arrange • compose • conduct
It’s the rare individual who can be up-close, focusing on the details, and simultaneously have both eyes on the big picture (The so-called 30,000 foot view). But you need both. July is the month, for choral educators, to step way, way back. Of course, it’s time to put in 80-hour […]
Accomplished musicians are keen appreciators of good design. Musical design elements, of course. Form. Harmonic movement. Thematic development. Phrasing. Melodic framework. Orchestration. Visual elements are important to musicians–elements such as staff layout on the page, page turns, clarity of notation. Not to mention such design elements as programming, stage design, […]
I wrote a post describing the details of my virtual choir strategies early in the quarantine phase of the 2019-2020 school year. Having now completed eight of those projects, I want to share some things learned and best practices. This is what I would add to my earlier suggestions. Advice […]
Take advantage of these two recent video panel discussions coming from the vocal jazz community. There is much to learn from here as we move into new worlds in the choral world. First, this forum from a couple weeks ago, titled Race Conversations in Vocal Jazz, features a wonderful group […]
I like to think about how it was for a thunderstorm to move in before we had radar, weather maps, and other meteorological predictions. Sometimes, it was a complete surprise. Other times, there were signs that you could use to predict. Signs that we might not even know to look […]
Chefs often say that properly salting food as you cook it doesn’t make it taste salty – it makes it taste more like itself. Meats taste meatier, breads taste bread-ier, veggies taste more like themselves. A cake doesn’t taste salty, but if you leave the salt out of your cake […]
Feedback loops are an incredibly vital part of teaching. Great teachers are right now discovering just how much they rely on tight feedback loops to inform their teaching and connect with students. It’s the ten questions you can answer in five minutes – and see in their eyes when they […]
Don’t kid yourself. It’s totally possible to follow from the front. Leaders who don’t know where they are going can cheat over their shoulders to get clues. They can see where the people behind them are going and follow them. It’s easy in the choral rehearsal to be in front […]
When you’re preparing concert programs, what information should you include? There are four tiers of detail you can consider including. Tier One – Title Only The Surrey With The Fringe On Top Tier Two – Title and Composer The Surrey With The Fringe On Top…………..Richard Rodgers (this is incredibly common) […]
My son made custom Valentines for his classmates – assigning them to a Greek God and sketching a symbol for each. I sat and helped him with inking the drawings – tracing his sketches and then erasing the original pencil. It’s so satisfying to remove all of those rough sketch […]