arrange • compose • conduct
I believe that the silver bullet in teaching is to instill intrinsic motivation. Once a person is motivated from their very core to learn, there is nothing that will stop them from a lifetime of learning. But instilling intrinsic motivation turns out to be harder than it sounds. Every time you try to […]
My students and I have been having a lot of fun learning more about just intonation, and understanding the syntonic comma in theory and practice. I want to share these exercises by Ross Duffin, which we’ve been using to get inside just tuning. In them, he marks each note which must be […]
This setting of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” was among my first exposures to the compositional style of Alice Parker and Robert Shaw, and it remains for me a fine example of Alice’s way of thinking about arranging. I sang it hundreds of times with my caroling group in the late ’90s. (Here’s the […]
I’ve been repeating my mentor’s mantra for years: “Five minutes a day” was what Steve Zegree constantly encouraged his students to put in on various skills, from ii-V-I’s to sight reading to improvisation. I’ve repeated and believed it, but somehow I always put subconscious exceptions in, without even realizing it. […]
Dear choir directors in December: This is just a reminder that you get to make music every day for a living. As you proceed through another stressful December of tree lightings, Madrigal Dinners, caroling nights, solo auditions, extra rehearsals, and more, be sure to take a minute for gratitude. It […]
Every year December arrives and with it, this beautiful, powerful message from Anders Edenroth and The Real Group. It’s now published so you can sing it with your own choir. I only want the world for Christmas, The blue-green, forever turning World for Christmas. Nothing more, and nothing less. I want it […]
Note: this is the ninth of a series of posts investigating the leadership style of John Wooden and its applicability to choral music education. John Wooden’s fourth and final block in the second tier of his Pyramid of Success is INTENTNESS. Wooden says, “This personal quality may be as important as any within the Pyramid. It is the ability […]
During rehearsal last night, I misremembered a quote in a TV news story. Here’s how I stated it, as a jumping-off point. “It’s not teachers’ job to tell us how to think.” That’s a misquote, but a useful place to start in discussing metacognition and the value of cognitive dissonance. Here’s the letter I wrote late […]
The next month or so is the Choral Month. I mean it in two ways. First, this is the month everyone wants to hear choirs sing. A well-placed Silent Night or Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas is exactly what people are seeking right now. Nostalgia, sentimentality, long memories: these combine to make people […]
Over the last 30+ years of being involved in education (on one side or the other), I can’t remember a time when I didn’t come down with MiniBreak Fever after a hiatus longer than 4 days. MiniBreak Fever symptoms include: Certainty that you no longer know what you’re doing. Feeling so far behind […]