arrange • compose • conduct
A mashup – two songs smoothed together through common beat, harmony, or melodic contour. It’s like a medley but tighter. For virtually any song you select, literally thousands of songs could be mashed up with it without much stretching. So the question becomes, why mashup? To me, the songs need more to […]
One of the great unexpected benefts of taking my students to the World Choir Games was the rare opportunity to “double dip” on pieces of music. All too often, choirs prepare pieces with a concert in mind, and then turn to new repetroire on the next rehearsal. You might spend […]
I’ve had many friends go on to wonderful careers in music, but few I’ve known as long as Jeremy Fox When I was still in high school, Jeremy and I met at a Phil Mattson Vocal Jazz Workshop and we’ve crossed paths numerous times since then. We’re very like-minded and enjoy […]
Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait. – From Psalm of Life, Henry Longfellow These are the first lines of poetry I ever knew my heart – thanks to my dad proclaiming them to encourage […]
When I talk about augmented triads, I always play the Nat “King” Cole version of “Stardust.” The string introduction, wow. Note the echo in the strings at 1:11 (end of verse) Which do you think came first? The introduction or the accompaniment?
“Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.” -Anonymous Genuinely funny choral music is hard to come by. You can find clever and witty thing, or pieces where a single joke is stretched out to three minutes. Laugh-out-loud choral music is a little trickier. And that’s probably ok, because it’s surprisingly hard […]
After a busy week of working on many, many projects, Saturday is about reentering with family. Today, that meant sketching birds as they came to the bird feeder; my five-year-old did the coloring. Cardinal collaboration. A photo posted by Jed Scott (@jedscottmusic) on Nov 11, 2014 at 10:50am PST Take […]
I love teaching. I have a student who absolutely knows the meaning of subito thanks to my work, and every time I ask the Aces what it means, the smile on his face is gratifying. He’ll never forget. And most of my day-to-day musical activities are with students. But once […]
Today I get my one rehearsal for the Rockford Choirs Cabaret 2014. Every year we audition student soloists on songs they have selected for a given theme: this year its “The Piano Men and Women” (singer-songwriter-pianists from any era). In other years, it’s been Disney, the ‘70s, Broadway, Gershwin, etc. Then […]
How fast can you wear out a CD? We recently pulled out the Christmas CDs in our house, and it gave me the chance for a first real listen to The Real Group’s “The World For Christmas.” It was released in 2012, but I finally was able to buy it […]