summertime hang out at SCOR! heartland and chesapeake
I’ll be teaching at two SCOR! camps this summer: Heartland and Chesapeake– in Iowa and Maryland, respectively. I’d love to see you for a long weekend of workshops, chamber coaching, and private lessons! All levels of adult amateurs welcomed, with…
book 2, we are go for liftoff
The second text is underway, slated to be something of a reverse how-to manual. I’m going to have some additional sections where experts (other teachers, psychologists, physicians) offer corroborating information, too- but will keep those close to the chest…
vintage srcb, part 4: help for a sore thumb
Originally posted 7 January 2008, as part of a series on the bow. Ah, the heady days of cello blogging! This is still an exercise I prescribe to develop the most relaxed bow grip possible, and one I practice, myself. …
vintage srcb, part 3: pinky pressure
Originally posted 9 January, 2008. This, and the next one, are two of the most popular posts on SRCB, according to the Google-mo-tron. Another darling of our community, CelloGirl has stress when it comes to her pinky joint. A portion…
vintage SRCB, part 2: practice makes perfect, if you survive
Post originally published 12 June, 2007 I wish I could send my adult students to music school, if only just for a week. Not to be inspired by the hours and hours of practice or the tide of talent that…
vintage SRCB, part 1: knowing the signs
Post originally published 28 April, 2009. Does this sound like you or anyone you know? Calloused hands, a closet full of full skirts and/or ‘comfy’ black pants, referring to people in strange code languages (“I was just thinking about…
music doctor
I still keep a paper calendar. Then, at the end of a year, no matter what sort of tire fire I’ve created, I can physically leaf through the months and see that I was doing stuff. Even if, like these…
the soul killers
My singing voice is an embarrassment. It is undisciplined, narrow, pitchy, with a number of breaks that make carrying a tune something like driving a car with no second gear. It can be done, but to the obvious detriment of…
Veterans Day 2015
War is seldom justified, and guaranteed to result in at least as much inhumanity as politico-branded triumph and righteousness. On this Veterans Day, I do not celebrate war, or the mechanisms that cause it, nor the facile arguments about it.…