Jed Scott Music

In every possible situation, people choose to do nothing because they can’t do what they want to do. Students don’t practice, because they can’t practice as much as they think they should. Supporters don’t donate to charity, because they think they should donate more than they can. To say nothing of the […]

There is a hierarchy that is easy to develop in our minds. Let’s pick extremes for the sake of ease: a top-tier orchestral conductor (say, Gustavo Dudamel) is a better musician than an elementary music teacher. Perhaps he is, and perhaps he isn’t. Today I saw a middle-school orchestra teacher demonstrate wizardry with […]

The best parties are parties where singing spontaneously breaks out. This, maybe, is part of why we have more parties around the holidays – holiday songs are a shared touchstone that make it easier to break out in song. It’s also why parties for choirs, show casts, or other musical groups are so much […]

When a new record comes out by one of your favorite artists, how do you listen? My preference is for a deep dive. My musical tastes encompass a wide swath of music, but when it’s something brand new (or new to me) by a favorite artist, I become fixated on repeated listenings to […]

I was grading listening assignments yesterday, and writing brief responses to their reflections. One thing that struck me as I responded to a couple dozen short essays on various artists: I didn’t need to re-listen to know what the music meant to me. I could write intelligently on every album that they […]

Part recordings are a great tool to make choral rehearsals more efficient – for students who cannot play their own parts, these recordings can be lifesavers for learning notes outside of the rehearsal. But they should only be one piece of your personal practice arsenal. Here are some other things to […]

One of my goals as a conductor this year (I always set three personal goals alongside my students) is to back away. Give the ensemble more autonomy, more control, more time without me in front of them in concert. It must be working, because when a sick kid kept me away […]

A good ensemble can give an excellent performance – within narrow parameters. The right space. The right amount of warmup. The right standing arrangement. The right specific cues. The right time of day. A great ensemble can give an excellent performance – regardless of parameters. No matter the space, amount of warmup, standing arrangement, […]

We are what we repeatedly do. So goes the maxim by Will Durant, writing on Aristotle. As musicians, though, we are what we repeatedly listen to. Frequent exposure to new music, of course, is vital to our growth. But we are, most of all, the sum of the music we hear most. Our […]