arrange • compose • conduct
I’m in the background watching my son discuss a merit badge he’s working on with a counselor, and thinkng about the motivation that comes from discrete, earnable achievements. Of course, concerts are the ultimate discrete achievements – specific pieces are brought from unfamiliarity to performance in a limited amount of […]
I made a list today of reliable jazz singers for my students. By reliable, I mean that when they interpret a song, their interpretation is going to be helpful in understanding the bulls-eye of the song. Consistently. I omitted singers who are inconsistent in their output or whose recorded output […]
My overarching philosophy as a choral leader can come down to these four words: “Wear your authority lightly.” Of course that applies to not overstepping or abusing your authority. That should be obvious and universal. But it also applies to every single interaction. My authority doesn’t make me more right […]
Jazz singing is an oral tradition. You need to listen to multiple recordings as you begin to prepare a song, for one big reason. It’s this: the interpretation of the song has evolved away from the original sheet music and into something living. Only by listening to multiple recordings can […]
When you’re working with professionals, it’s evident almost immediately – and it makes your own performance, and your state of mind, so much better. I spent part of yesterday in a socially-distanced video shoot with several professionals from Grand Rapids Community College. Each other person there (someone from the charitable […]
When you’re an aspiring creator, you seek the remarkable, earth-shattering change. The one work of transformative art that will literally change everything. I’d rather make incremental change, day after day. That work isn’t fast, it isn’t flashy, it won’t bring you fame. But it will change the world. It will […]
I like to imagine myself ready to answer this question at any moment in my rehearsal. Why are we doing this particular warmup? Why are we singing this particular repertoire? Why are we spending ten minutes on this particular 4-bar phrase? Why are you taking time away from singing to […]
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 […]