Latest Blog Posts

Part of the normal musical week for some choral conductors is service to a local church or synagogue.  I suppose it stands to reason, given that a large portion of the history of choral music is tied in one form or another to the church.  Of course, trying to understand the term “church music” is […]

It’s already hit me, and I suspect you’ve faced it too.  You know what I’m talking about . . . that change-in-the-weather, everyone-in-the-choir-is sick, exposed-to-all-their-germs upper respiratory infection that we all seem to get this time of year.  It’s not a full-blown cold or flu, just a nagging sniffling, coughing, low-grade fever affair that takes […]

Johann Sebastian Bach.  I confess, dispite my adoration of his art, he’s still one of my musical tormentors.  The reason is simple: I don’t think I’ll ever grasp all he poured into his monolithic compositions (which explains why some conductors devote themselves almost exclusively to his music).  I won’t stop trying, though.   Today, let’s […]

One of the topics that has been discussed rather frequently in the Choral Journal of late is the issue of what to do with big voices in a choral ensemble.  Here’s a look at an ensemble of unquestionably large professional voices – the U.S. Navy Sea Chanters.  The conductor apparently does not attempt to shoehorn […]

I recently watched the movie That's What I Am, a coming-of-age movie released earlier this year with a message of tolerance for those different from you, especially gays (although it's set in the 1960s).   In the climax of the movie, a secondary character shows his courage by singing an original song a cappella for […]

A commenter on Philip's recent post about copyrighting the Dead Sea Scrolls mentioned that although the scrolls themselves might be in public domain, photographs of them might be copyrightable. This might be true technically, but it violates the purpose of copyright, which is to protect creative work.    Some photographs are artistic and obviously should […]

I was pleased to find another choral musician publicizing information about YouTube performances of choral music.   Jack Senzig, director of the Gifford Children’s Choir of Racine, WI, has been a choral director for 20+ years and he's trying to provide a useful service for my professional colleagues.  He has created a site called the […]

Stephen Downs is a leader in technology in the field of education.  In this blog post, her touches on a subject that frequents this ChoralBlog:  copyright.   The subject?  The Dead Sea Scrolls:   Given their age, I would expect copyright has expired on them, but the proprietors of the web site beg to differ, […]

Over the next few months, ACDA will be encouraging local chapters to move their communications operations to ChoralNet. South Dakota's state ACDA chapter has been blazing a trail in this regard, recruiting 72 ChoralNet members to their community and posting information about conferences, honor choirs, leadership positions, and so on. They've made great use of […]

This fall I have been particularly attentive to team-building. As I observe my daughter's varsity women's volleyball team move from a group of skilled players in their pre-season play, to becoming an actual functioning team in their current conference competitions, I have applied some of the concepts observed to my work at team building in […]