Adults make up about 25% of my students at any given time. For the most part, adult music students are in one of two situations. They played sax or clarinet in middle school and/or high school and are ready to…
Playlists Back in the day, I recorded songs from a vinyl LP onto a cassette tape. Or I’d be listening to the radio and press record when a fave tune came on. In both cases, I was creating a personal…
Watch Jon Batiste performing Freedom from his Grammy-winning album of the year at the 64th Grammy Awards. Compare this super colorful production of the tune to his video release of the same song last year – which featured a marching…
Canon In D (Pachelbel) Performed by Hiromi Uehara in Marciac, 2010
Walking through my neighborhood, I’m listening to a podcast called “Happier”. The hosts, Gretchen Rubin and her sister, Elizabeth Craft, have a segment they call “Try This At Home” which is usually some tip or suggestion you can to do…
This blog post was going to be about how Lil Nas X was named musician of the year by GQ and how excited I am about a mainstream mag naming a queer person of color with this title. (Thanks to…
Who decides these things?! According to the interwebs, Nov. 16 is National Clarinet Day. But why that day? No one seems to know. And to make matters worse, a group on Facebook has declared May 3 to be National Clarinet…
Juneteenth Celebration I’m writing this post as I listen to the phenomenal music by Donna Jones and The Delegation, part of the Juneteenth Celebration live-streamed from The Jack London Revue. Great singing and jamming by the whole group. Happy to…
See You In September (bye-bye, so long, farewell) “See You In September” was a hit by The Happenings in 1966. I was 8 years old and that song’s melody and lyric are burned into my memory banks. Six years later,…
Production has begun on the Winter Recital to be held, Sunday, December 6 via a Zoom gathering. Save the date on your calendar. Send me an email to request an invitation. The standard performance practice nowadays is for each individual…
It all started with regulations on the nightclubs in New York City back in the 1920s. In 1926, the city council passed a law that imposed a 3am curfew and outlawed dancing in clubs without a special cabaret license. You…
My students have been working hard these past few months. Video lessons started on March 13. Last Sunday, May 3, we gathered for a Spring Music Celebration – by video conference. Celebrating Students I took this opportunity to celebrate the…