arrange • compose • conduct
I had the great good fortune to get to have one of my favorite humans work with Shades of Blue today. The inimitable Duane Davis. He reminded me of an important mindset to repeatedly offer to students. As he said to Shades of Blue, “The only difference between you and […]
Is it because it’s the right decision, or just because it’s how I did it before? Historically, the Aces start rehearsing on sound system starting in March or April – enough time to get confident on mic and to polish all repertoire for their end-of-year concert. But this year, I […]
One’s good. One’s bad. Before their first concerts last week, I drew on dry erase boards the word Autopilot then added a red circle with a line across it. NO AUTOPILOT. Autopilot in performance is a dangerous situation. When you’re on autopilot, you’re not reacting to the information coming to […]
Knowing how our brains work should help understand why certain practice techniques work better. Synapses are the connections that allow electrical impulses to pass from one neuron to another. At first, these electrical impulses move slowly, but as a synapse is used more often, the brain covers it in a […]
How fast should you practice? I advise my non-pianist students to practice their parts at the tempo they can play the part. For me, circa college, that was about 30bpm. It’s faster now, but at the time, that was the perfect tempo for me to practice my music. Practicing slow […]
The gift of routine is time to think. The challenge of routine is that you can feel like you’re in a rut, just repeating the same actions, day after day. But that only happens if you don’t take advantage of the gift. Let the routine free your mind to think, […]
I make a to do list every morning. It’s scrawled on a 3×5 card or the back of an envelope, and awaits crossing off as the day goes by. But would I be better off making a two-day to do list? Along with today’s to do, things I need to […]
There are no hacks for the hard work. You can make easy work faster with a shortcut hack. You can make complex work less complex by streamlining it via a hack. None of those are the hard work of your job. The hard work is creative, or it’s interpersonal, or […]
Want to achieve something down the road? Don’t look forward to. Work backward from. Say you want to sing a solo at your spring concert. Looking forward to standing onstage and singing isn’t nearly enough to get you there. You need to work backwards: performance >>> auditions >>> lessons/coaching >>> […]
What you’re doing looks like magic. In 1962, Arthur C. Clarke published his Three Laws, and the third and most famous is that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” As digital technology gets more advanced, that certainly feels true – computers and computer software take on a more […]