arrange • compose • conduct
The trick to successfully avoiding last-minute scrambling is to anticipate the problem sooner. If you see a challenge a week out instead of the day of, you’re going to have so much more time to prepare for, adjust to, and solve a problem. The day it arrives, you’ll be in […]
I never want to put my ensembles in this position. So much of our students’ lives are in “It all comes down to this” situations. It could be the big football game, auditions for the musical, the SAT, term papers and final exams, GPA, Prom, college acceptance letters, or any […]
How much of a contingency plan do you have as an educator/conductor? I think a lot about this – usually when I get sick shortly before a concert. And what I come up with is always the same: plan on a snow day. In other words, assume that your penultimate […]
Some wisdom from Alice Parker today. I read this in the warmup room before the Aces’ performance at State Solo & Ensemble today, because we can all use reminding of the power of singing. “Sometimes I think that when I am singing I’m using all of my potential in a […]
The only way to develop durable skills is repetition over time. I beat my son at tennis today. That’s rare – he’s better than me. But neither of us had played tennis since the fall, and I had one (temporary) advantage. Skill durability. My skills, meager though they are, are […]
Watching Part 3 of The Beatles documentary “Get Back,” I was struck by the way that they rehearse. As they are working up these now-classic songs into full recorded versions, they vary the tempo, the feel, the instrumentation. They rewrite words on the fly, and interject with nonsense whenever they […]
Follow your passion? Yes. Passion is essential but not sufficient. In addition to passion, these are essential for success: Helpful but not essential traits include: What’s missing from your essential arsenal? That’s where to focus your efforts.
Don’t think of cheating as an ethical question, think of it as a motivation question. There are two reasons students choose to cheat. The first is out of your control as a teacher: students cheat because they are desperate. Maybe they are working three jobs, have a crisis, or for […]
When is it worth having a Zoom meeting in 2023? I admit that I don’t prefer Zooming to in-person meetings. However, there are several situations when I think that Zooming is better than any alternative, and we can take advantage of our new skills in video conferencing. I don’t always […]
Knowing how long it will take to learn a skill is essential to maintaining a positive outlook – and succeeding in learning it. Learning to sing an A on command in rehearsal reliably takes my students a couple of months. Learning to scat like Ella will take 1,000 hours of […]