This week...

Strangely, I can't seem to sleep past 8:30 am these days. No matter when I've gone to sleep. This morning I woke up to a distant thunderstorm and the subsequent noise of street construction going on outside. Not that that's what woke me up. I just wake up at 8:30 am like my body says, "All right, that's enough. Get up."

And anyway, who am I to complain? I'm off for three days and I have friends visiting town. I spent the morning, after I typed these first few lines working on an old piece of electronic music that I'm transforming a little along with a couple of others. They're bound for my new facebook music page, which I'll have up as soon as I can...I just have to verify I'm me. They make you upload an ID. No biggie, Karishma has a scanner so I can take care of that this week.

Some interesting news has sprouted up in addition to what else I was going to write about today. I got a rather random email from a clarinetist in Phoenix, Arizona who stumbled on my professional web page by accident while Googling someone with a similar last name to one of my players. He liked the piece Of Slowly Falling Rain and Autumn Chill and was wondering if he could get a pdf copy of it because he frequently programs new music with his orchestra. I'm extremely flattered but want to make sure all of the copyright business is in order as well so that my butt is covered. So that was a nice thing this morning to find out that someone in Phoenix likes my music.

I keep meaning to write about this but I recently stumbled on an article by a fellow composer that is currently changing my life. Alex Shapiro is writing in the article about making an asset out of one's self. The article is chock full of great advice for using the internet to your greatest advantage when promoting your music. Stuff I had never even thought of doing but seem so incredibly obvious now. Like, generating buzz with your website, thinking of your website as a store front and the notion that there has to be someone out there who likes our music and will pay for it. There's an underlying theme of self esteem and knowing what we want to present to the world buried in the article as well. So, it was very uplifting when I read it weeks ago and, occasionally, I even refer back to it when I'm feeling down or I'm just thinking about what to do next and I'm lost.

I even contacted her by email to thank her for sharing such an inspiring article with the Society of Composers, inc. list serv. We corresponded for a bit as well. She was very nice and not the least bit haughty. The scope of her career is quite impressive as she's written contemporary music, pop music and film scores and done well, even garnering acclaim in each area.

Great stuff.

Anyhow, I'm also quite excited this week because:

I have three different out of town friends visiting on different days, throughout the week.

A good friend who lives in Queens has tickets to a show Friday night so we're having dinner and a show after I get off of work.

and speaking of work, they're shooting a film at work called Morning Glory this week (unfortunately the bulk of filming will happen when I'm off work this week) and none other than Harrison Ford, Jeff Goldblum, Rachel McAdams and Diane Keaton will be in my studio all week long. (Today, I just talked to my boss, and they're filming a scene out in the newsroom with Jeff Goldblum and Rachel McAdams).