I've found myself surrounded lately by a lot of loud folk behaving very badly. I'm sure that my overwork and exhaustion is helping to attract these people to me, but regardless of my responsibility, the world certainly seems full of self-absorbed louts. I really don't want to be cynical, but it seems that many people [...]
Life can be stressful, and sometimes we all sit in our office struggling to do our work and we think "Does this really matter? Does anyone really care about this work?" Then I think of the Ripple Effect, where one small thing ripples out to make a great effect. (Also known as the Butterfly effect...) [...]
Design Teams are meeting all over the country to make plans for next Fall's shows, and I hope they all remember one of the most important rules for show design: Showcase Your Strengths (and hide your weaknesses)...or, to put it another way, "Use What You've Got!" Every single band has special things to highlight. Certain [...]
Okay, I admit it! My BRAIN is FULL! I seem to have packed in as much information and pulled out as many ideas as I can for now. I'm getting signals that the old noggin is filled to the brim. It's time to vacate! For the past 4 months I have written 10 new compositions [...]
I love the Harry Potter books. I never get tired of spending time with Harry, Ron, Hermoine, or any of the other multitude of characters in J.K Rowling's amazing magical universe. I am always happy to spend time at Hogwarts, and every re-read of a Potter book keeps me entertained and inspired. Lucky for me, [...]
If you've noticed the lack of new posts on this blog in the last month, it's because there has been a swirl of activity behind the scenes, including a redesign of part of this website and the launch of a new project, the Marching Roundtable podcast. New to this website are new pages for Marching [...]
Hello, everyone. If you're wondering why there have been no new blog posts lately, it is because I have been redesigning this website to make it easier for directors and other interested parties to learn about and listen to my Marching Shows. If you go to the "Marching Music" page you'll see that there is [...]
I think I am the luckiest guy in the world. I have a job I love, writing music and being creative, all the while helping hundreds of students to have a great experience with their bands. At least, that's today! On some other days it's not so easy. Depending on if the "creative juices are [...]
A new client walks into his school's main office to request the use of his funds for custom marching band arrangements. Since he is new to the school and more ambitious than his predecessors, his administrators are nonplussed that he is requesting so much money for marching music. "Can't you use last year's music?" "What's [...]
It's a month until the opening date of "Spider-man: Turn Off The Dark" on Broadway, but a cadre of self-important critics decided to go ahead and officially review the show. This is an unprecedented step which these reviewers and their bosses justified by the large number of preview performances and the paying customers who apparently [...]