arrange • compose • conduct
To me, one big component of the Christmas music I choose to listen to is that it feels Christmassy. In other words, it reminds me of past Christmases. That’s a big challenge when I want to adopt any new music into my rotation. How do I feel nostalgia from something […]
Yesterday, I wrote about how much music benefits from percolation, especially in the form of multiple performances. Why not, then, program less music? I tend to program between 15 and 20 pieces of music for my ensembles each year. Why not cut that to 10 or even 8, and repeated […]
I arrange vocal jazz because I love it. I sang in vocal jazz ensembles throughout school and listen to vocal groups all the time because I love it. I teach it because I believe in it. I believe that learning to sing the close harmony we encounter in vocal jazz […]
I teach a jazz theory class and (don’t tell anyone) recently finished my third draft of a jazz theory book aimed at choral musicians. Full disclosure: I say “jazz theory” but I honestly don’t like either one of those words in this context. I always prefer “music literacy” to “theory” […]
Last week I said a contemporary choral piece we’re working on “sounds kind of metal to me.” I got pushback: this isn’t a metal piece by any stretch of the imagination, and moreover, it’s being sung a cappella – metal has thumping bass, distorted guitars, massive drums. But I stand […]
Two recently resurfaced arguments that in my brain are long-settled. “You can’t sing straight-tone healthfully.” I can’t believe vocal educators are still saying that, when the evidence is clear that that is simply not the case. Any style of singing can be healthy. Any style of singing can be unhealthy. […]
A big part of singing close harmony is personal time spent learning your parts. “Sing it like it’s a solo” my teachers would say. But a big part, and one I didn’t hear as often as a student, is that you have to make friends with the dissonance. Dissonance can […]
Piano/vocal scores have the most ambiguous tempo markings. Things like: Moderately. Medium Tempo. And my current favorite: Sturdy Ballad. I got to wondering today: why, oh why, are they so vague? I try to offer as much specificity as I can in my scores – often a descriptor plus a […]
I remember wanting to learn to mark scores more effectively, and being told by someone, “there’s lots of different ways to mark score. However you do it is fine, just pick a method.” I remember mostly being utterly unsatisfied with that suggestion – what I wanted was a specific tool […]
Students get ticked off when we introduces shades of gray into black and white concepts they learned long ago. There’s a good reason to do it, of course. We want to introduce students to concepts before they’re really ready to comprehend it all, so we introduce a simplified version. Later, […]