arrange • compose • conduct
You are many things for your ensemble: teacher, conductor, counselor, motivator, coach, critic, parent. One easy to overlook: you are your ensemble’s protector. You protect your ensemble by making sure they’re prepared. You protect your ensemble by giving them the right opportunities. You protect your ensemble by making choices that […]
Welcome to Week 13 of The Definitive Version, a new weekly feature of my website. You can read more about the project here. Song: “Summertime” Composer: George Gershwin Lyricist: DuBose Heyward (co-credited to Ira Gershwin) Form: ABAC (16-bar form, multiple lyrics) Standard Key: A Minor “Summertime” is the standout song from Gershwin’s 1935 […]
In his most recent appearance on “Late Night With Stephen Colbert“, Lin-Manuel Miranda talked about his long-running series of “Gmorning/Gnight” tweets, and Colbert asked him which ones get the biggest Twitter response. His answer: “The ones that get the biggest response are the ones are the ones I am writing […]
Power down your phones, turn off your wifi, unplug your DVD player, and read a book this weekend. You’ll thank yourself. It’s kind of amazing that the modern book is only a few hundred years old. In that time, books have become an integral way of understanding the world, expanding […]
Sometimes I look at the mass of brilliant music I love and think, all the good ideas are taken. The are no new ideas. But I think the truth is that there has always been a shortage of good new ideas…as a percentage of all ideas. There are simply way […]
When you think about the message you want to put out, probably your first thought is content. What am I going to say? Just as important, and too often overlooked, is the structure. How am I going to say it? Take the time to think about the assumptions you’re making about […]
Some consonants obviously have multiple sounds. “J” can be hard as in my first name, or soft as in “Bijou.” “Th” has soft and hard versions, and so do many other consonant sounds. Others are less obvious: “D” has multiple versions, though stemming from the same sound. And the one […]
It is my opinion that singers are, inherently, rhythmically lazy. I think instrumentalists spend too much time counting to be rhythmically lazy, but something about singing words gets in the way of counting numbers. Witness the career of Robert Shaw, whose many achievements included the “accomplishment” of getting singers to […]
Welcome to Week 12 of The Definitive Version, a new weekly feature of my website. You can read more about the project here. Song: “Lullaby of Birdland” Composer: George Shearing Lyricist: George David Weiss Form: AABA’ Standard Key: F Minor/ A-flat Major George Shearing, the blind British jazz pianist, penned this classic tune […]
When you’re a new driver, you can’t have a conversation. The radio should be off limits. Anything out of the ordinary – from weather to traffic – is too much of a distraction. That’s because when our brains are learning a new skill, they are working far harder than when the […]