This excerpt from “Life after graduate school: The importance of a Mentor” is written by Kristin Yost (soon to be featured in a series of ComposeCreate posts on finances). Â Kristin is the founder and executive director of Centre for Musical […]
Life after Graduate School: The Importance of a Mentor Read More »
I’m skeptical about studies like this, but I had a bit of fun this weekend mentioning this WSJ post to my vocal music loving husband. Â It seems that researchers found that higher IQ did predict a preference for instrumental over
Your IQ: Preferring Instrumental over Vocal Music Read More »
What Music Means to Me Project is a celebration of the value of music in education and quality of life. Â This project was started by Richard Rejino, a musician and photographer, in a most interesting way. Â You can read more
What Music Means to Me [Author Interview] Read More »
I am preparing to give a few workshops about motivating students to play more musically. My thesis has been that learning to listen and love a wide range of musical and non-musical sounds is one of the secrets to producing
Listening: The secret of great music performance Read More »
I was so encouraged when I read the article “Lapse” from New Music Box. It seems that composer Kevin Puts was performing as the soloist for his own premier of his Piano Concerto when he lost his place! Â Kevin writes,
Memory Slips of the Pros Read More »
Last week, I gave away the first of my erasable highlighters to 3 students who showed me that they were consistently “practicing smartly.” Â You can read more about how I structured this mini-incentive program here. Â I’m really excited about this
Making Music Come to Life: The Bear Read More »
Recently, I read an article on the Psychology Today website called, “How to be Creative: Can Creativity be Taught?” Though the article had some useful suggestions, something bothered me about this title. Â I realized that the reason I don’t
Recently, I gave a workshop in Wichita called “Nurturing Creativity and Inspiration.” Â I shared about how to be more creative in teaching and how to find that elusive concept of inspiration. Â Though I cannot condense a 2 hour workshop into
What is Creativity? [A definition that can change your life] Read More »
An interesting new book called the Piano Teachers Resource Kit has recently been published by Hal Leonard.  Several of you asked me some questions about the book, so I decided that I would interview the author, Karen Harrington, so that we
Piano Teachers Resource Kit (Author Interview) Read More »
Here is the final portion of “The Myths of Playing by Ear” by Bradley Sowash. Read Part 1 and Part 2. Myth #4 Improvising is only for jazz musicians. This one is easy to dispute. Playing by ear is downright
The Myths of Playing by Ear-Part 3 Read More »
The Great Fuzzy Event of 2026!
You will not believe what we released at this premier event! Four new Fuzzies solos, a new and FREE incentive program, summer ideas, new resources and so much more! Even the replay is super fun!
