arrange • compose • conduct
Small daily habits are better than big habits that happen less frequently. Dr. Steve Zegree always used the idea of “five minutes a day” as the benchmark for practicing a new skill. And it’s really true – a half mile run every day for a month is easy to repeat […]
The practice of making your decisions and behaviors match your ideals is the work of a lifetime. We are all working on it. It’s why New Year’s Resolutions continue to exist and hold our attention. The desire of matching ideals and behaviors. Our students will repeatedly fail at this matching–just […]
Challenge: record yourself singing to a quantized MIDI, track, but make it breathe with musicality…without making any rhythm inaccurate, strictly speaking. The best way to get a consistent MIDI guide track is to quantize the heck out of it. When you quantize the MIDI, you take out all the small […]
Many of my artist and performer friends have been sharing articles about the apocalyptic present and gloomy predictions about the future of the arts post-COVID. Arts is often the last area to recover from an economic crisis, and the near-complete elimination of performances has exacerbated that. (It’s further exacerbated by […]
One of the things choir leaders will need to wrestle with in the coming months is students afraid of heartbreak. Last year, my students lost musical performances, a trip to Europe, all concerts after March, and so much more. So did everyone else, of course. But it’s easier for adults, […]
R&R is going to be the goal for next year for choir. Recruitment and Rebuilding. We need to reestablish the norms, the standards of excellence, the atmosphere, the spirit. And we need to counteract the loss due to these highly unusual months. It’s not just choir, of course. Every organization […]
On Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Jerry Seinfeld asked Jimmy Fallon this question: “Do you ever wake up and think, ‘I can’t get in front of these people.”? But he gave the clearest answer to the question himself, saying that he’s fine, “Once you walk out there. When the lights […]
We sometimes think that all the learning happens during those four or six years of college/grad school. The truth is, lots more learning happens afterwards, if we are open to it. In other words: what used to be hard doesn’t stay hard. I was reflecting on this today as I […]
There’s something special about the bonds we form in choir. That’s true whether it’s the friends you return to, year after year, or the songs you can sing a quarter century later, in 4-part harmony, or in some special occasions, the couples who forget lifelong bonds in their choir. If […]
Dr. Brené Brown launched two podcasts in 2020, including the wonderful Unlocking Us. On the very first episode, she introduced us to her idea of FFTs (the FT stands for “First Time”). She outlines the various ways that dealing with a first-time experience can affect our lives, and gives great […]