arrange • compose • conduct
Do you balance looking backward and looking around with looking forward? “Just keep moving onAnything you doLet it come from youThen it will be newGive us more to see” from “Move On” in Sunday In The Park With George (music & lyrics by Stephen Sondheim) “When I say ‘what’s next?’ […]
How much of a contingency plan do you have as an educator/conductor? I think a lot about this – usually when I get sick shortly before a concert. And what I come up with is always the same: plan on a snow day. In other words, assume that your penultimate […]
Some wisdom from Alice Parker today. I read this in the warmup room before the Aces’ performance at State Solo & Ensemble today, because we can all use reminding of the power of singing. “Sometimes I think that when I am singing I’m using all of my potential in a […]
Traditions happen fast. Sometimes faster than they should. Do something once, it’s a nascent tradition. Do something twice and it’s a bona fide tradition – not to be messed with! Of course, you can mess with traditions, change things over time, revise and even cancel things that have been traditions. […]
To climb a higher mountain, you might have to look somewhere else. When you’re thinking about next school year, maybe you think, “A lot like this year, but I’ll make improvements and aim even higher.” That’s an admirable motivation. But it might be futile. In mathematics, the idea of local […]
The only way to develop durable skills is repetition over time. I beat my son at tennis today. That’s rare – he’s better than me. But neither of us had played tennis since the fall, and I had one (temporary) advantage. Skill durability. My skills, meager though they are, are […]
Watching Part 3 of The Beatles documentary “Get Back,” I was struck by the way that they rehearse. As they are working up these now-classic songs into full recorded versions, they vary the tempo, the feel, the instrumentation. They rewrite words on the fly, and interject with nonsense whenever they […]
Follow your passion? Yes. Passion is essential but not sufficient. In addition to passion, these are essential for success: Helpful but not essential traits include: What’s missing from your essential arsenal? That’s where to focus your efforts.
The magic of tour! It’s experiencing new cultures. It’s performing in new venues. It’s moving at breakneck speed, because you know it’ll be over soon. It’s getting away from the routine. (I didn’t wash a single dish in Spain.) But you can’t always be on tour. And as much as […]
Some pieces just…resist memorization. In my experience, the toughest pieces to memorize are not necessarily the most complex, or longest, or difficult. Indeed, it tends to surprise me when an ensemble struggles to put down their music. For the piece that my ensemble is dueling with at the moment, I […]