Latest Blog Posts

Periods have their own flavor, don’t they?  A work of the Baroque “feels” different than one from the Rennaisance.  Given the explosion of compositional techniques over the past 150 years, even smaller increments of time seem to have become little “mini-periods.”  Here is an example of composition from the mid-1970s.

“Those who fail to prepare, prepare to fail.”   It’s broken my heart to observe that axiom play out in far too many vocal auditions.  How many talented, well-intentioned high school singers have missed an opportunity to display their skills in the best possible light simply because no one told them what to expect and […]

Conductor Micheal Trotta tried something new to learn about his students–he interviewed them all.  Instead of spending a semester or more to learn everyone’s name, Trotta decided to interview every student. The process took a couple of weeks but his efforts paid off. “It’s impossible to get to know students in a large group that […]

Quote of the day: You’re singing like I feel. And I’m on codeine. —my church choir director on Thursday

We are working daily on the "ACDA App" that I will reveal at ACDA's seven Division Conferences in February and March, 2012. I hope to see many of you there, but in the meantime, I would love to hear your thoughts on what the App should contain that will be of most use to you, […]

Boy, we’d better review ChoralNet’s terms of use page. The Justice Department wants to make violating a site’s Terms of Use a criminal offense.   I bet most of you haven’t read them in a long time, if at all.

This is too good to pass up.  See the full story here, a few of my favorite excerpts below:   Morning: Eric gets lost on the way to his studio because all of his hallways keep splitting into more and more separate hallways.   Afternoon: Eric and Hila have lunch together on a giant lilypad […]

Conductor Tom Lloyd recently used Skype to communicate directly with the composer about a work he was performing – a practice that is certainly to become more widespread as composers and conductors become more conversant with technology:   The Bi-Co Chamber Singers have traveled all over the world—from Turkey and Poland to Ghana and Costa […]

See if this video can help you sing in seven different languages: