Blog Categories and Entries

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Tips for Musicians

My first love, as well as my first career, is music—and in particular the cello. My second love, as well as my main career, has been exploring music, discovering new ways of sensing music and thinking about it, and sharing my discoveries with other musicians, whom I train, coach, and otherwise interfere with. My books for musicians include Indirect Procedures and The Integrated Musician.

1. Stop the fight!
2. Lessons from the balloon: The Voice
3. New lessons from the balloon: The Upper Body
4. Lessons from the balloon's baby brother: Readiness
5. Oh reader, you're so talented!
6. Oh reader, your talent requires TLC!

Tips for Writers

I’ve been writing seriously since 1990, and over the years I’ve accumulated a body of work that includes fiction, non-fiction, articles, and essays. Here I share my ideas about the writerly process: creativity, structure, improvisation, work habits, and all the elements that together generate a writer’s Rhythm & Flow.

1. Rich is better than poor
2. Write a story every day, part 1: The Task
3. Write a story every day, part 2: The Trick
4. Write a story every day, part 3: The Threat
5. Write a story every day, part 4: The Trance
6. Write a story every day, part 5: Helpful Books
7. Oh reader, you're so talented!
8. Oh reader, your talent requires TLC!
   
9. Write a story every day, part 6: Motivation
10. Write a story every day, part 7: Triggers revisited
11. Ten challenges, one reaction: Do Nothing!
    

A Skill for Life

Coordination, perception, habits of thought and speech, posture and movement, identity, intention, reaction, gesture: these are the mainstays of the Alexander Technique, which I started studying as a college student in 1978 and teaching in 1986. Here I tell anecdotes about who we are, who we think we are, who we feel we are, and who we might become if we started paying attention. Curious for more? Order my book The Alexander Technique: A Skill for Life.

1. Make a fool of yourself
2. You're wrong about me (but I'm right about you), part 1: Assumptions
3. You're wrong about me (but I'm right about you), part 2: Words
4. You're wrong about me (but I'm right about you), part 3: Convictions
5. You're wrong about me (but I'm right about you), part 4: Perceptions
6. You're wrong about me (but I'm right about you), part 5: Seven Pointers
7. You're wrong about me (but I'm right about you), part 6: Ah, the French! (Ah, the Brits!)
8. You're wrong about me (but I'm right about you), part 7: Moods
9. You're wrong about me (but I'm right about you), part 8: Judgments
10. Oh reader, you're so talented!
11. Oh reader, your talent requires TLC!
12. You have no manners (and neither have I), part 1: Are you CRAZY?
    
13. You have no manners (and neither have I), part 2: Turn the other cheek
14. You have no manners (and neither have I), part 3: Watch your mouth
15. You have no manners (and neither have I), part 4: A Brazilian picks a fight with an Englishwoman in France
16. You have no manners (and neither have I), part 5: Mangia, mangia!
17. You have no manners (and neither have I), part 6: Seven Pointers
    

Book Recommendations

A book becomes good or bad, pertinent or boring, constructive or not depending on how you read it. In fact, no two readers will ever read the same book in the same way. For that reason, recommending books we love for others to read may be tricky. What if you hate the books I live by? What if you resent me for making you read a lousy book? Well, you can always post a comment on my blog offering counter-recommendations. And don't forget nobody made you do anything in the first place!

1. Universal Principles
2. Write a story every day, part 5: Helpful books

The Naked Beginner

For decades I was one of those people who couldn’t draw to save his life. I didn’t draw because I couldn’t, and I couldn’t because I didn’t! One day I finally broke free of this vicious circle, and in this blog I share my learning experiences as a beginner artist.

1. Birth and Death of a Stick Artist
   
2. Extra! Extra! Stick Artist Becomes Grafitti Artist!
3. Extra! Extra! Grafitti Artist Goes Insane!
4. Extra! Extra! Insane Artist Finds a Teacher!
5. What you learn is not what you expect to learn
6. Oh reader, you're so talented!
7. Oh reader, your talent requires TLC!

Paris Photojournal

Paris must be one of the most photogenic cities in the world, as well as one of the most photographed. Its beauty is infinite, renewing itself every day, all day long. In this purely visual blog I share my love of the city, bring you some familiar images you’ve come to cherish, and show you something new and different from the infinite city.

1. Paris Photojournal I: The Promenade Plantée along the Viaduc des Arts
2. Paris Photojournal II: Rue Emile Zola, Montreuil
3. Paris Photojournal III: The Writing on the Wall
4. Paris Photojournal IV: The Jardin des Plantes in Winter
   

New York Photojournal

New York City is my second home, and I never tire of exploring it. In this very occasional blog I propose to show you how my eyes and my imagination see New York.