinking, study, and repetition. I’m especially interested in the lesson it gives about the muddy middle of the game, and of any project. Since middlegame positions are unique from game to game, memorization of theoretical variations is not possible as […]