arrange • compose • conduct
If you think I don’t want you to make mistakes, you couldn’t be more wrong. As your teacher, what I want more than anything is to lead you to be able to recognize your mistakes as you make them. Then, when they’re corrected, make more interesting mistakes. The only way to […]
Many dreamers in the education vanguard talk about the futility of teaching rote memorization of “facts you could Google in three seconds.” You see their point, right? Why commit to memory historical facts that you can easily look up? We have the entire history of human knowledge at our fingertips. And while […]
For a long time as a composer/arranger, I have tended to under-mark my scores. And for much of that time, I considered it a flaw in my own writing not to be more specific in my instructions. Aren’t clearer markings always better? I’m beginning to think that, no, they aren’t. For several […]
The reason to have your choir get a clinic from an expert is to widen their worldview – and yours. Not to reaffirm your bias, not for praise, not for criticism. Not for adulation or affirmation. The best clinics make the musicians see their music in a new light. You can’t do it […]
I published a post here every day in 2016. Here’s a favorite post from each month. January: Tradition, Ritual, or Rut? February: Three Views of the Choir March: What We Do April: Music Is Hardwired May: Having a Jobby June: A Lesson From Peter Shaffer July: We Are All Artists August: […]
I wanted to take a little time and reflect before finishing up my 2016 Roundup with this Year in Review. 2016 was a year to remember. Writing I published a new post on this site every day in 2016, a total 366 total posts. Unlike past years, I didn’t publish any guest […]
If there’s a dam leaking, you probably want to fix it. Your impulse might be to start plugging every hole, moving as fast as you can. But you can’t hold up the whole dam yourself. Pick one place to focus your attention, your passion, your energy. Plug one leak, and plug […]
“The more that we listen to each other, the more wonderful the sound is.” – Alice Parker, to Krista Tippett during On Being I just transcribed that insight on a re-listen to their unedited, 80-minute conversation. If there is one lesson we must teach our students in choir, perhaps this is it.
Sooner or later, you’re going to have to get out of crisis mode. Can you imagine living without it? We are trained to operate in crisis mode. The pace of movies, of television news, of our very days invites a constant sense of crisis. Certainly drinking from the fire hose of social media is a constant crisis-mode. […]
Does your middle or high school offer prizes for perfect attendance? Many do, and it’s a prize that bothers me on a number of levels. It works at cross-purposes with the goals of education, puts fellow students at risk for illness, and gives students praise for something utterly un-praiseworthy. If a student receives a medal for Perfect Attendance, […]