Lately, I (Jascha) have been obsessed with Paul Simon, a peerless American songwriter. Here’s what he says, in an interview from the early 1990s, about the delicate task of writing the first line of a song: “How you begin a song is one of the hardest things. The first line of a song is very hard. You Read More

Your correspondent—Amado, today—is about to go through some pretty knarly changes. Welcome changes, most welcome indeed. But pretty fundamental. Putting a bookmark in this book, setting it aside, and picking up another that has long been set aside, bookmarked in its place. Some of our participants are about to, next week, head off to the Read More

This week we return to a visual prompt. And … here it is: Your task is simply to use the image as a jumping off point for singing.

Here’s getting a little nuts-and-bolts. Maybe these concepts are meaningful and useful to you, maybe they’re just a distraction. But we’ll present them, and you can decide what to do about it. Sometimes, when we make a part, it isn’t so much brilliant in its own right, but it exists to set up some kind Read More

Have you ever committed yourself to something? Really dedicated yourself to a new daily practice, or a New Year’s Resolution, or a task you really need to finish by a certain time, or to consistently serving a community of people who’ve come to rely on you? Sure you have, one of those things, or something Read More

So often, we just stand and sing. But your voice lives in your body. So it’s no wonder that, when you focus on moving your body in new ways, new music comes out of it. Teaching a class on “Improvising from Folk Songs & Dances” this summer, with my wonderful co-teacher Diana Yourke, I have seen how much music is Read More