arrange • compose • conduct
Posts discussing creativity, both in and outside of music
My bread comes out almost exactly the same every time. Even when I take photos of my bread loaves fresh from the oven, they look the same as they did 6 or 8 years ago. It got me thinking about creative voice. Is my bread consistent because I have a […]
In his new podcast, Lightning Bugs, Ben Folds sets aside time between interview segments to answer a question from a listener. On a recent episode, he answered a question from someone who was feeling nervous about putting his work into the world. Here is part of Folds’ response: I think […]
See In The Heights on the biggest, most immersive screen you feel safe seeing it on. I’ll admit to being puzzled when, in the summer of 2020, the filmmakers indefinitely postponed the release of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s In The Heights at around the same time as they announced they’d be bringing […]
“I was reminded that aesthetic beauty is as much about how and whether you look as what you see.” John Green, in The Anthropocene Reviewed In this quote, John Green is describing being captivated with the beauty of an oak leaf, thanks to his young child. Children are great at […]
I am completing what I sincerely hope is my last virtual choir video editing project. (It’s one more recording from Shades of Blue, to be premiered soon!) What’s been pleasing is how much more quickly this one has come together. I was able to come up with a vision for […]
I strongly believe that every work of art has three acts. And the first act is the buy-in. You decide to listen to a podcast, you listen to the album, you buy a ticket to the concert. I have no control over the buy-in. The second act is the thing […]
Without fail, sometime every Sunday this year a list has come pouring out, filling a notecard with current and future projects. My Sunday List is a form of David Allen’s Brain Dump, supercharged by the gift that keeps on giving: my Singing Brook Day. Freed from the temptation, support, and […]
At least twice last weekend, I heard Anders Edenroth describe his compositional process as “like a sudoku puzzle.” (He was talking about the puzzle of coordinating bottles and singing in “Water” and later about the loop-pedal writing in their version of “Good Times” and “Catch Up, Ketchup.” And he’s right […]
I’m a big believer in not waiting for the muse to strike in my creative work. I don’t wait for the muse to inspire me to bake bread: I bake bread when the bread bags are empty. In the same way, I do creative work when there is creative work […]
Alice Parker, describing her work for Robert Shaw, pointed out that she was writing her arrangements while raising five children and maintaining a home. She discovered that the only way to get it done was to write while cleaning, write while cooking, write while doing all the tasks that we […]