BENJAMIN HARDY: Don’t Live for the Present, live for the past. “Living for the moment is the reason people leave marriages, lose control over their health, and why America is trillions of dollars in debt. Instead of living for the moment, it is better to live for the past — as you’d prefer to remember that moment, and your life in general. Indeed, time is fleeting. The present moment barely exists. The moment you become conscious of it, it’s over.” I’ve never been a fan of the “live for the moment” crowd, as it seems to discount long-term planning and reward hedonism. I think Hardy’s perspective gets it right.
MICHAEL WU writes on Conducting For The Keyboard. “3. Practice your accompaniment, including choir cues. Much like organists who have to make color changes (pushing/pulling individual stops or using pistons, or manipulating swell shades) have to practice on the exact instrument on which they perform in order to coordinate the necessary movements in the sequence they will occur, conductor/accompanists need to plan when a hand or a head works best for cuing. Ideally, memorizing the accompaniment and cues allows you as director to be more in the moment of the music-making. Ideally.“
MIC HAS AN ARTICLE REMINDING US THAT Everyone Can Sing. ”
Using three age groups — kindergarteners, sixth graders and college-aged adults — researchers asked each person to listen to a pitch and then sing it back. Researchers noticed a significant increase in accuracy from kindergarteners to sixth graders, likely because most kids that age have regular musical training at school.
Surprisingly, the adults performed at a level closer to the kindergarteners than the sixth graders; researchers now think that’s because singing has a “use it or lose it” quality to it. It’s like a muscle. And all that off-pitch singing only helps strengthen it.
More background on this topic here.
Ask The King’s Singers.