arrange • compose • conduct
Planning only gets you so far. My day was short circuited before it even began, thanks to a middle of the night thunderstorm and a very anxious dog. All the planning and positive intention for the first day back from Spring Break couldn’t prepare me for the day that was […]
Waiting for the right moment doesn’t always work. It’s nice to think you can just wait for inspiration, for the door to open, for the right signs to conspire…but that’s not usually going to work out. Unless you’re fine with waiting a lot. It’s better, most of the time, to […]
It’s probably not, but today might be the day someone important is paying attention. “Every day is an audition” is a mantra I adopted from my mentor, because it’s true and useful. If you’re auditioning for next year’s ensemble, I’m watching you every rehearsal, every day to see how you […]
I believe this to my core: there is no best musician, best artist, best dancer, best actor. The creative arts are subjective and they reach people at a point in their lives when they need it most. It’s like a song, or an album, is made…and it almost has a […]
What’s the high-quality problem you spend the most time solving? My brother recently introduced me to the idea of “high-quality problems” and I’ve been thinking about how they might apply to musical situations. A high-quality problem is a problem, to be sure; it’s something that needs solving. But unlike a […]
Can you get a sense of your situational plus-minus score? Plus-minus is a statistic used primarily in ice hockey to assess how effective players are, beyond the number of goals or assists they might personally achieve. In rough terms, a player’s score goes up 1 for every goal their team […]
You can’t remember anything without directing attention to it. Dr. Amishi Jha: But what happens is that what we pay attention to is the doorway, it’s like the conduit by which we remember information. So, if you were not attending to your environment, you were not encoding it to get […]
Knowing you’ve done something before is a great help when you want to do it again. I’ve been writing daily for years now. Long enough to start to notice a pattern or two. For example, there are some times – maybe a month or so a year – when I […]
Ted Lasso reminds us to lead with a personal touch. “Every person is a different person.” Ted Lasso, Season 2, Episode 2, “Lavender” It’s never bad to remind yourself that “every person is a different person.” Even when leading large groups, teaching full classes, or interacting with someone who “reminds […]
You’re most likely to quit your practice regimen right after the day you break your streak. Streaks are a great motivational tool, but no streak is failsafe, and no streak lasts forever. But our brains can trick us into thinking that missing a day of practice is a sign that […]