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I haven’t heard enough praise of the new Shakira song premiered as part of Zootopia. It has an amazing message that we can all stand to hear more often. A few excerpts: Birds don’t just fly, they fall down and get up Nobody learns without getting it wrong. I’ll keep on […]

There are two ways to tackle a new skill. You can teach yourself, or you can be taught. Our schools overwhelmingly rely on the second, but I’ve watched children learn both ways, and I think the first is far superior. A child who knows how to teach herself will boldly attack a […]

August 9 is the perfect time for teachers to make New Year’s Resolutions! Let’s be honest…you’re thinking about your classroom pretty much nonstop at this point. You’re programming concerts, planning lessons, considering field trips and run-out performances. Time to look backwards at last year, think long and hard about what you […]

There is a strong pressure, when you create something successful, to keep doing similar work. Whether you’re Adele or J.K. Rowling, Frank Lloyd Wright or George Lucas, powerful art creates that pressure. The pressure comes from without–fans, agents, critics–but also from within. You naturally want to repeat a formula that works. But you’re better off chucking […]

Through their volunteering, my parents made some loving connections with some special people in Bhutan. So when they built a home in the Bhutanese-style one friend, a high Lama, built them a prayer wheel for outside their front door. Buddhist prayer wheels magnify the prayers on the outside with a spool of […]

The MSVMA Summer Conference team just wrapped up our 44th Summer Conference – and the third I’ve been a part of. I love many things about this journey; the sessions I get to help build, the team I get to work with, the colleagues I get to meet or reunite with. One of […]

In a switch from normal blogging, I compiled my tweets from the MSVMA Summer Conference into a Story on Storify. Read it here.

terroir (noun, ter·roir \ˌter-ˈwär\) : the combination of factors including soil, climate, and sunlight that gives wine grapes their distinctive character. (Merriam-Webster) Aficionados place terroir above all in fine wine: the particular taste that can only be imparted by a particular combination of factors unique to one place and time. Our […]

Think of a future dream; what you want to do in ten years. Now, imagine your dream is a kite. When you form the dream, it’s getting the kite caught on the breeze, and then letting it out to the end of the string. Now your dream is just a pinprick in […]

Making music together is about joy. It’s about many other things, but it’s about joy, first and foremost. We all have a moment we can remember when the utter joy of singing together completely overwhelmed us. If you aren’t prioritizing joy in your music-making, you are losing the opportunity to […]