Over the holidays, a family member mentioned that he’s been learning to play guitar.

Or, he had been learning, but it turned out to be more difficult than he had thought, so he gave up in frustration.

He used an app that showed the sequence of notes to play as the recording of a given song played in the background. The notation moved along, conveyor-belt style, sort of like the game Guitar Hero.

Read More

In all of the years I wanted to write or practice music consistently but didn’t, I don’t think it was a lack of self-discipline.

After all, I wanted to do these things. And I did many other difficult things that I hadn’t wanted to do.

So what was the problem?

Prioritization. I spent all my time doing those other things.

Read More

Oh, what I wish I knew when I started my first business!

It was (and still is) a music school.

I put great care into the user experience, not only for the students and their parents, but for my teaching and admin team.

I built processes and procedures that minimized errors and ensured that no client request would fall through the cracks.

Read More

Most of my songs take a few hours to write.

Some take longer — several hours or more, stretched over days or even years.

Every now and then, one pops out that only takes a few minutes.

As far as I can tell, there is no difference in quality between the ones that took a long time and the ones that got done quickly. There may be a difference in complexity, but the aesthetic value is in the eye (or ear) of the beholder.

Read More

One afternoon at The Little Middle School, I emerged from my office to find a valuable employee painstakingly disentangling a stack of wired headphones.

This was not the best use of her time, but she was reluctant to be torn away from the project.

I get it. Often, it’s easier and more immediately rewarding to do a task that’s far below our pay grade than to work on the stuff that only we can do — much harder stuff that might take longer to yield a satisfying result.

Read More