arrange • compose • conduct
I like to start each new semester with a handful of personal resolutions – things I want to do better this semester, things I want to try, things I want to achieve. Things like: No repertoire I’ve conducted before Keep my talking to under 30 seconds during active rehearsal segments. […]
Hard pieces take time, and every minute student singers spend not knowing the piece is a minute they spend forming judgement on the piece. This can be perilous. We all form judgements before we really understand pieces, and if a strong negative opinion is formed simply because the piece is […]
Ask the choir to get aggressive with their releases. Rhythmically accurate entrances are much more easily attainable than accurate releases. Young singers just seem to want to…arbitrarily stop the sound at the approximately correct spot. Particularly in rhythmically active music, and particularly when you can’t add a shadow vowel (say, […]
The first time I bake or cook a new recipe, I try to follow it to the letter. No substitutions, no tweaks, no “I think it’ll taste better if…”. That’s because I don’t know yet what’s integral and what’s flexible. After I’ve made it at least once, a recipe is […]
There are two kinds of board games I love to play. The first has complex and subtle rules: they are difficult to learn, at first (your first round might feel like riding a roller coaster blindfolded, trying to understand what’s happening) but when you’ve mastered the gameplay, there are all […]
I had lots of opportunities (six concerts this week with me directing) to be reminded of why I do what I do. I do it to see students flourish. I watched my high school students flourish with new ideas, new commitment, new professionalism in every one of their four performances […]
How long do you need to wear a new pair of shoes before they feel worn in? A week? Longer? There’s a process of the shoe adjusting to conform to your feet, and your feet getting to know the shoes. It takes time, and it’s pretty much unavoidable. There’s the […]
I arrange vocal jazz because I love it. I sang in vocal jazz ensembles throughout school and listen to vocal groups all the time because I love it. I teach it because I believe in it. I believe that learning to sing the close harmony we encounter in vocal jazz […]
There are a lot of things I’ve adjusted to since we entered the pandemic in March, 2020. I’ve adjusted to wearing masks (no big deal…).I’ve adjusted to Zoom meetings.I’ve adjusted to surprise changes in teaching modality. But there area a few things I keep forgetting, 18 months on. I keep […]
There are a few times of year when a choir director can’t hope for work-life balance, and one is between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The commitments come non-stop, and the most you can hope for is a single quiet day with your family, or a few moments of peace between school […]