arrange • compose • conduct
Learning to align actions with goals is a hallmark of maturity. But it’s not as easy as we adults sometimes make it out to be. Lots of parents and educators might shout, “Make better choices,” but if a young person hasn’t taken all the necessary steps, it’s just not very […]
Fine-tuned skills require repetition. I know when my bread dough needs more flour. I must have baked over 1,000 loaves of my sandwich bread at this point. And at some point along the way, I gained a much finer sense of exactly the consistency I need it to be. Two […]
This popular adage is wrong. “Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened” is something people like to say to anyone getting emotional at the end of something good. As a director and teacher, I regularly interact with students going through painful endings: high school, a beloved ensemble, an […]
Skills don’t stay solid. I tried to open an old document in Finale today, to make some quick edits. (I haven’t used Finale regularly since 2020, when I switched to Dorico.) I found that I couldn’t effectively make the changes I wanted to make, because my software skills, which I […]
Being a diagnostician is an essential skill for growing artists. “I encourage young screenwriters, when I get a chance to talk to them, to be a diagnostician, too. When you see a movie, when you see an episode of television, and you don’t like it, don’t just shrug and say […]
Aspiring creators say yes to any gig – because they’re striving to be able to make their mark, to make their living, to make their art. They just want to make. As we get busier and more established, we still tend to say yes to as many gigs as we […]
Students can learn from watching their teachers try, fail, and try again. You’d think that consistency in one place would imply consistency in another. But even though I write every day here, with no gaps in close to 9 years, I am utterly unreliable in my weekly notes to my […]
You’ve gotta want it. I am constantly working to convince my students to hold onto more of what they learn from one rehearsal to the next. I don’t like re-teaching notes and rhythms, they don’t like repeating the process. But somehow, things sometimes just…don’t stick. There are a lot of […]
One more for the old cognitive dissonance file. I want my students to know that there is no hurry on achieving their dreams. If it takes a little longer to complete your music degree, or to learn to belt an A, or to find your musical community, that’s okay. We […]
My strength may not be your strength. If you are interested in fitness as a hobby or as a path to wellness, you likely find that there are many kinds of fitness. You might be focused on cardio, as I did when I was running every day. Or you might […]