arrange • compose • conduct
There are many ways to manage those nerves you feel when you go onstage for a performance. A few examples: Distract (conversation, a game on your phone, a dance party) Mental Checklist (everything you need to do, and when, until you walk onstage) Meditate Mitigate them with a medication like […]
When you’re preparing concert programs, what information should you include? There are four tiers of detail you can consider including. Tier One – Title Only The Surrey With The Fringe On Top Tier Two – Title and Composer The Surrey With The Fringe On Top…………..Richard Rodgers (this is incredibly common) […]
My son made custom Valentines for his classmates – assigning them to a Greek God and sketching a symbol for each. I sat and helped him with inking the drawings – tracing his sketches and then erasing the original pencil. It’s so satisfying to remove all of those rough sketch […]
Choral educators often urge their singers not to show it on their faces when they mistake. The idea is that, if we don’t show that we made the error, most of the audience might not know. I think the truth is even better than that. I think that an audience […]
I’m seeing Bobby McFerrin tonight in concert for the sixth time, and that prompted me to do a quick retrospective on the roughly quarter century of my hearing him perform. Each one was unique and has remained with me, as the best live performances do. April, 1996 My first time […]
Some singers never learn the joy of getting beyond the notes and rhythms. It’s obvious when they aren’t in a hurry to get past learning of the notes. If they knew the joy that awaited, they’d want to hurry up and get there! Alice Parker says that she can only […]
I sometimes think about a really compelling moment in a student recital from grad school. The grad student a year ahead of me composed original music and conducted a concert of a 10-piece jazz ensemble. In the moment in question, he held soundlessly a chord on the piano, and a […]