Lately it's all about passion. Pursue your passion; follow your dream. Are you just going to pursue it, or do you really want to succeed?  What price are you prepared to pay for the level of success you want?

We know that big dreams require big sacrifice. We see Olympic athletes live apart from their families for months at a time to attend the best training center. They keep strict food,...

Mistakes are easy to spot. We hear a wrong note, an incorrect accidental or rhythm. We can feel it - it just wasn't right.

But is your mistake simply that - an error - or it is a symptom of a larger problem? And how would you know the difference?

Sometimes a mistake is just a random slip, in the way that sometimes a sneeze is just a random sneeze. But we know that if we start sneezing more...

There's an entire culture built around GTD: Getting Things Done.

In my experience, getting things done is less about productivity and hustle and more about planning, setting realistic expectations and preventing panic. Whether you're worried about learning music or just making it through your busy day, it is possible to make progress on the things that matter to you as long as you don't let the...

Charles Gounod

(1818-1893)

"My mother wants the Ave Maria played. Does it work on the harp?" asks the bride-to-be.

So, I play her a few bars of the famous Schubert song.

"No, that's not it," says the bride.

"Oh, you mean the other Ave Maria," and I play her a few bars. Happy bride, happy harpist.

It's the other Ave Maria, the melody that composer Charles Gounod wrote as an embellishment...

Is there anything you should change about your practice?

Our daily practice is our path to progress. It's how we develop mastery of our instrument and increase our understanding of music in general.

Shinichi Suzuki's famous quote,"Practice only on the days you eat," illustrates so vividly the importance of making practice a daily routine.

But anything we do every day can become so routine that...

What is your musical signature? Maybe you've never given it any thought, but I can assure you that you have one. So how do you find it, or refine, or even define it?

Handwritten signatures are special. I remember practicing mine when I was a teenager, mostly when I was doodling during class. What did I want it to look like? I experimented with slanting my letters to the right and to the left,...

 Augmented Fourth

Musical dissonance occurs when two notes played simultaneously have a clash of wills. The notes just don’t play well together. The interval shown here is the classic example of a dissonant interval: an augmented fourth, a tritone.

Hundreds of years ago, dissonance was essentially prohibited in music. The perceived conflict between tones was held to be incompatible...

If you were stranded on a desert island and could have with you the music of only one composer, whose music would you pick?

It’s an old question, and one I almost always find difficult to answer. I love so much music, it is almost impossible to narrow my choices to one. But inevitably, my thoughts do circle back around to one composer: Johann Sebastian Bach.

On a recent trip to Germany, I...

Set the bar low for your next performance.  What?!

We are taught to aim for the best possible performance. We are accustomed to setting the bar high and going for the gold. And that's a good thing, right?

Not necessarily.

Sometimes setting the bar high can create more pressure, more self-induced pressure. We practice harder and longer as the performance gets closer, and we sweat the...

I won't say I told you so, but...

I was reading a post on one of my favorite music blogs, The Bulletproof Musician, and was so excited to find someone else talking about one of my favorite subjects: aural skills.

The latest post begins by exploring the very real benefits of mental practice, meaning practice away from the instrument. My students have heard me talk about this before.