arrange • compose • conduct
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. […]
Don’t you worry about repeating yourself? That’s a question that might be lobbed at a prolific blogger or author or composer. I certainly used to worry about it with regards to my posts here, or even with my composition and arranging – I felt I should always seek to say […]