arrange • compose • conduct
Many experts have written in the last few years about the effectiveness of triggers to forming habits. I find it just as important to have anchors to my day – the things that I always do that help me see my day and get my work done in response to […]
We talked in rehearsal today about the skill of initiative, in the context of working our way through John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success. One of my students succinctly defined it as, “Doing things without being told to do them.” (He also said his mom is often telling him to find […]
I’m in the middle of my annual (well, almost annual…thanks, 2020) speed-writing of 30-40 band arrangements for a Cabaret performance our choirs present. I’m doing it for the first time in Dorico, which is costing my some speed at the beginning, but I think will lead to better looking and […]
It helps to codify your thinking. Whether you agree or disagree five years down the road, you’ve given yourself a place to start, and clarified your thinking along the way. As I’ve continued this daily project for nearly seven years, I’ve spent hundreds of hours turning thousands of ideas into […]
I’ve read about readers who like to slow down as they come to the end of beloved novels – they don’t want them to end, because they want to live in the imagined world a little longer. I understand the motivation – I sometimes want to stretch May and June […]
Every ensemble I’ve ever led has had some balance of satisfied:unsatisfied. For many students, we need to work very hard to teach them to be unsatisfied. We are teaching them to be critical listeners, to be motivated to practice, to aim for excellence. But for other students, we have to […]
At a Scout campout earlier this year, a fellow parent pointed out that, “The boys never seem to realize that if they put in even a tiny bit of prep work, their meals would be so much better.” It’s really true – they tend to choose for meals the foods […]
I think the key to succeeding in math classes was to do enough problems to see the patterns. Then, when confronted with a new problem, you can say, “I’ve solved a problem like that.” And while the path might be different, it isn’t that different. There’s an element of that […]
My downtime app of choice, lately, is a corner of the Lichess app devoted to chess puzzles. They take a minute or so to solve a puzzle, and it gives a good mini-brain break from concentration-intense projects. It also helps me keep up with my kids, who keep proving themselves […]
“The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.” – Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, describing Flow in Wired Magazine I think most children naturally experience flow state when […]