This post originally appeared on Helping You Harmonise in December 2011. A discussion over on Choralnet from a couple of weeks back has prompted to me write about a phenomenon I’ve been thinking about for a while. The main subject is about the role of the conductor in performance, and its relationship to the rehearsal process – itsel... read more

If you have had a coaching session or workshop with me in the last two or three years, you will have recently received an email that says: Hello there! I am getting in touch with people I’ve worked with in recent times to make sure I can meet as many coaching/workshop needs as possible. I find I’m having to do a fair bit of diary ju... read more

Conductors’ Day 19 January 2013 The Coton Centre, Tamworth, B79 9AA10.00 am - 4.00 pm Presented by the Association of British Choral Directors, Midlands Region The day is designed to appeal to choral directors with a range of experience; it is intended both to support those new in their role and to give well-established conductors the ... read more

  Quick reminder that the early booking discount for the Conduct with Charisma workshop for choral directors ends next Monday.   Full details and booking form can be found at www.HelpingYouHarmonise.com/charisma_workshop

  Reminder that the early-bird booking fee for this workshop applies to all bookings before 1 October 2012   Back by popular demand, the Conduct with Charisma workshop will run again on 24 November 2012. Details of the content and how to book can be found at http://www.helpingyouharmonise.com/charisma_workshop and you can a... read more

This post first appeared on Helping You Harmonise   I was listening recently to a Stuff You Should Know podcast about cults and thought reform, and it made me notice how a number of areas I have been interested in as both scholar and musician interact even more than I had already noticed.   The first is my discussion in my first book ... read more

This post first appeared on www.HelpingYouHarmonise.com   When I was working up to my Grade 1 piano exam aged 8 or so, my piano teacher introduced me to a game of ‘lucky dip’. This involved identifying all the passages in my pieces I was stumbling over, writing each on a piece of paper, and putting the paper in pot next to the pi... read more

This post originally appeared on Helping You Harmonise in August 2009   I’ve been threatening since last winter to write about how the Inner Game ideas can inform rehearsal techniques, and the time has at last arrived. This post will outline some big-picture principles, and three subsequent ones will look at how to apply... read more

This post originally appeared on www.HelpingYouHarmonise.com   One of the foundational concepts in Stephen Covey’s book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is the distinction between production and production capacity.* Production is getting stuff done – generating whatever outputs a particular role is required to tu... read more

This is the first of a series that originally appeared on Helping You Harmonise.    One of the interesting things that happens when amateur musicians build themselves a training infrastructure is that they bring an incredible breadth of skills and knowledge from different walks of professional life and apply them to improving the ways t... read more