Keynotes Blog

Question:  How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Answer:  Practice, practice, practice! Here's the thing about music practice.  See, it doesn't matter if you have aspirations of playing and singing at family gatherings or if you dream of opening for that big name pop star....

Choosing a music teacher doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task.

Studies continually show all kinds of mental and physical benefits are gained in picking up an instrument. I was in 4th grade when I took my first piano lesson.  I wanted to have at least one class with my twin cousins and we all agreed on taking a piano class.  We...

School is winding down, summer is around the corner, and folks are hopping on planes, trains, and automobiles to make it to their audition. Can you see your voice making the judges turn their chairs around during "blind auditions"? Let me tell you how to improve your...

After teaching Elementary Music to roughly 800 kids in grades K-5 for 14 years in an urban setting, and after being an enlisted member of the Armed Forces since 2008, I can very easily say that teaching (under the present circumstances)  is harder than being in the...

U.S. Education Secretary John King has made good on his efforts to support a versatile education for kids across the United States of America, by making public a curriculum that inserts music into math and science lessons. The curriculum, designed by the Thelonius...

James Brown.  Luciano Pavarotti.  Soul Brother Number One.  The King of the High C's.  Big P.  Mr. Please, Please, Please.  Fat Lucy.  Mr. Dynamite.  Big Luciano.  These two fellas couldn't have been more different, yet more alike.  One is the founding father of funk...

The sun is shining and warms my skin.  The grass is green and growing higher daily.   The bluebonnets and other flowers are in full bloom.  The frogs can be heard croaking in the evening.  It's rainy for a hot second and then everything clears up with only a hint of...

Things in life tend to have an ebb and flow, a high and low.  Well, it looks like we're on the leading edge of technological innovations.  The player piano, or pianola, was introduced in the early 1900's, peaked around 1924, and with the rise of the phonograph, usage...