arrange • compose • conduct
Sometimes you’re just excited for a weekend to work. I’ve been doing exciting projects on a lot of fronts, with weekends spent away at retreats, leadership training, and so on. My days are packed with the stuff of life, and it’s all really good stuff. As we move toward the […]
Do you produce a seasonal product? I live in a place with lots of season producers. Apple orchards, or Christmas tree farms. It always strikes me as pretty strange to work in an industry where so much of your income comes in a short window. They sell Christmas trees from […]
The gift of routine is time to think. The challenge of routine is that you can feel like you’re in a rut, just repeating the same actions, day after day. But that only happens if you don’t take advantage of the gift. Let the routine free your mind to think, […]
Stepping in to prevent failure is a great strategy, if you plan on continuing to step in indefinitely. Failure – or at least falling down – is an essential way to get your legs under you, regardless of the discipline. Great leaders know that a little bit of failure, particularly […]
Great leaders aren’t born. To become a great leader requires practice, repeated failure, study, and, yes, training. Just like great teaching, leading is not something you just wake up being able to do. I’m wrapping up my third of five days of intensive leadership training today. Twenty years into a […]
I’ve never put someone in a group. In a recent conversation, a parent thanked me “for putting my son in your group.” I brushed aside the thank you, focusing on the son and his qualities and skills. What I should have said was, “I didn’t put your son in. He […]
I don’t mean, “What’s on the agenda today?” I mean, what detail should you include in the agenda you send out? A rehearsal agenda can be as detailed as a rehearsal plan: with specific targets, timing, and strategies. It can be as vague as a list of the pieces you […]
There is a time before you’re good at anything when you’re trying it for the first time. Here’s a word for the feeling that goes with it. Trying something new – putting yourself out there – is scary and exciting. Our family has adopted the Glennon Doyle portmanteau of scited […]
Celebrating a 15th Anniversary comes with some difficult opposing forces. On the one hand, I want to celebrate the successes of the past, looking backward and even programming favorite repertoire from the past. That, of course, adds onto my routinely performed “Aces Standards.” On the other hand, I want to […]
Singing isn’t the most important thing to happen at a choir retreat. In fact, I called it the fourth most important thing at my recent Rockford Aces Retreat. (We’ve been holding them since at least 2012.) What’s more important than singing at a choir retreat? Team building (developing the trust […]