My Blog

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A Year without a Holiday Concert…

A Typical December When I first began to plan this essay, it had a very different title and direction: The Music Teacher’s Guide to Surviving the Holiday Concert Season. It carried the same energy as one of those survival manuals...

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Lollipop March – Playful Pizzicato Meets Pure Joy

Lollipop March is a cheerful, pizzicato-only piece for beginning string orchestra. Written entirely on the D major scale, it helps young musicians build confidence in tone, rhythm, and ensemble skills while keeping the performance experience fun and engaging. The music...

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Teaching Through Sound and Story: The Titan

With its haunting melody, intense fanfare, and rich textures, The Titan captures the imagination of young players and audiences alike. Written for beginning concert band (Grade 1), the piece introduces students to minor tonalities, musical form, and expressive playing through...

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Composing Music With Constraints

  There is a famous quote by Stravinsky: “my freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint, diminishes...

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Composing with Haiku!

April 17th is National Haiku Day in the United States and the perfect day to talk about using Haiku as a part of a lesson on composing music. I thought it would be cute to add a Haiku to a...

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