arrange • compose • conduct
Posts discussing creativity, both in and outside of music
Last year, psychologist Adam Grant introduced us to the idea of languishing – a feeling he describes as “a sense of emptiness, stagnation and ennui.” He called it “‘the neglected middle child of mental health’ and […] suggested it might be the dominant emotion of our time.” (You can watch his […]
Greek myths & music arranging: the art is in how you tell the story and what lens you choose to use. One of the things I love most about Greek Mythology is its malleability. Read The Iliad, or Ovid’s Metamorphoses, or a Sophocles play, and you are experiencing one version […]
Don’t pursue the career where you have the strongest skill. The most successful among us have a constellation of skills in the same skill area. A constellation is just a grouping of stars that suggest a shape because they’re clustered together in the sky. Likewise, successful people have multiple skills […]
Why would a composer choose a career that minimizes new compositional work? I think this is true for many composers, but I thought about it the other day about Eric Whitacre. Eric is a celebrated choral composer, with a huge number of “hits” in the choral world. I have no […]
Stephen Sondheim lets you know how important he thinks talent is, in this letter to a young Adam Guettel. “I think you’re serious, literate, intelligent and talented — and, surprisingly, the last is the least because it means little without the others.” Stephen Sondheim, in a letter to Adam Guettel […]
I have given myself an extra 30-60 minutes a day this month by pre-writing all my posts. I hope I’ve been combining it with a summer “social media sabbatical” to find more time to do the things I want to prioritize this summer. That includes: More family time – playing […]
You don’t have to wait for a crisis to reimagine things. I attended almost no campouts or even meetings of my sons’ Scout troop until the pandemic. Part of it was that my Aces rehearsals exactly coincided with the troop meetings, and part of it was a busy schedule that […]
Not being Mozart is freeing, not frustrating. There is a mindset out there that people who are around a Mozart, but aren’t themselves at his generational brilliance, will feel jealousy or a sense of personal failure. Call it Salieri Syndrome. But not being Mozart gives you so much freedom to […]
How do you do your “one last look” at a new project? Even thought I do my music writing almost all on computer (sometimes some sketches are done with a pencil and paper), I feel like I always catch an error or two if I only edit it digitally. Printing […]
Content dictates form • Less is more • God is in the detailsall in the service ofClaritywithout which nothing else matters. – Stephen Sondheim This is the mantra at the beginning of both volumes of Stephen Sondheim’s magical lyric collections, Finishing The Hat and Look, I Made a Hat. But […]