arrange • compose • conduct
Dear Aces, You never ask, but I see your tired eyes. I see you roll your eyes or slump you shoulders when I ask you to stand. Again. I work you – and myself – hard for many reasons. Here are a few: 1. There isn’t enough time. Rehearsing […]
Last night I finally got to watch the last episode of Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson. He gives the following speech near the end of the episode: Only a few centuries ago, a mere second of the cosmic time, we knew nothing of where and when we were. Oblivious to […]
Don’t tell us that music makes you smarter. How does the football team present football? They don’t tell you that you’ll do better in classes. A kid joins football because she want to play football. You watch football because you learned to watch it as a kid. Your experiences shaped […]
A snow day exists outside the usual routine. Commitments vanish, duties get postponed. Students sleep. What do you do? Perhaps you catch up on some grading or lay out some lesson plans. Maybe you just curl up with a good book and a mug of tea. I challenge you to […]
Is “Follow Your Passion” terrible advice? I’ve heard a lot of recent backlash against the popular mantra. OK, maybe it’s bad advice. But the reason it’s bad isn’t that you shouldn’t do it. It’s bad because it’s incomplete. Jed’s Laws of Success 1. Follow Your Passion. 2. Work Harder Than Everybody […]
If you want to make it as a performer, loving to perform is a plus. But it’s far more important to love rehearsal. For every hour you spend on stage, you will spend ten times that or more practicing – on your own, in lessons, with ensembles. This is obviously […]
Jim Rome isn’t the problem. By now you’ve read about his tweet: And his apology: The problem is that Rome’s tweet isn’t an original thought: he is reflecting the collective opinion of a vast number of athletes and sports fans. American culture is one that says suffering for your sports […]
When you finish a job, are you energized or drained? Could you keep going? It’s a good indicator of which direction to move in your life. It doesn’t matter how “talented” you are at something: if you are wasted at the end of the day, then it will cost you […]
For high schools across the country, January brings the end of Christmas music and the beginning of Festival Season. Time to take a closer look at the adjudication rubric, reincorporate daily sight reading, and polish a couple of pieces to an absolute shine. Right? Or… Continue to make music the […]
What would it take for you to commission a new piece of music? It’s not the money: you are a choir teacher: you know how to fundraise. It’s not the contacts: you know a composer or know someone who does. Even if you didn’t, you know how to find them […]