arrange • compose • conduct
Most of the time, good writing is the natural outcome of more writing. A common refrain to my composition students (and to myself) is, simply, “More bars!” No adjectives necessary to describe the bars. Just more. We can always choose the best ones. We can always edit, revise, reimagine, or […]
Writing a piece “without thinking” is a good sign you’ve done a lot of thinking for a long time. Every piece I wrote used to take my entire brain, and hours of work crafting the perfect solution to the musical challenge at hand. Today I wrote an entire arrangement for […]
I wrote and published every day in 2021, with my streak now standing at just over seven uninterrupted years. This year, I wrote a little over 75,000 words – 6,000+ per month, or around 200 per day. In the midst of that, I also was able to take the entire […]
“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” Joan Didion I learn what I think by writing it down, and it’s exactly the same when I’m writing music. With every bar […]
One secret to good writing is this key command: Ctrl-A, del. (Cmd-A, del on a Mac.) Being willing to blow up your work and start over opens up possibilities. It can be painful – especially if you’ve put effort into it. But I have never – never – not been […]
I’ve been revisiting some old works of mine recently, and simultaneously thinking about the current musical trend of harmonic maximalism.* I love the rich harmonies that are at the heart of harmonic maximalism, but my heart isn’t in exploring that path. As I’ve looked at older and more recent works, […]
Ben Folds: You don’t end up with a 140,000 word book that you end up cutting down, you actually get there. Nick Hornby: Right. I always underwrite, for a start. And it’s when I’m reading it back and doing a second draft, it gets longer, not shorter, because I can […]
It helps to codify your thinking. Whether you agree or disagree five years down the road, you’ve given yourself a place to start, and clarified your thinking along the way. As I’ve continued this daily project for nearly seven years, I’ve spent hundreds of hours turning thousands of ideas into […]
“I apologize for such a long letter – I didn’t have time to write a short one.” Mark Twain Clarity of thinking – knowing what you want to say, how you want to say it, and why it’s important – comes over time. You can’t expect it to come easily. […]
One of the reasons I like to stay consistent in my work is I never have to ask myself, do I know how to do this? I think that question is at the heart of writer’s block – answer that question “No” enough times and you will find yourself blocked. […]