Insights and information
about music, brain health, aging, and much more.
When I’m Almost 64 – I’m Really An Older Adult Now
It was bound to happen. I just didn’t think it would be today. Or this year. Or this decade. This morning, at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport, as Sandy and I were going through security on the way home from vacation, the friendly and patient young woman from...
Guess Who’s Singing Beside You? Laughs and Loud Fouls with a Legal Eagle
Mark Fedota may be the only Sounds Good singer who has spent time on the ballfield with Cubs superstar Ron Santo, TV talk show pioneer Phil Donahue, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Mike Royko. Mark—who sings with the Oak Park choir and serves on the Sounds...
Happy Anniversary
On a Tuesday morning, April 12, 2016, about 35 eager and enthusiastic singers showed up in the crystal ballroom of the Merion in downtown Evanston for something that none of us had ever done before: a non-auditioned daytime choir designed for older adults, with...
Song Spotlight: Fly Me to the Moon
Writing about this song is great fun. This song has a history with Sounds Good Choir, which will be performing it at our tenth anniversary concerts in May 2026. I’m going to tell you three big things about “Fly Me to the Moon”: how and when it was first written and...
Guess Who’s Singing Beside You Cathy Eisen: Author, Attorney, Alto & Word Nerd
When I invited Cathy Eisen to sit for an interview, she hesitated, saying “I don’t know if I’m interesting enough.” That notion was quickly dispelled as I learned about a woman who: Had a near-death experience at age 18, suffering carbon monoxide poisoning while on a...
Beat Patterns
What Conductors Actually Do With Their Hands In an earlier blogpost, I wrote about the role of the conductor in the life of a choir—the ways in which we are leaders, the practical things that we worry about like repertoire and time management, the emotional...