arrange • compose • conduct
If I drip a little honey on the side of the bottle as I’m making a cup of tea, I’m liable to wipe it with my finger and taste it. It makes the first half of the teacup taste bitter. Of course, the tea doesn’t get any more bitter, but […]
Nat “King” Cole would be 100 years old, almost 101, if he hadn’t died so young–at 45, from lung cancer. For me, Nat represents the epitome of sophisticated phrasing. He sounds like a perfectly tailored suit – not a single stitch out of place. Nat is among the artists that […]
I’d rather have no chocolate than bad chocolate. (For me, that means no Hershey’s bars, but you can draw your own line! Throughout this piece, I’m using bad as a shorthand meaning “not for me.”) I’d rather watch no television than bad television. I’d rather listen to no music than […]
I had a long first rehearsal with members of the Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus tonight, preparing for a “live to projection” performance of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Walking in, I had three main goals for the 2-1/2 hour rehearsal. Get through the whole score. We’re looking at long […]
A lot of students are feeling their anxiety rise tonight. Teachers too! It doesn’t take long away from a familiar schedule to make it feel unfamiliar. A typical two-week break is enough to raise stress, anxiety, and a certain voice whispering, “You don’t know how to do this anymore.” Repeat […]
What’s the point of a board game? We think a lot about productivity – about time used effectively in moving towards goals. Since there’s almost no hope in 2020 of having a career that doesn’t come home with you, we’re all facing 24-7 self-assessments of our productivity. A board game […]
There is joyous energy in starting out – a hope for what’s to come, an excitement unmarked by the kind of compromises that will necessarily be made during the process. Consider decorating before a holiday. Christmas, say. The joy of putting up a tree, of hanging lights and ornaments and […]
“Some of our transformative leaders in history have been introverts. I’ll give you some examples. Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Gandhi — all these people described themselves as quiet and soft-spoken and even shy. And they all took the spotlight, even though every bone in their bodies was telling them not […]
Keep going. That’s my 2020 resolution. Keep learning, of course. Keep dreaming, definitely. Keep connecting, keep teaching, keep growing, keep questioning, keep improving. But most of all: keep going.
2019 was a wonderful year, both professionally and personally. Here’s an overview of my work year: Writing I published a new post on this site every day in 2019, totaling 368 posts. I wrote over 75,000 words written for my blog this year; That averages to over 5,000 a month or around 200 per day, or […]