arrange • compose • conduct
Some say it as, “Early is on time; on time is late.” My family calls it “Scott Time.” It’s the habit of arriving early so you’re ready when an activity starts, instead of hustling to be on time. I prefer the way I heard it, repeatedly, throughout my college career […]
Don’t outsource your rhythm: own it. Who might you outsource your rhythm to? A drummer. A fellow ensemble member. A conductor. The only outsourcing that’s worthwhile is a metronome in the practice room. And even then, you should still be engaging actively with the rhythm, so that when the metronome […]
We get a lot better a lot faster if we aren’t so caught up in our momentary expectations. Have high expectations for yourself. Stop having high expectations for yourself in this moment. My daughter was trying to trace perfect circles around a biscuit cutter, and kept running into herself, causing […]
One of my favorite expressions is “Be proud but never satisfied.” Indeed, it’s imprinted in my musical DNA from frequent repetition. It’s a perfect description of the balance between satisfaction in a job well done and hunger for further growth. But in my experience, the expression needs to be inverted. […]
I have opened the Zoom for my college composition student at 12:00 every week this semester. Only problem is, it’s at 12:30. My student knows this. My calendar knows this. I know this. But at some point early in the semester, I locked it in at 12:00, and I can’t […]
Training experts tell you to alternate days when training; that is, exercise different muscle groups on consecutive days, so that the muscles have sufficient time to recover from intense workouts before they are exercised again. There is a lot of wisdom in that – beyond personal fitness. While many personal […]
ASPIRATIONAL anagrams to PLAN IS A RATIO. It’s a simple ratio: the more aspirational your goal is, the more significant you need to plan. If your goal is routine, you probably don’t need to plan all that much. If your goal is novel, or extreme, or very challenging, you almost […]
Every activity that we engage in – work, hobby, personal – asks us to prioritize it. But how can you prioritize everything? What does prioritizing look like? As a freelancer, I have a lot of projects I’m working on at any time. For those, I prioritize based on immediate need […]
My son has been leaning towards Yahtzee the last few weeks, instead of chess. He had been beating me fairly regularly in chess, so I guess maybe he was bored? Ha! But when we came back to chess recently, I beat him pretty easily in both games. His skills, which […]
Dragging is a common problem, and one that is typically responded to with instructions to practice with a metronome, to physicalize the rhythm, or even just, “keep better time.” All of those instructions overlook the signal that dragging is giving us. The cue we should take whenever we start dragging […]