Yes, I had to work on my birthday. But honestly, I had a great day spent with friends and I still get to celebrate on the weekend so it doesn't bother me that I had to come straight after dinner, or that I had to sleep until 3 yesterday afternoon after having worked an overnight shift the night before. Life goes on.
At any rate, I tried a fantastic gluten free restaurant on Bleecker Street called Risotteria. If you're Celiac or gluten intolerant you have to check this place out. Apparently it's pretty well known in Celiac circles and nationwide as well. The food was fantastic. Risotto was a centerpiece of the menu (I had a bowl of such with parma ham, fontina and arugula, which was on special) but they also had gluten free (and regular pizza). Oh, and these incredible gluten free breadsticks the recipe of which the waitress had no problems divulging (tapioca starch, potato flour, rice flour, sea salt, gluten free yeast, xanthan gum and tap water). Of course she didn't give us the proportions. The restaurant also has gluten free beer and a decent wine list along with gluten free baked goods (the coolest of which was a gluten free twinkie, called a winkie).
The room was small and we had a bit of a wait for a table but it was no problem at all to get the four of us seated in a timely manner. We did have to stand outside for a bit but once the bar cleared out we sat there and munched on their breadsticks.
In other news, the first take of the music for the dance piece was well received however the dancer told me she doesn't think that it's a fit for this particular work. I was preparing myself for that possibility and I'm not really surprised. The whole time I worked on it I realized certain incongruities between certain aspects of the dance and the music, mainly tempo related, but I kept going with it trying to fix some of those aspects along the way. And, sure enough, tempo was where it missed the mark. So I may need to start from scratch, which doesn't bother me at all because I still have this piece of music that at least two people have listened to and liked and that I may finish and eventually even submit to some electronic music festivals. Even more exciting is the fact that since this piece is not for anybody anymore I can tweak it to my heart's content and put things back in that I had originally thought didn't work. Here's the piece:
Interestingly enough, this afternoon while I was hanging out with my friend Lacy who came up from Philly to deliver some software to me, the topic came up of how long to work on a "work for hire" piece of music before showing it to the director/choreographer. I've had this question come up because, on film projects, I've always been worried about wasting time on an idea that was not what the director wanted. But I've also not wanted to show them something that was unfinished lest they be unimpressed or not be able to understand where I was going with an idea. I suppose the answer is that, where deadlines are more lax or nonexistent it's probably okay to bring a piece to relative completion before risking having it rejected because at least then, you have an established piece that you can do anything with. However, in a case where you have a deadline and you don't want to risk putting a lot of time and effort into an idea that misses the mark, it may be better to come up with ways of making something sound complete or at least getting the basic jist of the piece together, not worrying so much about making it perfect, before sending a sample to the director to see if you're on the mark before proceeding. But sometimes it's hard having to explain to the director that what you are sending is not finished and it may sound different, they don't always understand that. It's a bit stressful, also, when a director expects you to just know exactly what he wants after one meeting and to crank it out as though you were some kind of music factory, no questions asked. I've had first meetings with directors that will leave me with more questions or even if I don't have them right then, something always comes up later. And, those times, it's not always easy to communicate these questions through email, or by putting the phone up to your speakers. I'd be intersted to hear what other composers out there do in these situations, especially where you have a deadline and you aren't certain what you are composing is what the director wants. I suppose these things come with experience and that the main thing is getting as far inside the director's head as possible as early as possible. That might sound funny out of context.
Anyway, hope you enjoy the music. Happy that I'm able to show you what I've been working on. Stay tuned for more!
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