arrange • compose • conduct
I’m in a duet book club right now, reading the Aeneid in a new translation, for the first time since I read it in 1993-94, in Latin. My book club partner is a dear friend, was in that Latin class with me (and many others in both high school and […]
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 […]
We all have options for the tools we use. In the music world alone, there are DAWs, notation programs, microphones, instruments, and so many other tools that we can choose from among many good options. Why do we choose one or another? My Mentor/Hero Uses It. Think of Jacob Collier […]
In a recent interview with Mike Birbiglia, Malcolm Gladwell said, “I don’t believe in personality….There’s a whole philosophical and psychological tradition around this idea that we are so much a product of our situation and environment that it’s foolish to talk about personality. So, I’m baffled by this notion of […]
Have you tried whisking left-handed recently? (For me, that’s whisking right-handed…what I mean is your non-dominant hand.) It feels weird. I’m pretty agile with kitchen tools, but in my “wrong” hand, I feel like a novice all over again. I sometimes do just that, to remind myself the way that […]
Imposter Syndrome never ends. The sense that you don’t actually belong doing what you’re doing – what Amanda Palmer calls “The Fraud Police” – is, at least in my experience, ongoing in even situations where I know without question that I am qualified and capable. I’ve found only one solution […]
There are so many stories of creators who got over the hump of creating while working full time by “waking early.” (I proudly chose this practice for many years, writing from 4:30-6am.) Just get up a little earlier, they say, and do your work before the world wakes up and […]
I’m working on an arrangement for vocal group and big band right now, and as I write it, I regularly remind myself, “You don’t have to fill every bar.” Sections can take breaks. There can be extended rests. In fact, most players would get pretty mad if their parts were […]
I have a Snow Day today. (It’s a weird one: there’s no new snow on the ground or in the air, as of 7am…but 4-6″ and 40mph winds are anticipated later.) Snow Days are sudden threats: you can’t prepare and mitigate them in advance, and you can’t stop the weather. […]
I’ve written multiple times about our family’s work for more disconnected time, and in particular about our adoption of a 24/6 approach, which we termed “Singing Brook Days.” Full disclosure: we’ve struggled to implement them regularly since school started. And I miss them deeply. (Sounds like a New Year’s Resolution […]