If you're like me, you first learned solfege from Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. This 1965 classic is still beloved today—it's a favorite among my elementary piano students!
Solfege is a useful tool for developing sight-singing and music-reading skills. It’s beneficial for teaching ear-training, harmonic function, and tonal relationships. It also promotes good vowels when singing, as each solfege syllable is a pure vowel sound.
A few weeks ago, we gathered in front of our television sets to watch the Olympic Opening Ceremonies in Milan, Italy.
The 2026 theme “Armonia (Harmony)” reflected several dimensions: city and mountain, man and nature, classical and contemporary. Overall, it spoke to the complexity of the world and offered a message of unity and peace, “[Celebrating] a world where differences inspire dialogue—and beauty.”
Primary colors expanding into a full spectrum, costumes that crossed into fashion, a mix of musical styles. Moments that seemed chaotic and free but that fit within a larger structure.
It’s 9 a.m. and I’m practicing Bach: the Fugue No. 4 in C-Sharp Minor.
The subject starts soft and low, with long, ponderous notes that feel more like a harmonic outline than a melody. But soon it evolves into a tapestry of musical lines moving at four different speeds.
(Here's my version, recorded in my living room.)
A collection of pencil markings from a month of practice are scattered across the pages: finger substitutions, circles, slashes, and arrows propelling the sound forward. Highlighting musical texture like topography on a map. Ties drawn like suspension bridges, measure across measure.
The phrase score-study takes me right back to music history at 8 a.m. on Wednesdays (you, too?). Grout anthology in one hand, class notes in another, marking cadences and phrase structure and German augmented sixth chords.
Don’t worry—I’m not suggesting you analyze your ensemble music quite to that degree. However, the practice of studying a score—before teaching, rehearsing, or performing the piece has its merits.
Happy New Year's Eve!
It’s my tradition here on the blog to share a year-in-review post on December 31—a look back on the highlights and the things we learned, made, and experienced during the year.
I’m grateful for another full year of life, music, and adventures, but I also want to acknowledge that it's been a hard year for all of us. Looking ahead to 2026, we all have an important role to play—let's make it count.
Here's a look back on our year:
I’ve been told our neighborhood is one of the hardest mail routes in the city.
Here, the mail carriers deliver mail on foot, climbing up the hill to each house to leave bundles of letters folded in a metal box attached to the house, slipped in a mail slot, or—my favorite—tucked inside the old wooden milk door.
This is how we met, Marissa, our mail carrier.
A few months back, we were out on a walk, as we do every day after lunch. We saw Marissa on her route, a loop of even footsteps like stitches in a quilt as she visited house by house along our street. Rory, our 10-year-old lab-greyhound, ran up to greet her, and to her delight, Marissa pulled out a full-size Milk Bone from her navy mailbag.
December is my favorite time to reflect on my reading life.
I love hearing what other people read, reviewing everything I read this year, and making my annual book list for the coming year.
This year, I read 26 books on a variety of topics: novels to business and leadership, psychology to memoirs to the arts. Some were on my reading list, some I discovered in Libby (the library app), and some came recommended by friends.
It was Thursday.
My 2nd-grade student stood at the piano next to me, his hand on the white keys in the upper register. We were improvising in minor—coming up with patterns and musical ideas. He played C-B-A spontaneously and it caught his attention.
“My ears were looking, but not my eyes!” he said with pride and amazement, tipping his ear toward the keys. His sandy brown hair fell across his blue eyes as he replayed the pattern.
What if we listened with our eyes and saw with our ears?
Advent is a season of hope, patience, expectation, and waiting. A reminder that light follows darkness; we cannot have one without the other. This is why I love Advent calendars—a tangible way to count the days of December and hold on to hope.
Whether you’re counting down to Christmas, Winter Break, or the end of concert season, an Advent calendar can offer a new rhythm or structure to your days. For busy musicians, it’s a simple way to pause and take in one small moment of reflection, joy, or nostalgia.
