New podcast: women composers with the wonderful Wendy Velasco!
Wendy is an absolute institution in the Los Angeles string world, and her latest project to catalogue and promote the work of women composers is just one example of her tireless efforts to make a difference in the music community. In a fabulous crossover, multiple pieces by Ailbhe McDonagh (half of the ingenious team that […]
Lesson Prep Minisode!
If you have lesson anxiety or find it hard to strike a balance between caring about the result (essential!) and holding yourself accountable for every tiny flaw (misery!), have a listen to this. Lots of love to all the tender hearts out there.
Finding Walden
There is a nature preserve not too far from where we reside that has a bench with an excerpt from Thoreau’s Walden pressed into it. In the spring and summer, the place runs wild with ferns, soft moss and lichen, and dozens of mushroom varieties. In the autumn, it is a burnished explosion of red […]
New Podcast Episodes!
Making a podcast is such a cool way to have conversations with interesting people that you’d otherwise have no excuse to talk to. One thing I really miss about being in an academic environment is having (and hearing) discussions with colleagues and students about absolutely every aspect of music and the humanities. More and more, […]
oh my god, you guys, part 3
read part 1 here and part 2 here! I had beaten P to the house by only a few minutes, and figured that a surge must have done something to the power. It was incredibly warm and I was covered in nervous sweat, so I quickly splashed my face in the sink and wiped it […]
oh my god, you guys, part 2
read part 1 here. The route from DC to Litchfield county has a number of variations, most of them involving whether to cross into NY via Manhattan or Yonkers. Strangely, it is frequently faster to go through Midtown, but I knew I wanted to avoid all of that in the monstrous Penske truck. I also […]
Oh my god, you guys
The last two years have been just…really…something. Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of a particularly gnarly moment in what has been a period of almost exclusively gnarly moments, and it made me realize that only a few people have had any idea about what’s been going on since our move from DC in the […]
the opposite of community
For about a month now, there has been a post nearly ready to publish. For some reason, I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it. I’m not certain if this is a sign of maturity or lack of nerve, but for now, this will have to serve in its place. The draft is […]
Lesson Notes 1.
As promised, here are some lesson notes. This student is a marvelous and highly motivated student whose main outlet is playing in a community orchestra. These notes are from a period of time when I was also introducing them to a broad survey of musical ideas, so the listening at the end serves as an […]
A new series: Lesson Notes
Back when I started this blog, social media was a sort of nascent entity—we had no idea if it would stick around or fall into the waste bin of internet things that didn’t last. It was easy to do what we’re now calling creating content and feel secure that the right people would eventually find […]
