Contest looms...

I don't know if anyone else has this problem, but I tend to get very singularly minded. And when something like band contest is on the horizon, it is really difficult for me to focus my energies on anything else.

For instance, I'm working on a new band piece that I'm hoping will be a Grade 3. Well, with band contest hanging over my head, everything I'm trying to write sounds like my contest selections! And if I have some success straying from that, then they turn into the contest selections for our Junior High!

So, in about a month, I should have a new piece of music, but I gotta tell you, I'm a little worried that it's going to sound a bit like a medley: "The Hosts of Ghost Fleet, Scarborough Fair Variations Freedom March."

Or... "Polka and Trombone King from the opera Incantation and Dance."

Argh!!!

Home again... Enjoying Spring Break

We took our Spring Trip with the band last week and it was amazing! The trip was so well planned and the kids were so well-behaved that the whole thing went off without a hitch.

We went to Universal Studios, Disneyland, the San Diego Zoo, Sea World, Hollywood Blvd and the Historic Gaslamp District in downtown San Diego. The first three days we stayed in Anaheim and the last two we stayed in San Diego.

The highlight of the trip for me was the "recording session" we did backstage at Disney. As part of their "Magic Music Days," Disney has set up a recording experience for students to get an idea of what it's like to record music for film. I found it to be fascinating and many of the students said they learned a lot and had a good time, too.

This is not your average "perform-at-Disney-World-and-no-one-except-your-parents-and-sponsors-will-pay-attention" events. (I made a point of watching a beginner band from Tuscon, Arizona -- Gridley MS? -- they played a ton of music and I thought it was super-cool for their director to take them out into public in that fragile first year. It's also good for me to hear bands outside of Texas as it's easy to get desensitized to hearing only our brand of band. But, I digress...) The benefit behind doing a session like the one we did is that the students got to work with an actual session conductor/arranger/composer. 

I love hearing composers and arrangers talk about music -- they are much more constructive than they are analytical. Directors who haven't written or arranged much look at music like they were taught to in college: by dissecting the music and assessing all of the parts individually. Composers/arrangers tend to look at the music by seeing how all of the parts fit together. I guess you could say that a person with little writing experience looks at the puzzle pieces individually and the composer/arranger looks at how they form the puzzle. 

(While I am far from any sort of arrival as a composer, I have noticed that I am starting to teach more like a writer than as a technician. I'm not sure if my students are any better for it, but I think they understand the form and big-picture better with that focus.) 

That particular session was very sight-reading based and I think that is something our students needed to have. I have maintained that a musician finds music more enjoyable when they can just sit down and play. If every time a student gets a new piece of music they have to be taught every note and nuance, I doubt that's as much fun. As my reading skills increase, so does my enjoyment of the experience. After all, better reading makes music seem more effortless. And who likes to have to work at something?!?

Because blogger is free and therefore not terribly powerful, I am not going to post any pictures of my trip here. Instead, I am going to post some links from my Facebook photo albums so you can view them at your own leisure.

Now, with only a few days left of the break, I have to finish my last stock marching band arrangement and continue work on my new Grade 3-ish band work that is to be premiered by the Town & Gown Band in June.

Here are the links (they are reverse chronological order, so if you want to see them in order, start with Album Five):

Album One

Album Two

Album Three

Album Four

Album Five

Upcoming Performances

Tonight is the Randall Percussion Ensemble Concert. I doubt that if you are reading this that you'll be able to attend. You might be reading this well past our March 10th concert date, too!

But if you go, you'll hear (among other pieces) Ku-ka Ilimoku by Christopher Rouse, Stompin' Grounds by Bela Fleck, a transcription of the first movement from Mendelssohn's Fourth Symphony by moi', and Suite for Solo Drumset by David Mancini.

The students have really been working hard; I expect this will be our best concert to date!

Now on to those things that I've written that are getting performed:

Amazing Grace for solo vibraphone is finally getting its premiere! A college student in Kentucky emailed me to find out my birth year so he could put it on his program. He mentioned that he's playing Amazing Grace so I emailed him back to tell him that, to my knowledge, he's the first one to perform it. Somewhere between 15 and 25 copies have been sold since it was first published back in 2006, but this is the only known performance of it. (If you performed it and are reading this, send me an email!).

The story on that one is that I received it as a commission for a student who was preparing a senior recital at Texas Tech University. For some reason unknown to me, the piece was not programmed on his recital. I've speculated that it was too hard for the time frame given to work it up and perform it. I've tried to play it before and I have to tell you, it really gives me a run for my money! At one time I thought I would premiere it, but I just wasn't able to get it worked up in time. What's more likely is that my ability as a solo vibraphonist is slipping, slipping away...

Anyhow, there is another performance expected of Heroes of Old, Men of Renown sometime this May. I won't reveal any details now (don't want to jinx myself...), but when this is confirmed and I have a date and more details, I'll share them here.

Also, starting next week (spring break, baby!), I am going to finish work on a Grade 3 piece for band that I've been sketcing here and there for a couple of years. There are two different sketches that I think should work well together. The first is minimalistic, quick and ryhthmic and the other is slower, contrasting and lyrical. If all goes well, the slower sketch should serve as a good contrasting middle section to the minimalist part. (Who's been listening to Steve Reich and John Adams lately? Hmmm.... I'll give you three guesses....)

The last piece mentioned will be premiered again by the Town & Gown Band under the direction of Dr. Gary Garner. Very exciting!

Last but not least, I wrote a little Grade 1.5 march for our second junior high band to play at UIL contest. I got to hear twelve measures of it yesterday and I think it's going to be a good, little piece for their April 15th contest!

As of now, there is no title, so if you've ever wanted to name a piece of music, here's your chance!

"Paramount Park" wins the ATSSB Composition Contest

Hey, so this is kinda old news by now. But, my little grade 2 piece "Paramount Park" won the first composition contest sponsored by the Association of Texas Small School Bands. This is quite the honor for me. It's my first award of any sort for writing and in a way I think that's validation that I'm doing some things right.

It's pretty easy to get discouraged when you factor in all of the great living composers out there (and well, all the hacks who still get work, too). And, it's pretty easy to start to think, "well, maybe I'm one of those hacks, who doesn't get work." Yeah, that could be a problem!

And marching band commissions don't count. Which, on a side note, my wind arranging business has blossomed and at present I will be writing five shows next year in addition to my (what I can only assume...) full slate of percussion arranging. This is really good news. And in one case specifically, the ATSSB contest helped bring about one of the wind arranging gigs.

So, while marching band commissions don't count, but pay the bills, put food on the table and insures that we buy a Route 44 something from Sonic every once in a while, they have their positives, too.

And, well, think of all of the famous living composers who started out writing for marching band... Well, go ahead... think of a few.

Okay, then. Think of one.

Not even one?

Oh brother... Well, there has to be a first, right?!?