“Hey Stan,” I said, leaning into the open office door.

He wore a light blue Oxford shirt, grey sweater vest, and khakis, his shoulders hunched as he typed on his laptop.

“I’m looking for a pencil with an eraser,” I said with a look of slight desperation, holding up a page of sheet music. I leaned over the baby gate in the doorway to pet Stella the pug, who got up from her plush bed and waddled over to greet me. He stood and turned in one motion (the room no bigger than a walk-in closet) and rustled through a mug of pencils, points down, all with plush pink erasers.

It’s back-to-school season, which means it’s time for all things Fall, new school supplies, and the start of a new academic year. 

If you’re a planner like me and like things to be organized, you probably spent some time this summer cleaning out folders and boxes, straightening up counters and rearranging chairs, getting the piano tuned, and planning music for the Fall semester.

Choir is a meaningful way to build community, promote unity, and bring people together.

Whether you direct a community choir, a church choir, or work with a professional choir, combining with other groups can be a memorable, enriching musical experience for all involved. It's also a practical way to expand what's possible on a concert program: more voices, more opportunities for divisi, and a bigger sound than one group could create on their own.

We have this need to always be in motion: a steady progression of events that provide shape and structure, color and interest, tension and stability—the architecture of our days.

There’s comfort in this. Safety, perhaps: It’s predictable, reliable, and consistent. It’s manageable. We label it “drive” or “motivation”; call it a sense of responsibility, a commitment to excellence. The perpetual motion makes us feel productive and busy—important, even. Always moving toward something, but also away from something at the same time.

And that’s where we find it, the breathing room.

When was the last time you sat down at your instrument and played music for fun? I mean, not music you had to practice or prepare, not your students’ repertoire, not music for your next rehearsal, but music you chose to play for yourself, for your own enjoyment?

As professionals, we don’t often make time for this. We assume that all the music we’re being paid to learn and practice will also count as the musical satisfaction we need to keep going in our career.

Art becomes you.

The way your fingers spontaneously drum on the steering wheel while a Mozart symphony plays on the radio. The unexpected lyricism of a line in a novel that causes you to pause and reread. How you carry the notes of a familiar piece with you, tied to the rhythm of your footsteps on the pavement.

Art is more than what you do; it’s a way of being.

This time of year has me thinking about change, growth, and new horizons. The culmination of another school year, moving-up ceremonies, and friends announcing new jobs. “Every recital is a milestone,” I wrote to my studio families last week (for teachers, too, I didn’t say).

There’s an unspoken acknowledgment in this: Chapters ending and beginning, grappling with ambiguity, hope, and the ache of uncertainty.

Voice change occurs in all voices, and it’s important to find ways to encourage and support your singers throughout the process (and keep them singing).

As a middle or high school choir director, you need to know what to look for, how to evaluate your singers, and how to support and encourage them throughout the process.

Considered one of the leading authorities on this topic, Cooksey outlined five stages of vocal change and transformation in the adolescent male voice:

I’m working on the Bach Prelude & Fugue No. 8 in E-flat Minor this month (part of my year-long commitment to learn one prelude and fugue from Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 each month).

The prelude starts with a simple blocked-chord motif (i-iv-vii°-i) in the middle register, underscoring a song-like melody. It’s written in cantilena style, which is similar to a vocalise.

It was 70 degrees last week, and then it snowed. March is funny like that. I’m reminded of Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Dear March, Come In” (do you know Copland’s setting?).

“Oh March, Come right upstairs with me—
I have so much to tell—
I got your Letter, and the Birds—”