Falling in place...with my expectations...

I would just like to say that this is the first month where I have successfully paid all of my bills, including student loans, put money away and still covered rent at the end of the month without having to transfer out of savings. Feels good.

I just feel like this is another huge step towards my goals at this point. Now, as soon as the last cues are approved for the film score I've been working on, I can start to really work on my own stuff again in earnest. So things again feel like they're falling into place...I guess that does sound a little trite when, if you look at it right, things are always falling into place, just not always with our expectations. I suppose then I should qualify that. Things are finally falling into place with my expectations.

The film score has been well received as well, for the most part, by the director and producing team. I've really had fun working with these guys too. I'm actually looking forward to starting to focus on my own for a bit. I have a lot of electronic music I want to write, mainly inspired by the chance to really delve into some of the new software synths that I recently bought...and by the fact that I always have beats running through my head and electronic music is sometimes the best outlet for that.

On the other hand, I do have a renewed interest in completing a lot of contemporary chamber pieces that are floating around in various stages of completion, from sketches on a page to hideous earlier version that I seriously need to revamp (I'm talking about you string quartet).

And, this past Sunday at the UU church, I got a chance to talk to the choral director, a bit of a composer himself. I have been planning on singing with the choir there since I started attending but they don't regularly sing during the summer time. I spoke with Bill, the director, about it before the summer began and he'd said now was the better time to get involved. So, after speaking with him and singing a few notes for him, we talked a little about other opportunities. One of the anthems that was sung was his own composition. He took a hymn out of the UU hymnal and re-set it to his own music. I remember liking it so I told him but then he asked me if I ever wrote choral music. This is something that I've had a love hate relationship for many years, probably rooted in the fact that I never, or rather rarely ever, wrote vocals for any of the rock music I co-composed with Jeremy Shaner in high school and with Rory Scott in college (mainly because my own lyrics I felt were mediocre to downright crappy). In college, I sang a lot of bad (I guess I shouldn't say bad, maybe just uninspiring) choral music but there were a few that struck me as brilliant and haunting even, mostly the older stuff. So that's something I've always aspired to but with a cautious attitude so that anything I wrote didn't come off creamy or soupy. Hence, the one thing I wrote in college was, as a result, too difficult to be sung. It was rehearsed but never performed.

But now, I think it's time I revisited the opportunity, since it kind of just fell in my lap when Bill encouraged it after we had spoke about his piece, saying that there were plenty of opportunities and there would always be an audience. Which, to a composer is always thrilling. No one likes creating in a vacuum. You need feedback. Some of the best experiences I've had with my music were having it performed and having people walk up to me afterward and say they loved it/liked it or had questions about it. (Let's face it, it's not often that people walk up to you and say they thought it sucked, at least not in a concert hall after a recital or performance...they save that for later on when they're in the company of friends).

Anyhow, that having been said, I'm optimistic and excited. I'm also working a whole lot and thinking about how I'm going to miss my best friend when she goes back to India. So it's a huge mixed bag. I should eat something.