arrange • compose • conduct
What are your top tips to pass along to student performers? These are a few suggestions for performance day that have nothing to with the music-making. I try to make sure my students hear them every year. Deodorant is good. Fragrance is bad. On performance day, no fragrance, please. Different […]
There is freedom and creativity found inside a concert planning formula. The first time I noticed a programming formula in practice was when I was in Gold Company in college. Steve Zegree would consistently program (1) An upbeat pop-centered opener, with choreography, followed without speaking by (2) and up-tempo accompanied […]
I had my reservations about his music. It’s too hard, too complex, too musically dense. But after the concert on Saturday night in Detroit, I can unequivocally say, the critics are wrong. That includes me. I don’t doubt that Jacob Collier’s music will continue to evolve, grow, as he matures […]
How do you know if you’ll like a career? We spent the weekend talking and theorizing with our kids about the life on the road – after we had walked past the Jacob Collier tour buses, there were lots of questions. Tour life is strenuous and non-stop. Some people derive […]
Do you know that you’re telling a joke? There is some funny music where “you” know you’re telling a joke. That is, the character you portray during the song is consciously being funny. Think Tom Lehrer. Other funny music gets funnier the more your character doesn’t show that they get […]
Pacing in a studio session is one of the overlooked essentials of success. I’m obsessed with getting a new engineer up to speed on my strategies, preferences, and quirks before a session, and the reason is that those are the things that most affect pacing – the downtime between takes, […]
The three facets I think most important in a performance worth giving: Focus. Stay in the moment, paying due attention to the many details required for excellence in music-making. Connect. Forge a connection between you and the people in your audience. Have Fun. Music-making should be a joyous activity. There […]
I don’t think anyone truly gets over stage nerves. Stage fright, that particular anxiety that arrives somewhere between a few minutes and many hours ahead of a performance, is real and can be light or debilitating. I don’t think you ever get past it. Instead, I think performers learn to […]
We think of growth as linear – a step forward, then another step, then another. Growth isn’t linear. There are long portions of the learning process when no growth may be evident, but much is invisbly happening. Then one day, the learner makes a seemingly sudden leap forward – the […]
I love playing chess, and in particular I love playing chess with my kids: the strategy, the opportunity for growth, and on and on. (I’m not very good.) Recently, I’ve been using an app to play a chess variant called blitz chess, in which each player has only three minutes. […]