arrange • compose • conduct
Everyone always talks about the work on Thanksgiving Day. I’m much more interested in the work on the day before. The day before is when the pies are made, the stuffing is prepped, the turkey is brined (if you’re making a turkey. I’m happy to not.) The day before is […]
Keep the music you select on the correct side of this axis. My students in Shades of Blue are working on the very difficult a cappella arrangement of “Almost Like Being In Love” by Darmon Meader. It’s aurally demanding, rhythmically tricky, and long! It’s been hard work, but they haven’t […]
How you get it done doesn’t matter. You can organize your rehearsal plan with a spreadsheet, a notes app, a pen and paper. You can mark your score with eighteen colored pencils, with highlighters, or a stylus and ForScore. You can arrange or compose at a piano, a DAW, or […]
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 […]