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I’ve been immersed in the words of Derek Sivers recently, and one phrase has echoed over and over, both in my mind and out of my mouth. “The standard pace is for chumps.” He says he learned this lesson from Kimo Williams, a music professor at Columbia College Chicago who gave Sivers four music lessons […]

In his TED talk last week, Astro Teller of the Google X Laboratories said: Sometimes shifting perspective is more important than being smart. He described his teams as actively working to find the flaws in their projects; they strive to spot the weaknesses that make their own goals impossible. They do this because the sooner […]

“Rajaton is our favorite vocal group in the world, actually,” said Morten Vinther of The Real Group during their joint concert in Stockholm last week. Of course, many people would use the same phrase to describe The Real Group, so you can imagine just how amazing a shared concert would be. About […]

A recent post about Broadway singing gives an important reminder: don’t try to sound like the record. It’s true regardless of genre. Commercially released recordings are all – all – engineered to within an inch of their life, because of the nature of digital recording and the increasing use of headphones. […]

I’ve been thinking about the “educational” computer games that are increasingly prevalent and available. Especially the idea of gamifying education. In my experience, they’re generally a failure on both educational and gaming fronts: the games aren’t as well-designed as commercial games, and they generally don’t help kids learn any faster. I know that […]

A recent Facebook discussion renewed my faith in humanity. The poster asked, “Do you let your students go to Festival with neon colored hair?” Overwhelmingly, the responding conductors said, “Of course!” Responses ranged from “Yes. Full stop.” to “Absolutely. I can’t imagine any choir being adjudicated by the color of their hair.” […]

How am I going to wake up my students? How do I shake them loose from their long weekend, their ACT worries, their algebra homework, their family drama, their dating life – and get them to start making music together? Sometimes the hardest part is dropping the baggage at the door […]

Last night I attended TED Live in Cinemas – the opening session of TED2016, simulcast to my local movie theatre. I was inspired, uplifted, encouraged, and challenged by the entire group of presenters: from 10-year-old author Ishita Katyal, to Google X head Astro Teller, from geneticist Ricardo Sabatini (my son’s favorite) to TV […]

Milestones aren’t destinations. The ancient Romans built them so travelers would know how far they had come, and how far still to go to their goal. When you treat a concert as a destination, you are ignoring the real destination (yearlong goals of artistry, knowledge, teamwork). So I ask my students to think of concerts as […]

Let’s face it: you only do this job if you love it. Here are seven things I love about teaching choir (for Valentine’s Day). Transcendent musical experiences. Helping students make beautiful music that they’ll never forget. Teaching theory. I admit it: I love it when I see a student finally get a music concept. Modes, scales, chords, […]