arrange • compose • conduct
My sister-in-law shared the following quote on Facebook yesterday: The ancient Druids are said to have taken a special interest in in-between things like mistletoe, which is neither quite a plant nor quite a tree, and mist, which is neither quite a rain nor quite air, and dreams, which are […]
Being creative means making mistakes. The research is perfectly clear that more successful creators don’t have many ideas, they just have more. Many more bad –> a few more good. I want my students to be creative. I want my children to be creative. Giving them a safe place to make mistakes is important, but it […]
For March Reading Month, my sons’ elementary school had a fun challenge this week: teachers would call home once this week; if you were “caught reading”, i.e. reading when they called, you would win a prize. I think it was a good motivator and fun. I’m going to try a variation on it next […]
We have piano lessons on Wednesdays. That’s what we do. I had two sons balking at piano lessons yesterday – one tired after a long day with a sub at school, the other who had stayed home from school with a little cold. I was unapologetic in my insistence. They […]
There’s a certain variety of student who aspires for things but doesn’t want to bother anyone. If they want to audition but the slots on the signup are full, they won’t audition. If they get sick the day of auditions, they will shrug their shoulders and say, “Oh, well.” Newsflash: […]
At a recent rehearsal, I was missing roughly 1/3 of my group (4 of 13) for various reasons. Several of them wrote and asked for what we worked on, so they could keep up on their own. What responsibility! Here is my response. We worked on: FOCUS. STAMINA. ENSEMBLE. EXPRESSION. MUSICALITY. […]
Expressive singing doesn’t happen automatically, particularly in the puritanical USA where emotions are so often viewed as something to be controlled and hidden. Particularly not in a TTBB choir, where traditional views on masculinity consider sensitivity a flaw. Particularly in teenagers, who are self-conscious and cautious of being seen as different. Here, then, are […]
More and more students have smartphones: it’s up to us to help them realize that the smartphone can be a tool for efficiency in the practice room. Here are a few of my favorite apps for practice. Metronome: MetroTimer [iOS] – there are lots of fine, fully-featured metronome apps. I like this one because it […]
I’m passionate about what I do, and one of the things I feel most strongly about is bringing new music to the world. I’m involved in the commission and premiere process on a number of different levels – writer, conductor, and something in between. All three of these roles have exciting new movement […]
One of the things I envy most of the musical stage production our students participate in every year is the repetition. Not the rehearsal repetition. The hours required to learn dialogue, staging, choreography, music are massive! No, what I envy is the performance repetition. Bright students can learn so much from each […]