Performances soon!

Been a few days and I thought I'd drop in and update. Since the last blog, I finished that piano piece that I was sitting on for two years and emailed it to my choir director at the UU Church. He's looking over it now. Says he likes it so far. With any luck I'll be telling you it's being performed soon.

Speaking of performances, next Friday and Saturday, the 8th and 9th of October, Where We Fall is performing at Triskelion Arts in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and one of the pieces on the program features my music! It's been a long time waiting for this one as I started writing the music back in the earlier part of the year and finished in July. I'm pretty excited this being the second premier of my music in New York City in just over a year and a half of living here.

What a run so far, don't you think? Anyway, the combination of that thought and the fact that I've picked up momentum with my writing again makes me want to negate a few things in that last blog entry. I know I sounded a little distraught and I didn't apply for that gig but a few weeks before I applied for some other ones (no responses yet, of course). But ultimately, it didn't shake my confidence all that much, seeing the perfect job and realizing I wasn't ready to apply for it.

Anyway, the new website should be happening soon, and by happening I mean I should be starting on designing it soon. Once the logo for the new business is finished and I have all the elements in place, all that remains is to design the interface. Content will all be for the most part the same. Perhaps I'll condense my music reel but other than that, straight up, film reel, music reel, voice over demo, bio, testimonials, etc. Excited to get it underway. Hopefully, then I'll be a little more gung-ho about applying for composing gigs since I'll have a prettier web face, so to speak.

Right now, it's a somewhat painful wait. The design of the logo is all but done, for now I just wait for the next step. The VO Demo is in the can but they're now editing it, adding music etc. I told them to cut me a version with and without music so I can later supply my own.

At any rate, I'd say despite my disillusion in the last entry, I think things are coming along just as they should and with any luck I'll keep up this momentum into next year. Writing the rest of piano piece was a good way to start because it got me back in touch with my old methods and I even started to think of new ones. Remember how I was complaining about my room not being the best place to compose? Well, I found as many ways as I could to get away from the computer during the past few weeks and I remembered in the process why Dr. E was always telling me to not write at the computer. You see things so much more clearly when you're sitting in front of a piano vs. a computer. Even printing the score out and taking my idle time at work to look it over helps immensely. I make notes. I take it back to the piano. I try things. I make more notes. Then, and only then, do I come back in front of the computer and make edits. PDF creation software is awesome too. I don't have to worry about needing a place to print out my scores if I can just email PDFs to myself and to the appropriate parties.

These are the things you pick up when trying to streamline your compositional process. The whole time I was writing (and just about every other time I dive into a project), I was thinking about how much something like a laptop computer would streamline my compositional process. I mean, for starters, I wouldn't have to wait until I got home to make edits. Think of the time saving there! Of course, I'd be lugging around a laptop and risking getting it stolen but man, what I could accomplish. There's that equipment envy though. In time. When I can afford it. Which may not be that far off. I won't say much more about that though.

Sidebar, I worked my first shift at the Park Slope Food Co-Op. Just as I thought, the requisite 2 hour and 45 minutes shift breezes by. I started off helping to stock produce, grabbing boxes of zucchini and kale off of the conveyor belt and rotating stock in the cooler. Then I wound up processing produce, meaning, slapping organic stickers (stickers that say organic, not organically grown stickers) on peppers and shallots, etc. Then I found myself talking to Jesse, a fellow pianist, while peeling rubber bands off of arugula, unusable by both the co-op and the soup kitchen up the street, that was bound for compost and then carrying said compost out back. After that, I spent the last half hour breaking down cardboard boxes and I was out of there. As I had initially posited, such a requirement was totally worth the cheap groceries it has afforded me. In fact, it was slightly easier than I imagined, the only hitch being that I stupidly chose an 8am shift on every fourth Wednesday of the month. I still I think I'm going to like this.

I have to get to work now, that other thing I do with all of my time. See you soon.