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If you can leave a day with one new thing you know how to do, that is a good day. A conference, then, is an embarrassment of riches – new ideas, new friends, new strategies and tricks, every hour of the day. It leaves attendees exhausted from all they’ve taken in. All the […]

Yesterday I heard an hour concert from one of thousands of village bands nationwide. The band was made up of amateurs from all walks of life: physicians, retirees, lawyers. They gave up their Monday evenings for rehearsal and performance, simply for the love (AMAteur) of the music. It reminded me of […]

One hundred years ago today, Ireland lost the brilliant young poet Francis Ledwidge in Belgium as a soldier in World War I. Ledwidge only published a single volume of poetry during his life; additional works were published posthumously. His poetry gravitates to natural images, notably in a set of poems that imagine months of the year as women – May, […]

I have a full life. I juggle multiple jobs and always have more projects than time to devote to them. It’s a freelance life, and I love it, but it’s packed. Today is a good day to reflect on why, in the midst of all my jobs, I devote time to writing […]

I am incredibly thrilled to be joining the adjunct faculty of GRCC, the best community college music department in Michigan, as director of Shades of Blue – the vocal jazz ensemble founded by the inimitable Duane Davis. You can read more about why I think vocal jazz is of value here. (And many […]

There are three types of decisions. First, the decisions that are easy to make. I’d peg this at 90%. They are easy to make either because you’ve made them before, or because there is a clear right-wrong dichotomy. Second and third, the decisions that are hard to make. New situations, murky ethics, or […]

I was visiting with a former student recently, who has completed his first year of music school. He’s entering the second year with eyes wide open: knowing exactly what’s coming, he’s better prepared for success. He also reflected on his abandoning of Netflix-binging over his two freshman semesters. Simply put, he discovered his […]

When you’re a six-year-old waiting for a friend to arrive for a play date, an hour can feel like an eternity. (“How many minutes now?”) When your friend has arrived, two hours can fly by in an instant. It’s universally agreed that our sense of time is influenced by our mental […]

For a variety of reasons, this list of twelve positive traits has been on my mind a lot recently: A Scout is…trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, & reverent. (Yep, still memorized.) What about a musician? Here’s a prospective list of twelve traits you might aim for […]

I like to pass out a full music folder at the first rehearsal – the folders I prepped today have about fifteen pieces in them. How, then, do you organize them? Straight alphabetical? By genre? (separate the jazz, the pop, the classical, etc.) How about chronological by date of composition? […]