arrange • compose • conduct
“What’s a good backup plan if you’re studying music?” A student asked this today during a really frank and positive conversation about music careers. Pursuing a career in the arts is scary, isn’t it? But my answer seemed to surprise them: don’t have a backup plan. For three reasons. First, […]
You’ve got plenty of time to build the skills you want to have. I was reflecting recently on all the things I’ve learned to do since I finished formal education. Musical skills, life skills, cooking skills, hobbies, parenting, and on and on. It’s a lot. It’s a lot for you, […]
Writing a piece “without thinking” is a good sign you’ve done a lot of thinking for a long time. Every piece I wrote used to take my entire brain, and hours of work crafting the perfect solution to the musical challenge at hand. Today I wrote an entire arrangement for […]
Coming out of the profoundly complex, anxious, confusing, continuity-breaking last two years is going to take time. It’s going to take persistence, imagination, and a commitment to rebuilding the traditions that our students have become decoupled from. I say that because just in the last week, I’ve seen glimmers – […]
There are a lot of reasons for feeling unmotivated. Knowing the correct reason can help you take the correct action in response. Maybe you’re unmotivated because: You’re overcommitted and have no free time —-> carve out space for yourself and see if motivation returns. You’re no longer interested in the […]
We think of growth as linear – a step forward, then another step, then another. Growth isn’t linear. There are long portions of the learning process when no growth may be evident, but much is invisbly happening. Then one day, the learner makes a seemingly sudden leap forward – the […]
One of the hallmarks of an ongoing musical education is that you keep building. What you learned last year helps this year’s music come more easily, and more quickly – enabling you to learn more and do even more next year. It’s a virtuous cycle. And one of the ongoing […]
I love playing chess, and in particular I love playing chess with my kids: the strategy, the opportunity for growth, and on and on. (I’m not very good.) Recently, I’ve been using an app to play a chess variant called blitz chess, in which each player has only three minutes. […]
I was asked today about a project, “If you had to do it over again, what would you do differently?” The answer was that there were no big pieces I would do differently. There are always 5% of the small details that I plan to do differently next time. But […]
Christine Guter made a point to call the members of the All-State Jazz Choir “professionals” or “young professionals” this past weekend, and to hold them to a standard of professionalism that was likely well beyond what they were accustomed to. It’s a reminder to me that we become professional when […]