arrange • compose • conduct
March is around the corner. Your rehearsals since the New Year have probably become routine. Maybe a little too routine. Time to shake it up a little. This week, why not try temporarily eliminating some daily routine from your rehearsal. Replace it with something else, or just remove it and move on to the […]
Take a walk around your neighborhood at the end of a 50-degree late-winter day. Chances are that even if you had several inches of snow on the grass, it’s mostly or all gone now. But the snow piles–the three- and four-foot tile piles from driveways and sidewalks–are still basically intact, having resisted melting and soaking […]
If you talk with your choirs about vowel modification at extreme vocal ranges, this recent movie song should be in your back pocket. The other day I heard a student singing the song and subconsciously using the same vowel modification as the performer. Once you’ve got the concept, it’s much easier to implement in […]
My son loves a series of art tutorials on YouTube. With friendly narration and a close shot of a page of paper, he is taken step-by-step through the drawing of some creature, or character, or scene. At first, I was turned off by the whole idea – I’d rather see […]
After our first round of the Michigan Choral Commission Consortium, I took a year off to reflect, as well as tackle some other big unrelated projects. Now I’m back with the second edition of MC3, and I’m hoping it’s now going to be an annual thing. In essence, we’re joining together […]
Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the beginning of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. Today I was struck with this quote: “It’s not so much what we have in this life that matters. It’s what we do with what we have. The alphabet is fine, but it’s what we do with it that matters […]
George Washington wrote in a letter to his nephew, True friendship is a plant of slow growth and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation. So it is with great ensemble singing. We cannot attain the deep, intimate, soul-stirring performances of our […]
Overwhelmingly often, students will rise to the bar you set for them. They will not always clear the bar, but they will rise to meet it. Musical students have infinite potential for growth, and too many students turn away from music-making, or never reach their potential, because their leaders do not set […]
There is a balancing act in handling personal failures – particularly when it comes to mindset. Performing arts students should be reminded regularly of these two opposing forces. Take your mistakes seriously. Work hard to recognize mistakes, work hard to prevent mistakes, and work hard to correct mistakes once made. Don’t take your […]
Views, likes, shares. They’re what we count, because they’re easy to count. But views are a terrible metric for quality. As my 11-year-old pointed out today, Gangnam Style holds the record for most YouTube views, at over 3 BILLION. It doesn’t make it the best song, the best video, even the best Psy song. But it’s easy […]