Category: Craft

Here’s a nifty nugget from an unexpected place.  From Elle Magazine’s cover story comes a quote by Gwen Stefani recalling some advice that Prince gave her: Prince, who is one of my idols, gave me some advice when I worked with him: “Have you ever just tried writing a hit? Like, don’t just try writing…

I’ve always thought these performance rights organizations were one step removed from the mob.  Tons o’ money sloshing around, some incredibly powerful legislation and court cases at their back, a near monopoly on the services they provide. But they also provide great resources and the main way for composers to earn income for performances of…

After years and years of using Sibelius 1.4 for my notation software, I finally upgraded it to Sibelius 6. So far, with only a week of using the upgrade, I’m pretty impressed. Before the Dynamic Parts feature, you would extract parts into separate files and then worry about syncing them back up with the score…

Anyone steeped in a trade pays attention to certain details that don’t bother most people. As a composer, I have a hard time getting past when artists ruin an otherwise excellent song by mispronouncing the words. Here’s two current pop songs that drive me nuts: 1. “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz. The lyric is “I…