Jed Scott Music

Our resistance to change and growth is strong. A natural desire for security gets confused with a desire for stasis – for no change. This can cause us to actively resist even the changes we desire. I’m sitting down today to write out three work habits I’d like to adopt between now and Christmas […]

Saturday night I got to introduce about 28 high school students to Gene Puerling. Mandy asked me to help introduce “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square,” arranged by Gene for The Manhattan Transfer, during the Rockford High School Chamber Singers retreat. I told them that, just as Alice Parker is my metaphorical […]

Tomorrow is the last Monday in September, 2016. Your last September Monday with these students. Your last week of writing in September. The months only pick up steam from here, and you’ll be conducting at commencement before you know it. How can you make tomorrow matter? You’ve had great days and […]

The other day I tried a little change-up in my vocal warmups that yielded great results. I was thinking over how one of my most important priorities in vocalizing is to get the ensemble to hear each other and sync up, particularly with regard to vowel placement. As we sang one of […]

You’ve seen it in your smarter–a slow slip towards disengagement. They master things more quickly, and then they’re “bored.” I will admit that an ensemble can’t move together as quickly as every individual might be able to, for lots of reasons. However, there’s no reason to be bored in rehearsal. Here are a few […]

There is a place for conductor control of musical decisions. But it is not the only viable option. Next time a singer asks how they should interpret something, don’t demonstrate, don’t decide, don’t decree. Ask, “What do you think?” Let the ensemble debate, think, decide for themselves. Your knowledge of performance […]

Note: this is the first of a series of posts investigating the leadership style of John Wooden and its applicability to choral music education. John Wooden made INDUSTRIOUSNESS the first cornerstone of his Pyramid of Success. Call it hard work if you want, but “work” in Wooden’s mind had lost its meaning by the time […]

When you’re in the groove, you feel like you’ll be there forever. Remind yourself you won’t. Enjoy it while you’ve got it.   When you’re out of the groove, you feel like you’ll be there forever. Remind yourself you won’t. Just keep moving forward.

Composer/Conductor Andrea Ramsey was kind enough to grant me an interview for ACDA-Michigan, on the subject of her new piece, But a Flint Holds Fire. Set to the poetry of Christina Rossetti and words from Flint and Flint Township students, it addresses the Flint Water crisis head on with candor and beauty. Read it […]

The subject is less important than the teacher. As Adam Grant recently said, “The mark of education isn’t the knowledge you collect in your head. It’s the skills you gain about how to learn.” The mark of education isn't the knowledge you collect in your head. It's the skills you gain […]