arrange • compose • conduct
It’s the rare individual who can be up-close, focusing on the details, and simultaneously have both eyes on the big picture (The so-called 30,000 foot view). But you need both. July is the month, for choral educators, to step way, way back. Of course, it’s time to put in 80-hour […]
What is the ethos of your choral institution? Merriam Webster defines ethos: The distinguishing character, sentiment, moral nature, or guiding beliefs of a person, group, or institution. Maybe there was a time when the ethos of a choral ensemble or institution needed no more specificity than “make music together as […]
Accomplished musicians are keen appreciators of good design. Musical design elements, of course. Form. Harmonic movement. Thematic development. Phrasing. Melodic framework. Orchestration. Visual elements are important to musicians–elements such as staff layout on the page, page turns, clarity of notation. Not to mention such design elements as programming, stage design, […]
If all were as we planned it, we would be at the Awards Ceremony for the World Choir Games today with 45 of our Rockford High School students. Of course, that wasn’t meant to be, and we cut our music-making tremendously short in March. But I deeply miss sharing this […]
A lot of it is just, knuckling under and, what’s the right analogy? Man, you just gotta dig harder and slow it down. Slowing stuff down is the biggest thing. You can see kind of a recurring theme here. My desire to create works of quality at a certain rate […]
JEFF: You got a dollar? JOSH: Yeah. JEFF: Take it out. Look at the back. The seal, the pyramid, it’s unfinished. With the eye of God looking over it. And the words Annuit Coeptis. “He, God, Favors our Undertaking.” The seal is meant to be unfinished, because this country’s meant […]
It’s understandable – it’s admirable! – to aim for perfection with every project. We all want every project to be the best possible version when we finish it. But I know that I have fallen victim to projects that may be perfect but not repeatable. I’ve devised elaborate weekly rehearsal […]
What could you do if you didn’t “know” you couldn’t? There are so many things we don’t attempt, because we already “know” we’ll never achieve them. But time after time, we are proved wrong when we assume we can’t do something. My eleven-year-old son has been singing along to really […]
I like to think about how it was for a thunderstorm to move in before we had radar, weather maps, and other meteorological predictions. Sometimes, it was a complete surprise. Other times, there were signs that you could use to predict. Signs that we might not even know to look […]
I loved studying Euclidian Geometry in high school. I loved the formality of geometric proofs, the creativity and sense of discovery they provided. And I loved that the entire geometric world could be built by manipulating Euclid’s five simple Axioms. He basically said, “If we can agree that these five […]