Inbox Zero: The Basics

Inbox Zero is a practice that helps you get inputs out of the way in order to communicate well and concentrate on the things that really matter. You don’t just get rid of the unread count, you get rid of the mental clutter as well.

See an email. Respond + archive, forward + archive, star/flag/send to task manager + archive or just archive. Or delete.

The first steps will be the most difficult (especially if your inbox count is in the thousands), but it gets easier as you go. Routine is important.

Use folders or labels if you need to, otherwise just use the search function. Gmail’s search is best.

Further reading:

• Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero series on 43 Folders

• Mike Vardy on the ultimate way to get to Inbox Zero

• More detailed tips on how to build and maintain a clean inbox

Does Classical Music Have a Problem with the Present?

This is 2019, and many classical music organizations (especially orchestras) still have a strong preoccupation about the European past and are highly reluctant to program new works.

Greg Sandow writes about classical music’s disconnect with the modern world:

Sometimes people say, not very pleasantly, that a classical concert can be too much like a museum. But it’s been true for quite a while that this isn’t true, because museums are far more oriented toward the current world than we are.

I don’t think this makes us look good, to the people we’d like to find for our new audience. We’ll look backward to them.

Greg makes the comparison to the contemporary art world, where contemporary art draws the largest crowds, is the largest market for buyers, and the primary area of study for graduate students in art history.

A similar situation exists in the theatre scene, where plays from the past exist alongside 20th-century repertory and new work for the stage. No one throws a fit because a new play is too reminiscent of contemporary life.

However, Greg sees the upside:

But there is some good news here. Once classical music emerges into contemporary life, our new audience will be there already, waiting for us.

One of the most penetrating things I recall anyone saying about classical music and its relationship with the past was by Peter Hinton in a rehearsal several years ago*. He said that we might think we know all there is to know about the past, but we really don’t. He went on to say that if we could ever construct an actual time machine to go back in time, we wouldn’t be able to function beyond more than about 50 years in the past, as the cultural context of even the most basic social interactions would be nearly impossible to understand. It would feel like being on an alien planet.

But perhaps classical music’s staying power might be because of its tension between past and present. Different groups of people will gravitate towards different classical styles and genres, and the interplay between the great works of the past past, those of the present, and our ever-changing tendency to see the past in terms of our present-day cultural context may well be what gives classical music its variety and vitality.

How do you feel about classical music’s reluctance to embrace the present? Feel free to leave a comment below.

(Photo courtesy of Pierre Chatel-Innocenti)

*I recall this from the rehearsal process of 120 Songs for the Marquis de Sade (libretto by Peter Hinton and music by Peter Hannan) produced in the spring of 2002 by the now-defunct Modern Baroque Opera in a co-production with Vancouver New Music. 120 Songs was an opera that utilized both both electronics and a baroque orchestra in Peter Hannan’s scoring.

Emily Wells feat. Metropolis Ensemble - Stay Up

Emily Wells is a New York-based violinist, producer, and singer. In her own words:

My work bridges pop and chamber music and explores concepts around human relation to the natural world rooted in a love for both. I am interested in the ways performance and recordings influence one another and I work in both realms. At times I perform solo utilizing multiple instruments on stage (violin, synth, acoustic/electronic drums, voice), and at other times I perform with small orchestral ensembles. My work also interacts with my video practice through projection at performances which intersects imagery of contemporary dance, extreme weather and effects of climate crisis as well as protest footage from ACT UP.

Metropolis Ensemble has a unique process and dynamic not unlike those found in contemporary theatre and dance:

Metropolis Ensemble through its unique collaborative process, exists to support ascending contemporary classical performers and composers, often engaging them with other bleeding-edge cultural innovators and artists. Metropolis Ensemble events result through intense small group collaborations between its Resident Artists, Composers, and Artistic Director Andrew Cyr. These collaborations start with the initial conceptualization and don’t end until the last performance.

An agile, evolving collective of composers and performers, Metropolis Ensemble thrives in a state of creative flux. Resident Artists and Composers rotate in and out and eventually become Alumni; new talent is constantly brought in; every presentation’s concept and many venues are different; and most of Metropolis Ensemble’s music is new.

You can see Emily with the Metropolis Ensemble on Thursday, February 28th at House of Yes in Brooklyn. Here’s Stay Up from their upcoming album The World is Too ______ for You:

Also check out Emily and friends live in the studio on New Sounds.

Snow Day Links

As yet another winter storm heads across southern Ontario, here are some links to keep you occupied:

1. Are we in the midst of an Alban Berg renaissance? Two recent TSO performances showcasing Berg works got me thinking that there might be something in the air. A quick look at the Universal Editions Alban Berg schedule shows that this may indeed be the case, with 38 orchestral performances of his works between now and the end of June. This anecdote by Greg Sandow shows how Alban Berg’s music might be a viable entry point into classical music for younger audiences.

2. Sean Dorrance Kelly writes about how an AI can’t become a genuine artist, arguing that artistic achievement is a much larger idea than mere artificial intelligence:

We count Schoenberg as a creative innovator not just because he managed to create a new way of composing music but because people could see in it a vision of what the world should be. Schoenberg’s vision involved the spare, clean, efficient minimalism of modernity. His innovation was not just to find a new algorithm for composing music; it was to find a way of thinking about what music is that allows it to speak to what is needed now.

