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I’ve become a big believer in using streaks as a way to develop habits and skills. But there’s a liability with resting your motivation on your streak. Every streak is temporary. Literally every streak. If your motivation comes entirely from the streak, it’s easy to lose motivation, momentum, and all progress when you lose […]

There are so many available technologies to make choir directors’ lives easier. But I don’t think any is more useful than InDesign. Here are some of the many ways I use InDesign on a weekly basis: Concert Programs – Unlike word processing programs (e.g. the ubiquitous  MS-Word), In InDesign objects and words stay […]

Use what you know now to get curious. Ask questions. Discover their answers. Repeat from Step 1. Follow for 10 years, and discover your expertise.

We all get into ruts in our cooking – week after week, the same meals in tight rotation. The challenge is boredom with the food. The advantage is the recipes is familiar, so it takes less thought to prepare. You can make mac & cheese in your sleep, and even some tricky […]

I saw an improv comedy show this weekend, and it left me reflecting on rules and insiders. Improv has a lot of rules guiding the behavior for participants. (Here’s Del Close’s 11 Commandments). Until you really know the rules, you might feel in the dark. You will be entertained by good improv, […]

Dr. Jeremy Fox is a wonderful, Grammy-nominated jazz/choral composer, arranger, and conductor. He has been on the faculty of Indiana University and Southwestern Community College (Iowa), where he will return this fall. He is brilliant, humble, and incredibly big-hearted. He leads marvelous week-long summer camps, including the SMV Vocal Jazz […]

Film composers have many moves they rely on to amplify our emotions. It’s a powerful bag of tricks, and I’m not sure any era of composition has been more adept than contemporary film composers. Today, I was reminded of a powerful and unexpected trick from that bag: silence. Pixar movies are aggressively and wonderfully scored […]

I am honored to write a guest post today to expand on Jed’s post “What I Did This Summer (Preview Edition)” and share more of what I hope to say at the end of August. I celebrated with family and friends I kayaked I traveled I cooked I composed music […]

You see your home differently when a stranger walks into it. Suddenly, you’re seeing it through a stranger’s eyes. Suddenly, every mark on the wall, misplaced toy, dirty dish is readily apparent to you: even if they have evaded your eyes for weeks. The same thing happens when a guest clinician works with your choir […]

If you aren’t willing to the dishes, you aren’t really committed to cooking. This has been my mantra whenever I’ve entered the kitchen for the last few years. A busy family’s rate of dirty-dish-generation sometimes reminds me of a highway during an ice storm: one small error can lead to major catastrophe. So, since I love to cook, I have […]