arrange • compose • conduct
Sometimes, as your toolbox gets more full with more varied tools, a valued tool might slip to the bottom. And then you use it less, because it’s not at-hand. As you use it less, it gets even more buried, and then forgotten. It isn’t less useful, but you don’t use […]
I loath the idea of networking, because it implies something so transactional – meeting people for the sake of building a network that you can use in the future. What I love is having a network. I love being able to, on short notice, find a sub bassist for a […]
It’s easy to get traction starting around a week before a concert, give or take. Suddenly, the looming public performance helps your students get into gear and make big leaps forward. The challenge is to get traction further ahead of the concert. If you can gain traction when the concert […]
I’m about to embark on a months long preparation to compete in the World Choir Games with my ensemble, the Rockford Aces. I’m very insistent about establishing a healthy competition attitude upfront, to deal with these competing ideas. I want my students to earn a gold medal when they perform […]
The balance as you seek to grow, evolve, and improve the work you do with your choirs is important. Innovate: try new things, experiment (with the singers’ knowledge!), change things you think can be improved. This promises the risk of failure. Know that up front. Retain: keep what has worked, […]
If it’s written, especially on paper, it’s real. I was reminded that tonight when my kids were doing their night-time checklist. The sign reads “lunch boxes on counter” – and no matter how many times I remind them, “Dining table, not counter,” they end up on the kitchen counter. When […]
A recent online discussion centered around vocal jazz ensemble singers losing track of their rhythmic accuracy when their rhythm section joined them. Assuming that the rhythm section is playing well in time, and that the singers have rehearsed thoroughly and are capable of the accuracy, here’s the most likely culprit. […]
In a recent episode of On Being, Krista Tippett interviewed science writer Erik Vance about some of the ideas around placebo. The wide-ranging and fascinating conversation included this insight: We need to have the theater around medicine. The white lab coat, for example. Why do you need that? People aren’t […]
Here’s something new I’m trying this year to encourage personal practice outside of rehearsal, based on some of my reading of Brené Brown this summer. The issue has been that personal practice is hard to maintain, even with an accountability group chat and a very reasonable goal (5 minutes x […]
I sometimes think about a really compelling moment in a student recital from grad school. The grad student a year ahead of me composed original music and conducted a concert of a 10-piece jazz ensemble. In the moment in question, he held soundlessly a chord on the piano, and a […]