arrange • compose • conduct
This is the slowest and most painful way to learn. And yet, I hear many people insist on making their own mistakes – even fail at things they needn’t – because they feel they’ll learn better that way. There are certainly things you learn better by doing them wrong before […]
Want to achieve something down the road? Don’t look forward to. Work backward from. Say you want to sing a solo at your spring concert. Looking forward to standing onstage and singing isn’t nearly enough to get you there. You need to work backwards: performance >>> auditions >>> lessons/coaching >>> […]
Why do people go to football games? The answer, fundamentally, is simple. People go to football games because people go to football games. The history feeds into the present. At a big high school, there might be 5,000-10,000 fans in the stands for a Friday night game (or many more […]
How do you define “ready to perform”? One of the big challenges to helping young people develop their artistry is helping them move their definition of performance ready. I have had many students over the years who have considered performance ready to mean “I know the notes, rhythms, and words.” […]
The future of your program can depend on the smallest of nudges. Do great work all year, recruit, make beautiful music, connect with and relate to your students…still some might decide not to stay in choir next year. A give-back karaoke day and a solo that receives praise from peers […]
That’s how I describe the best times in my life, both professionally and personally. How did I do all of those amazing things in one week/one month/one year? The three days, for example when we hosted The Real Group in concert, had a celebratory court date, and organized a 150+ […]
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 […]
It’s obvious. The best thing about your first year is your second year. That’s often been said to and about first year teachers, and it’s true there, for sure. The learning curve of your first year teaching, and in most jobs, is so steep that the second year is better […]
What you’re doing looks like magic. In 1962, Arthur C. Clarke published his Three Laws, and the third and most famous is that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” As digital technology gets more advanced, that certainly feels true – computers and computer software take on a more […]
How many of the things you do could be described with this statement? I can describe so much of my life as things I didn’t expect to be doing. Some are things I aspired to, but that came into my life unexpectedly. (Directing Shades of Blue!) Some are things I […]