arrange • compose • conduct
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 […]
How can you not? It’s so often what happens, though. How many students you know who have poured time and effort into activities they clearly don’t love? There can be so many other factors that drive us to do things besides love, but there’s also the complicating factor that sometimes, […]
The intuition of experience is remarkable. I can look at a new score and find the spots that won’t work with good success. I’ll play through a section and say, “That won’t work.” I can go back and think about why, but the answer comes before I consciously know the […]