Life empowering aspects of music education that will change every child’s success in life — Part 1
When children perform music they interact with the complex language of music — breaking down rhythms, reading notes and making a myriad of physical actions and mental decisions in flowing, unstopping time.
Music’s complexity connects children’s brains in an extraordinary simultaneous interconnection process. And this is exactly what optimizes their young brain’s potential as they develop! The human brain is capable of processing many different experiences and kinds of information all at once. …
When I’m conducting an orchestra that’s hurtling at breakneck speed, I can’t make a mistake or there will be a train wreck.
Orchestras are powerful, spontaneous, glittering sound machines. They produce extraordinary performance with relatively little preparation. In fact, many top professional orchestras rehearse on average for four rehearsals before a concert, in some situations as little as one rehearsal, and often they find themselves reading music on sight and producing excellence in the moment.
I conduct these orchestras, and time is big money for those who hire us. Every moment counts. A film orchestra records music at top form and top efficiency to make it within budget. …
When I signed up for a life of conducting orchestras, I didn’t realize I’d also need to learn how to handle enormous audiences
When I signed up for a life of conducting orchestras, I was only thinking about conducting music. No one told me that I would be talking to audiences all of the time, and I didn’t expect my first concert as Music Director of the Victoria Symphony to be in front of 40,000 people.
“Lead and let go” to transform the potential of your team.
Leadership is about being the fuel and the fire — creating a spark and lighting your team into motion. It’s about infusing and communicating purpose — so that it is what compels your team’s greatest passions and interests and brings them together in a common quest. And I learned as a conductor, that sometimes it’s about letting them play and standing back to enjoy the performance.
True leadership is a unique combination of actively leading and inspiring direction while, at other times, being a conduit for your organization’s own will to shine through.
As an orchestra conductor, if I get the balance right, I have the capacity to enable something extraordinary to emerge through talented people who are all committed to the same thing. …
How music can help every child grow into a happy and successful adult
As an orchestra conductor, I can attest to how music has empowered my brain and changed my life.
I started out as a simple kid growing up on a farm in Saskatchewan and through music I learned the potential that I didn’t know I had.
Music is invaluable to children in many ways — brain development and growth is a major one, but there are so many other empowering ways that music will change your child’s life now and for the future.
Whether your child is a budding scientist, contractor, teacher, doctor, entrepreneur, or professional hockey player, they will have a more enriched, perceptive and creative life if they experience performing music in their youth. …
Transform your mind’s potential while bringing yourself more peace.
When I started my career as a conductor, I thought the only way to achieve success was to do 10,000 things all at once. I was newly married, starting a new job with lots of conducting, administration and pressure. Soon after, I started a family. Travelling every other week, it didn’t seem possible to manage everything. I prided myself on multi-tasking and working long into the night.
Fast forward a few years, and I realize now that whatever I was overachieving in action took away from what I could have achieved mentally and creatively.
When we are committed — there is nothing that we won’t “do” to achieve success. But our real power and potential is in how we approach life through our minds. …
12 inspiring quotes to turn you towards gratitude this Christmas
Christmas is not going to be the same. But there is something you can do to make it meaningful and joyful, even if it’s quiet.
You can be grateful. And this will bring you happiness.
Our attitude is one of the few things this Christmas that is ours to control. You can be grateful for what you do have, even amidst all that you are missing. You can choose to see the beauty and kindness around you.
One unique, but beautiful thing about this Christmas is that it will be quiet. There will be time, and space — and stillness. …
Socrates’s quote inspires writers to keep writing
“The unexamined life is not worth living” Socrates said as he declared the essence of a good life. “The only good is knowledge”. With knowledge, a person could shape their own destiny and find true happiness.
During a time when the world was looking to the cosmos for understanding, Socrates looked inward to the human mind for the questions and answers to life. The way to wisdom was to be found through human dialogue.
Something in Socrates’s words and search for knowledge resonated with me as I thought about writing and the struggles we all face as writers.
I realized that the process itself is the true gift. Writing is the process of examining life. …
It can alter your mood, give you strength and understand you when you need it most
When we are suffering, sometimes it feels best to be alone. We have friends and loved ones around us, and we can reach out to them at any time, but we’d rather just be alone with our thoughts, away from distractions, connecting to ourselves in the quiet.
Music can help us immeasurably during this time. It’s an understanding force, and there’s something about its wordlessness which helps us to see our reflection in its mirror without our having to explain anything. We can just be there — listening or playing the music. …
And might empower you to change how you think
When you start out writing, you want to be heard. If you are lucky enough to have a few successful moments, you start to believe in yourself and think that large audiences are just around the corner.
But then, as you keep writing, you might find that it’s not quite that easy. Some articles hit the right connections and others seem to fall flat. Your idealistic dreams for a big future waver for a moment.
You ask yourself: is what I am saying of interest to people? Does anyone else out there really care what I have to say? …
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