Month: January 2019

Posted on

The goal

After twenty years as a part-time church music director–I haven’t had free Sundays since I was 19. Crap. I just gave away my age–I’ve decided to funnel that energy into something new: nerding out about choral music, talking with my colleagues about it, learning new things, exploring ed psych and teaching methods, vocal ped, acoustical science, linguistics, music history and much more! Planning to launch content on Feb 21st. In the meantime, follow the Podcast in any or all of the places (Twitter, FB, Insta and the link below) so you will get updates and a reminder of when episodes are coming online. Eek! 

Episode 1: Health, Happiness and Balance for the Choral Director

Episode 2: Being an Advocate for Music Education

Episode 3: Is Conducting gesture really that important?!

Episode 4: Elevating the Individual in your SEA of faces.

Bonus Episode: Vocal Pedagogy for the Choral Rehearsal (with Panel of experts. Will take a bit longer to prepare. Stay tuned!)

Posted on

The Philosophy of Choral Music

Available on iTunes, YouTube and Spotify

In order for us as choral musicians to ensure the continued growth and relevance of our art form and profession, I feel that it is vital for us to become advocates for ourselves and our field. Too often, as musicians, we allow non-musicians to determine our value. It is well known that people often expect musicians to work for free. The number of memes devoted to this topic is proof enough of that. Musicians typically choose one of these three options when asked to perform for free: 1) Work for free. If you can afford to do this, more power to you, but you kind of drag down the market for the rest of us; 2) Apologetically inform people that you have a rate, and then apologize again for how much you charge; or 3) Become an advocate for your profession. One who is capable of explaining in ways anyone can understand why music performance, music study, music in worship and music education are not luxuries to pay for when you have extra, but are essentials to life in a civilized society that wants to grow intellectually and spiritually. This page is dedicated to driving a conversation for choral musicians with the PHILOSOPHY of Choral Music at the heart of every post and podcast episode. Topics will be wide ranging from the technical aspects of our jobs and careers all the way to the artistic interpretations and values that make us who we are as artists. Join me in this conversation in which I hope we can learn from each other.

Podcast Launch: Feb 21st!!

%%footer%%