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Category Archives: Arts Education
Orchestra Conductors and Some Common Mythologies of Leadership
One of the most commonly asked questions I get when I give a presentation to an outside-the-music-business audience is, “what exactly does the conductor do??” The mythology of conductors, which has been fertilized for eons by orchestral press offices, is … Continue reading
Café Press takes a marketing cue from GM
My mother, may she rest in peace, used to be a junk dealer. One of the items she sold was old postcards. Now just about every other junk dealer at the flea markets would put out a box of old … Continue reading
The effect of arts education on academic performance . . .
Having worked for many years as a professional musician, and now being fairly active as the publisher of educational programs for orchestras, I often run into a quote in the business literature that goes something like this: "studies have shown … Continue reading
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Does College help your originality?
When I went to music school (and I will be nice and not name names), we had this standard joke phrase amongst us as freshmen, which was, "everything you know is wrong." The basis of the joke was that, no … Continue reading
Posted in Arts Education, The Art of Originality
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Ramblings on marketing and publishing
Since most people in the world of art and creativity are not really interested in getting more competition than there already is, it is extremely rare that such people talk about how the business really works. But it’s Friday night, I … Continue reading
Dealing with Gatekeepers
The topic for today’s blog on originality is “gatekeepers.” Gatekeepers affect just about every aspect of your life. Everything you see in a store was selected by a “gatekeeper,” that is to say, someone that you may have never met … Continue reading
Time Management, Musician Style
Many, many years ago I was playing a Boston Pops tour, and as fate and/or chance might have it, on one fairly long bus ride I ended up sitting next to Fred Buda. For those of you who do not … Continue reading
Techniques of Being Creative
Last May I had the extraordinary pleasure of being invited down to Nassau to see the National Orchestra of the Bahamas perform my Peter VS the Wolf. What fun. I had a free day the first day, so I indulged … Continue reading
Teaching Creativity
So every once in a while I watch videos on TED TV http://www.ted.com And I happened upon this talk, on “do schools kill creativity”: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html This guy Ken Robinson talked about how schools tend to suppress creativity, and how schools … Continue reading
Posted in Arts Education, The Art of Originality
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A new approach to arts education
Last summer, I was invited to speak at the annual meeting of the Florida Orchestra Association. After an hour of regaling them with outrageous tales from my musical memoir, "Real Men Don’t Rehearse," they asked me to give my vision of … Continue reading