3. I really like the way that Penelope Trunk illustrates the Doppelgänger of authenticity and being true to yourself: negativity and mental health.

4. Tyler Cowen on the problem of social media:

My tentative conclusion from all this: Online life is inducing us to invest less in our memories and long-term sense of satisfaction. It is pretty obvious from human behavior that, right now, the internet is doing more to boost short-term pleasures.

The more negative take would be that online life is obscuring our understanding of our own lives. I do not go that far. After all, humans make analogous choices about balancing short- and long-term happiness when they have one child rather than four, or when they sit on an exercise bike rather than get on a plane to Paris. Those aren’t the wrong decisions for everybody.

5. Carl Pullein and Nicholas Bate both offer wise advice: say “no” more often. Your quality of work will improve.

6. From a conversation initiated by Shane Parrish on Twitter: sources of personal competitive advantage.

Finally, the Imani Winds play the second movement of Elliott Carter’s Woodwind Quintet:

(Image courtesy of Aaron Burden)

November with Aaron Parks and Ben Wendel

Some insightful collaboration and improvisation here: saxophonist Ben Wendel, as part of a project to create 12 duets in 2015, performs with pianist Aaron Parks on his eponymous 11th collaboration of the year. Classical musicians can learn a lot from this type of collaboration, notably how effective the high quality video and informality of the filming can be to showcase a collaboration, a time, a place, and most of all the music.

(Via Macsparky)

How I Created a New Ebook for my Studio in 30 Days

After getting back from my January examining trip to Alberta (Red Deer, Calgary, and Lethbridge), one of the first things I did was sit down to practice after a two-week practice hiatus. After a few minutes I came to the realization that I need to create something to help my students practice better. Many of them aren’t listening to my ideas the way they could.

Then an idea came to me:

Why not have the students write the practice tips themselves?

Later that day I got to work. I asked each of my students to compile a list of three practice strategies that they found successful and three strategies that they found not-so-successful. Some of my students responded immediately, and some of them needed a week to think about it.

I created a markdown document to collect everyone’s thoughts and the list quickly grew, with plenty of insights notable for not just my students’ ideas, but for the unique way in which they phrased them. Paring down the list and arranging the strategies in a cohesive order was a challenge, especially with the comedic nature of many of the unsuccessful practice strategies (“Get my brother to help me”).

It was a fairly intense month of selling the idea to my students, collecting information, putting it in coherent form, revising, and creating a finished document. However, the intensity of the last month revitalized my creative process, and I learned that working through a meaningful project in a measured sprint genuinely helped me to move down the creative path.

A huge word of thanks goes out to all my students for their ideas on practicing! Since sending out the finished document to my studio a few days ago, several parents and students have emailed me mentioning that yes, they do use this document regularly and yes, they have highlighted certain strategies to utilize while highlighting others to avoid.

Below is a link to finished product, and I hope that you find it useful.

Five Deep Breaths and a Pencil Behind the Ear (pdf link)

Welcome to Foley Music and Arts

My blogging journey began in the fall of 2005 on a week when I had almost no work. Three years after my wife and I moved from Vancouver to Toronto, I had a fair amount of performing work and a few classes to teach, but the gaps between performing engagements were becoming too frequent and the financial strain was showing, particularly in the fall before the high season of performing engagements got underway.

In order to make the best of a difficult situation, I decided to start the Collaborative Piano Blog as a way of reaching out to the profession when there were almost no online resources on the subject. At the same time, I developed a major interest in teaching piano and learning the art of piano pedagogy. It was the kind of interest that takes over your life and directs all your attention, regardless of consequences.

My graduate degrees were in Piano Accompanying and Chamber Music from the Eastman School of Music, so my 8 years in Vancouver were spent largely as a performing pianist and vocal coach specializing in new music. I had taught piano from time to time in Vancouver, but it was only a very small part of my musical activities. So three years after making the move to the Toronto scene, I added a few private piano students to my schedule and tried to juggle the challenges of being both a private teacher of piano and an active performer.

What I didn't expect was that writing the Collaborative Piano Blog would become such a long-term activity, nor that its content would enable so many people to connect with the collaborative piano field at the beginning of their careers. Nor did I realize that at the same time my career was slowly going in a different direction than collaborative piano.

After being invited to serve as a member of The Royal Conservatory's College of Examiners in 2009, my yearly schedule changed and I was no longer able to take on as many performing engagements as I once could. The life of an examiner is fascinating! Delving into the deep points of pedagogy and curriculum development quickly developed into a passion, as did traveling across North America to hear 600+ examinations a year. My studio got bigger and bigger, and within a few short years I found myself with a completely full teaching schedule.

Writing for the Collaborative Piano Blog was still a part of my activities, but to a much lesser extent. We all change over time, and my own interests appeared to have outgrown my initial desire to write a blog about the art of piano in ensemble.

So this blog (named after the company that Wendy and I founded in 2013) is the next step for me, and will allow me to write about a much wider variety of subjects. I want to look into productivity, technology and its applications in teaching, leadership, and how we can learn to focus better in a growing age of technology. And I like to collect fountain pens.