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If you stub your toes more than once or twice in the same spot, it’s likely you put the dresser in the wrong place. Sometimes as conductor you come across spots that your choir just can’t seem to lock. It’s tempting in those moments to tell your singers to work harder, listen more, […]

How do you measure the success of a choir over a year?   The percentage of chords sung in tune? The hearts opened by performances? The passion instilled in your students? The human connection between your students? The festival ratings and prizes? The theory and sight-singing knowledge? The amount of laughter […]

What is something you can do in your classroom tomorrow to surrender control? Good teaching doesn’t need to be top-down. Good music-making doesn’t, either. Can you do something to give over a little more control to your students? What will that look like? What will they gain? The era of […]

Teaching improves learning. Testing does not improve learning. Every day that we devote to testing rather than teaching, we reduce learning. Play improves learning. Travel improves learning. Music improves learning. Human connection. Games. Regular nourishment. Novel experiences. Extracurriculars. Discovery. Friendship. Love. Long meals with friends. Passion. Curiosity. Collaboration. Solitude. Testing does not improve learning. (Testing could improve […]

The Langley Schools Music Project was a collection of recordings in the mid-1970s made by a school in Canada singing recent pop music. When the recordings were rereleased about 15 years ago, they became a cult hit, and it’s because of their guileless, emotive performances. These are performances that wouldn’t get […]

Growing up means learning to do things you didn’t think you could do. We’re all growing up, all constantly tackling previously impossible challenges. And until we succeed, we try things we couldn’t do, and fail. Learning to enjoy that process–impossible, possible but unsuccessful, successful–is important if you want to keep growing. Don’t enjoy it, and […]

These days I’m doing a dance with October 15, 2017 – when I’ve signed up to run a whole bunch of miles in a row. The dance I’m doing has two steps: If I don’t put enough miles under my feet now, I’ll never build up my stamina in time for October. If I put […]

What if Vocal Jazz isn’t the right name. It’s certainly the established name for a wide-ranging genre of music, but I’m not sure it gives an accurate picture of the genre; what’s more, I fear it keeps new choral directors from really trying this genre. Consider the top groups of the genre from the last […]

Arrangers and composers: take heed! Proper notation is important. The truth is, there are many different ways to notate the same music – that is, they may look different but played through a sequencer, they sound identical. But there is always a preferred way to write it – not for the […]

Spring Break is about rebuilding capacity for the final push. In the next two months you can expect: Checked out seniors Distractingly perfect sunny days Wrap-up responsibilities The beginning of preparations for 2017-18 Choir auditions And so much more. You need mental, emotional, and physical capacity to adequately support, challenge, educate, […]