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What my side jobs taught me about music

Posted on September 9, 2020

I’ve worked a number of odd jobs in my life. There are loads of stories I could tell people about, but in this post, I’m reflecting on the jobs’ connection to music. I didn’t think about this at the time, but these jobs taught me some important lessons. “Nail ‘em!”: lessons in improv as a haunted house monster After finishing my PhD, I moved back to my dad’s house in the Atlanta area. I took on a few part-time jobs,Read More→

The winding road of writing a book

Posted on September 2, 2020

I’m working on a book which I hope to self-publish by the end of the year. It’s a collection of short essays about musical instruments and what they “mean.” One essay for each instrument in the orchestra (plus a few other common ones, like piano and guitar). I’ll go over the book itself in a future post, but in this one I wanted to discuss my writing process. It has definitely not been linear, but then again, the book isn’tRead More→

Yogis on Fire revisited

Posted on August 26, 2020

One of my “quarantine projects” was remixing my first yoga album, Yogis on Fire. I’ll back up to the beginning and then talk about what I wanted to fix. My lovely wife Candace has taught yoga for many years, primarily for CorePower Yoga. A couple years ago she convinced me to try it and we did the Hot Power Fusion class. I liked it a lot more than I expected. Yoga music Skip forward a year or so and weRead More→

generic bass and score photo

Publishing advice for composers

Posted on August 19, 2020

Don’t wait to “get discovered” One of my biggest pet peeves are artists talking about “getting discovered.” Obviously it’s naïve, but it’s also a passive way to look at your career. I prefer to think about building an audience, cultivating a following, networking, creating opportunities, etc. etc.  You won’t be “discovered” by a publisher and find fame that way. But you might be “discovered” by musicians looking for new music to play. Publishing is a topic that comes up oftenRead More→

office desk

Check out my humble home studio

Posted on August 12, 2020

After years of living in apartments (together and separately), my wife and I decided to rent a house this year. Since we both are musicians, we want to make noise when neighbors won’t be disturbed, and we both need home offices. I work a full-time job away from home (until the pandemic hit, when I worked at home exclusively for a few months). My home office is my creative space but also my get-shit-done space. It’s not ideal and it’sRead More→

Pomodoro timer

Motivation & productivity in quarantine

Posted on August 5, 2020

I wrote this post about a month ago, and while some of these thoughts hold true, the whole situation gets more maddening by the day. But since we’re probably going to be in this state for awhile longer, I wanted to share my quarantine experience. Maybe you’ll find another way to look at it. -Adam The luck and blessing of quarantine Back in May, I retweeted Kathryn Vetter, which said: “If you’re ‘enjoying’ quarantine then you were burnt out pre-pandemic.”Read More→

Audio Education book

The hardest thing I ever wrote: reflections on academic writing

Posted on July 29, 2020

I’m pleased to announce that I have a book chapter published! It’s part of Audio Education: Theory, Culture, and Practice, edited by Daniel Walzer and Mariana Lopez. This has been in the works for about a year and a half, but it draws on experience dating back almost 15 years. This post is less of a reprint of the main points in the article, and more of a recollection of the writing experience. Maybe it will be helpful for thoseRead More→

Life in higher ed as an “alt-ac”: a profile of two jobs

Posted on July 22, 2020

The term “alt-ac” was widely discussed in the mid 20-teens, and it’s problematic and misleading but I haven’t seen a better term. Essentially, “alternative academics” are folks with terminal degrees working outside of faculty roles. Either working in industry, or working in administrative positions in higher education, “alt-acs” engage in research, but their “day job” is something other than teaching.  I fall into this category, and I wanted to share my experience in two pretty different jobs. Since the tenure-trackRead More→

The Composer’s CV

Posted on July 15, 2020

I’ve been obsessing over my own CV for about 15 years, and I’ve read many other people’s CVs during that time. Either I read the CV to learn about the person, to get some inspiration for my own work, or because I was invited to critique and give feedback.  You can see my CV here. Among the useful models for me are Nickitas J. Demos and Mark Applebaum. Of course, The Professor is In has great advice (and strong opinions)Read More→

restore album cover

Restore album

Posted on July 8, 2020

Third post! This time I’m going to take a look at a recent musical project. My plan in this blog is to jump around between my “career advice” type posts, and posts about my music. Even with these, I hope younger/newer composers will gain some inspiration or insight. Restore is an album of piano music for yoga classes. The project had a pretty long gestation, so I am quite relieved to finally put it out into the world. Yogis onRead More→

Welcome and thanks for checking out my work! -adam

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