I see so much of myself in TV characters sometimes. I am:

• The introvert version of Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation

• A unique (and admittedly less caffeinated) combination of Lorelai and Rory from Gilmore Girls

• A more independent (and less whiny) version of David Rose from Schitt’s Creek

• The brunette version of Miranda Blake from The Mallorca Files (without the British accent)

Steve says I must be earning money from all the licensing deals—sometimes the similarities are uncanny. Like when Lorelai said, "Life's short. Talk fast." Or "I can be flexible, as long as everything is exactly the way I want it."

Do your students love Halloween as much as mine do? 🎃

Every week they come to lessons so excited to tell me about their costume plans and the decorations in their classroom or at home.

Several years ago, I started introducing Halloween and fall-themed music and lesson activities during the months of October and November and it has been a big hit.

I choose games and activities for my beginning and elementary students to do throughout the month (or to use in our October studio classes) and I often choose a special piece of sheet music (or a piece to teach by rote) that ties in with the season.

Rhythm pattern cards are a great way to teach new rhythmic concepts, reinforce familiar patterns, and build that all-important music vocabulary (the ability to understand and create your own musical patterns and sequences).

There are lots of different types of rhythm pattern cards out there - some you can buy, some you can download and print for free (like the set I'm sharing below!), and ideas for making some of your own.

They don’t have to be fancy! The ones I'm sharing today can be printed at home on white cardstock and cut into quarters (postcard-size).

I felt it this week when I pulled on my teal Columbia fleece jacket for our morning walk. I noticed it in the cluster of red leaves at the top of the Maple tree on the corner and the baskets of Zestar apples (my favorite) at the farmer's market.

And then Wegmans had a sample of cornbread with hot honey on Saturday morning and all I could think about was a big bowl of Taco Soup and weekend football games (Go Dawgs! Go Bills! 🏈).

Fall is here and with it, a return to work and school rhythms, academic calendars, Gilmore Girls (IYKYK), and pumpkin-spiced-everything.

Copyright.

It's a sticky subject and one not often taught in music school.

Copyright law protects anything with intellectual property rights. This includes poetry, books, photographs, art, song lyrics, music, and more.

How does it affect what you do as a musician, teacher, freelancer, artist, or small business owner? What do you need to know?

It's one the greatest musical skills you can help your choir develop: singing and reading music for themselves with musical understanding.

Just like learning to read language, music-reading comes after listening and interacting with music aurally and developing a musical vocabulary of tonal and rhythm patterns (these are like words in language).

Think of how you learned to read: You probably spent a lot of time following along in a book as you listened to someone else read to you. Eventually, you started finishing the sentences and pointing to the words as you went along.

You learned simple words like, go and dog and identified them in other books.

Learning to read music is no different. We learn to recognize tonal and rhythm patterns like familiar words in books.

I love working with beginning piano students.

Our lessons are always full of imagination and creative exploration—their eyes wide with excitement and wonder when they make a connection or discover something new—and I always learn so much about myself as a teacher as we walk those first steps in their musical journey together.

That being said, we all know that when learning a new instrument, productive practice time at home is essential to learning and developing as a musician. 

Most of us see our beginning students for only 30 minutes a week, so time spent at the keyboard in between lessons can really make or break a student’s progress and the fulfillment they find in music-making.

The Olympics Primetime coverage has been a nightly ritual in our house these past few weeks—the Women’s 1500m Freestyle (go, Katie Ledecky!), the Men’s pommel horse routines (go, Stephen Nedoroscik!), and of course, Women’s Gymnastics (go, Simone Biles and Suni Lee!).

All of it is impressive—the vault, the floor routines, the high bars—but the balance beam routine takes me right back to grade-school gymnastics classes…

SCENE: World of Gymnastics, Thursday afternoon class, early 1990s

I'm wearing a light pink leotard with silver polka dots. I stare down at my bare feet on the blue mat, then peer around the shoulders of my classmates ahead of me in line to see a camel-brown balance beam that's taller than I am. 

Today, we're doing cartwheels on the balance beam.

'Tis the season to be jolly (in July, as you plan music for Advent!)

Am I right?!

As a church musician, you know it's never too early to be thinking about Christmas, so today, I thought I'd share a few favorite choral anthems for the Advent season.

I've mentioned a few of these in previous posts (Favorite Anthems for the Small Church Choir and Fifty More Favorite Anthems for the Small Church Choir), but I thought it might be helpful to compile everything in one post for easy reference.

Are you looking for books you can sing or chant in your elementary music classes, group classes in your studio, or children’s choir rehearsals?

You know the ones: books that either have lyrics to a familiar children’s song or hymn, or stories with text that can be sung to a familiar tune, like “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”