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We’ve all had those rehearsals. Anxious, stressed, or just tired, we start out on a wrong foot. On that wrong foot, the choir sings less than their best. Being committed, they react with frustration. The frustration leads to tension, anxiety, more stress, and more tiredness. The vicious circle continues, to the point where the […]

No artist tries to be second-rate. Every artist is trying with each project to do their best work. But even great artists miss, and even good work fails. Half of Gershwin’s songs are below average. That means for every Someone To Watch Over Me, there is some dreck out there somewhere. Some […]

Is the point of education to prepare you for a career? At a certain point, yes. Particularly in trade schools or skills-based education, that’s the point. Community College, conservatories, terminal degrees – these should find you ready for a career at their conclusion. High school? The point of high school is not to […]

FOCUS! What tone do you imagine when you hear that one word sentence? I hear sternness. I hear control. I hear discipline. Too often, we associate deep focus with negative or authoritative emotions. It’s what your teacher says when you are distracted, or what you say to your kids when you want them […]

My middle son is in his fourth level of piano books. He has recently been sight reading from his younger brother’s level one books. He can’t sight read from his own books, though he can play the songs with practice. The fact is, we can all perform music at a much higher level than our […]

When you leave salt out of a bread recipe, it looks pretty much normal. But take a bite, and you find the loaf  bland, flat, and un-bread-like. With the salt, the bread doesn’t taste salty – it tastes bready. It taste like it’s supposed to. Be the salt of your choir. Contribute […]

I’m not running a marathon today. It wasn’t for lack of trying – I registered at the end of 2016 for today’s Grand Rapids Marathon. It felt like the right big goal to help me maintain a strong focus on my own health as I approached 40. I was confident that my […]

One of the slowest-building, and most worthwhile, aspects of conducting in the same place for awhile is the development of a choral culture. The traditions, the special songs, the running jokes, sure….but more important is the self-definition that you can help build. It boils down to an expression that Seth Godin uses a lot: […]

Students react strongly to the music they’re learning – both positively and negatively. They will give you a variety of reasons for why the love it, or why they hate it. The reasons to love any piece of music are many, and the given reason is usually honest and heartfelt. But when you […]

We like things that come in groups of ten – decades, fingers, that whole decimal system. And of course, top ten lists. It felt appropriate today to make four top ten lists, for a total of forty items. They’re all alphabetical because I don’t have favorites: just a collection of artists I lean on […]