arrange • compose • conduct
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 […]
Teachers need more tools to help students grapple with mental and emotional wellbeing. I’ve recently begun listening to The Happiness lab, a podcast hosted by Dr. Laurie Santos, a professor of psychology at Yale. It’s a compelling look at how our brains cultivate – or undermine – happiness, and how […]
I’m glad you like that music, even though I don’t. I work in niches of niches: vocal jazz, contemporary a cappella, TTBB choirs, etc. I love the niches I work in, and I have developed strong opinions about various genres of music – and specific pieces or performers – over […]
Don’t give me a list of the things you don’t like. A long time ago, I was an early subscriber to the Believer, a magazine put out by McSweeney’s publishing. One of the things I loved about reading it was an editorial philosophy prioritizing positive reviews. I don’t have their […]