Update: The Creative Economy Project

The Rethinking the Creative Economy Project continues! There are more interviews to be transcribed than I thought!  3 down, 17 to go!  Glad I asked! So far, I have ”met” a poet, a collagist, and a potter.   Having worked in a corporate law firm for several years, which used repetitive language in the extreme, I have [...]

More about Emily’s Movie

And the project happily continues! We have a recording date!  Wednesday, July 6th at 1:00 p.m.  (I’ll be practicing on July 4th.  You?) This is for the scratch audio track, for which I will be playing: Beethoven’s “Pathétique” Sonata seven of the Mendelssohn’s “Songs Without Words” some finger exercises by Bertini I will also be [...]

Remembering Charles Schisler

Dr. Charles Schisler was Dean of Westminster Choir College when I was a graduate student.  He was the best Dean on the planet!  Always so encouraging, attending nearly every recital and master class. You can read about his many contributions to the college here. The obituary appears here. Dr. Schisler preferred to sit in the [...]

If my father had a Facebook page

My father’s birthday is today. He would have been 99! If he had a Facebook profile, it might look like this: Name:  Gilbert Allen.  Nickname:  Sawdi. City of birth:  Litchfield, IL (pop. 6,815 as of the year 2000 census). College:  Carthage College, Carthage, IL Sang in college choir, where he met my mother.  Sang bass in a [...]

Call in the Cavalry!

All of us have received last-minute phone calls from people who sound absolutely desperate.  We need you!  The earth will stop turning if you don’t play! So you drop everything, cancel appointments and dinner/movie arrangements, get ahold of the music somehow (usually by calling every other accompanist you know ~ the call came so late, the [...]

Perfect pitch and relative pitch: how do they differ?

Perfect pitch cannot be acquired ~ either you have it or you don’t.​  A discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of perfect (“absolute”) vs. relative pitch would be pointless, so I’m not going to go there.  Instead, this post will help clarify some of the ways in which the two types of pitch are different. [...]

Emily’s Movie: Take 2

This is the first update about my work for an upcoming film about Emily Dickinson, the 3rd in a series of documentaries. I have been practicing seven of the Mendelssohn “Songs Without Words” and Beethoven’s “Pathétique” Sonata. Background We will be videotaping in order to make a scratch audio track so the producer can organize [...]

A week of inspiration to practice

Have you ever noticed how hard it is sometimes to practice on a beautiful summer day?  When you have fewer commitments, wouldn’t it be easier to just skip it and go outside? When I have skipped practicing, though, it’s harder to go back.  So I skip the next day, then the day after that, and… The [...]

How a piano technique book changed my playing forever

Shortly after college, my teacher insisted that I work through Alfred Cortot’s “Rational Principles of Pianoforte Technique.” It is no exaggeration to say that this book changed my playing forever. Exercises Cortot’s instructions indicate that the exercises begin in C Major, 5-finger position (one finger on each key, C-G).  After that, you do the same exercise [...]