Latest Blog Posts

While there is a long list of qualities needed to be an effective leader, the following is a short list of qualities necessary to be an inspirational leader. My sources for this list are both “the literature”, including the Harvard Business Review, as well as my own observations. Please add to the list in the […]

Liz Garnett makes the lemons of a bad rehearsal day into lemonade: When things don’t go right, that forces us to pay more attention to how to do what we’re aiming for. We have to think more diagnostically, and listen more carefully to what the choir is struggling with. We have identify more precisely what the obstacles […]

Liz Garnett pens an interesting exploration of “semantic depletion”: Say something often enough and the connection between signifier (the sound that points to an idea) and signified (the idea a sound evokes) breaks down. This isn’t usually a problem in conversation…. In order to perform a song (or a sonata or a play), you need […]

The American Choral Directors Association cares about the choral instrument in worship. Because we care, ACDA is sponsoring a conference for musicians working with the choral instrument in worship settings. The event is called One Song, and I invite interested choral conductors, and particularly conductors new to this area, to join us in Atlanta on […]

Leading online magazine Salon has a feature article interviewing choir director Ralph Opacic about the impact Glee is having on existing high school show choirs. A sample: How has "Glee" warped expectations of what a show choir is? Many of us have distinct memories of being in a show choir growing up, and New Directions […]

My excellent Samford student Chris Barbee pointed this article out to me about composer Jason Robert Brown’s confrontation of copyright abusers.   It is a long story, but many of you will find it fascinating.   Here is how it began: Four thousand copies of my music were being offered for “trade.” (I put “trade” […]

A UK Guardian article describes a study on the psychology of concert dress. First, four young, talented violinists were filmed playing the same music, dressed in three different outfits of varying levels of casualness. All these violinists were music students, from the top 10% of their year, and they were vetted to ensure comparability : […]

A recent ChoralBlog post by Philip Copeland discussed the changes to the publishing industry brought about by technology and accused music publishers of sticking with a 20th-century model. Many of the commenters to that thread suggested that the best solution would be self-publishing.   Without taking a stand on Philip's main point for the moment, […]

ACDA has gone digital with the National Honor Choirs for the Chicago conference.   The quick notes: teachers/conductors must be ACDA members they submit MP3's through the ACDA site to opusevent.com (sign into ACDA site first) Deadline is October 1 Most ACDA submissions come at the last second . . . don't let this be […]

Another great TED video that speaks about what we do: