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“That’s not failing, that’s just falling!” Yesterday I wrote about a generation of kids afraid to fall. Here’s Part II: The Good News. The arts teach kids to fall and to get back up. Piano lessons, choir and band, musicals, plays, dance troupes. Painting, drawing, sculpture. Being involved in the […]

In the era of high stakes testing, permanent academic records, and an ultra-competitive college admissions, high school students are ever-more afraid of failing. Unfortunately, that is appearing as students afraid to take risks, afraid to look beyond the rubric or the assignment, afraid to be creative. A slip on an […]

If you want to increase your fluency in music and get better as fast as you can you need to learn to recognize mistakes as fast as they happen. Every repetition of a mistake will cost you 3-5 repetitions of the corrected version down the road. Part of this is […]

My mom was always very proud of our Irish heritage – to the point of giving me and my siblings green freckles on St. Patrick’s Day. So perhaps it’s no surprise that I’ve long been inspired by the music of Michael McGlynn and Anúna.  Perhaps, though, it’s his creative approach […]

Are you in a hurry to get fit? To build the skills you’ll need to succeed? I’m all for working on sprinting and taking the time for the long runs you’ll need to build skills and stamina. But it’s worthwhile to sometimes walk. Slow down, take in the world. Breathe […]

Hearing voices isn’t always a bad thing. Think back to the teacher who challenged you most. The one who pushed and influenced your thinking more than anyone else. Can you hear her voice? When I’m faced with a challenge, I try to hear my mentor’s voice advising me. What would […]

I’ve had a love affair with the digits of Pi since at least 1993, when a mundane precalculus class led me to repetitively type digits into my calculator. At my peak, I had around 300 digits memorized. 22 years later, I can still get over 100 without warming up. Today […]

I’ve enjoyed lots of high school and collegiate choral performances over the course of my career: at festivals, concerts, conferences, etc. It’s almost a cliche to end a choral performance with a spiritual or gospel piece. By my count, at least seven groups ended in just that way at the most recent National […]

Focus during performance is the sine qua non of great music-making. Making music at a high level is simply too hard to achieve without laser focus. Without constant vigilance, extraneous thoughts creep in and with them, memory slips or other little errors. Tuning, vowels, expression all suffer if you aren’t […]

Every Michigan conductor I know has to spend time combatting the Michigan accent – wide vowels, lowered soft palette, nasal. Generally the conductor will do an exaggerated imitation, but I’ve found a better solution. Ladies and gentlemen, our Governor, Rick Snyder, sports the Michiganniest Michigan accent I’ve ever heard. Next time you hear the Michigan […]