TAG: Music Entrepreneurs

Demystifying the College Teaching Job Search Process: Part I

Can recent music graduates realistically aspire to teaching at the college level? College teaching is an aspiration of many music students. While these jobs, especially tenure-track positions, may seem out of reach, it is still possible for recent graduates with masters degrees to compete successfully for these jobs. Recently, Professor Robert Van Sice, the renowned head of the percussion studio at …

The Growth Mindset Updated: 3 Ways to Help Music Entrepreneurs Achieve Success

As I sit in my office at Yale listening to a piano student next door repeating the same passage in the same EXACT way for what seems like hours, I have an urge to knock on the door and say to this person, “Mere repetition is not going to help you improve. You need smart new strategies and the growth mindset!” …

Creativity for Music Entrepreneurs Part V: Design Thinking in 3 Steps

Design Thinking is all the rage these days in academic circles, often misused and overhyped as the perfect teaching tool. In fact, Design Thinking is an excellent process for advancing creativity and innovation when properly understood and applied. Design thinking is the human-centered design process that helps you understand the emotional needs of the people whose problems you are solving through …

Creativity for Music Entrepreneurs Part IV: 4 Steps to Develop and Improve Your Idea

What happens when you have come up with lots of big, juicy ideas for your innovative solution? Is that enough to create a workable solution to your problem? Not so fast! When we last left the music entrepreneurs in my Innovation and Collaboration class at the Yale School of Music, they had gone through the stage of the creativity problem …

Creativity for Music Entrepreneurs Part III: Have Fun with Ideation

Now comes the fun part: ideation! This is the stage of the creativity problem solving process where you generate a lot of wild, crazy ideas in order to come up with an innovative solution to the problem you are solving. When we last left our music entrepreneurs in my Innovation and Collaboration Class at the Yale School of Music, the …

Creativity for Music Entrepreneurs Part II: 3 Steps to Clarify Your Problem

My class on Innovation and Collaboration at the Yale School of Music is designed to teach music entrepreneurs how to innovate by solving a problem near and dear to their hearts in the world of classical music. My students are creative individuals who are eager to do something meaningful with their music.   They also want to come up with solutions that have …

Know Your Core Values: 4 Tips to Help You Do the Right Thing

I am a big believer in the importance of knowing your core values as a compass for making major decisions. The more that you align with your core values, the clearer you can be when it comes to making choices in one’s career, personal life, relationships and creative activities. This month, I am honored to be featured in an article …

How Arts Leaders Manage Failure: 4 Strategies to Learn and Grow

Failure. The true “F” word. So many people are afraid of failure, particularly smart, talented ambitious people who set very high standards for themselves and worry that if they ever fail, they feel they just are not up to the job. It’s particularly difficult hard to admit failure in a world where the opportunities are perceived to be scarce and …

Networking and the Growth Mindset: How Music Entrepreneurs Can Learn to Love Networking

Summer is a great time to network! Chances are that you are touring, at a festival or engaged in a new teaching or performance venues where you are likely to be meeting a lot of new people. Yet for so many people, networking brings up a lot of negativity. I have heard the following: Networking feels sleazy activity but musicians have to …