arrange • compose • conduct
What are you trying to get better at? What are the stakes you’ll have when you’re good and how can you lower those stakes now? I got good at writing by lowering the stakes. If I had sat down at my computer and said, “I’m going to write an essay […]
Don’t worry, there’ll be another one along any minute. Sometimes I write my post by typing a title, with as little conscious thought as possible. It’s just something I’ve noticed, or feel in that moment. A little pause to think. And then I start to express what I feel about […]
How do you know it’s your passion? I have written music at every hour of the day and night. I have the times I gravitate towards in 2023, but 2013 me used different parts of the day, and 2003 me was frantically writing a thesis and arrangements for class – […]
I wrote and published every day in 2022, with my streak now standing at just over eight uninterrupted years. (I last missed a day in November, 2014.) This year, I wrote a little over 66,000 words – 5,500 per month, or around 180 per day. In the midst of that, […]
I decided to write daily on my website in the early fall of 2014. The last day I missed publishing was November 3, 2014, making today my eighth anniversary of an unbroken streak of writing. At this point, I’m closing in on a 3,000 day streak and have written over […]
My primary strategy for solving my beloved Matt Gaffney’s Weekly Crossword Contest is asking the question, “What’s weird?” What’s unexpected, different, or unusual? What stands out from the background? Because very often, that’s part of the secondary puzzle I have to solve. I approach composing and arranging in much the […]
I have given myself an extra 30-60 minutes a day this month by pre-writing all my posts. I hope I’ve been combining it with a summer “social media sabbatical” to find more time to do the things I want to prioritize this summer. That includes: More family time – playing […]
Over the years, I’ve learned the value – and some tricks – to collaborating with local news. Maybe your town, too, has a local weekly newspaper; it can be one of your best sources of publicity and advocacy for your choir! Over the last 15 years, I’ve provided as many […]
How do you do your “one last look” at a new project? Even thought I do my music writing almost all on computer (sometimes some sketches are done with a pencil and paper), I feel like I always catch an error or two if I only edit it digitally. Printing […]
Do your habits change when your location changes? After so many years of writing, it seems like the habit should be the habit, wherever you are. But it’s just not true – different places provoke different things and require different things. I read recently that heroin addiction has a strong […]