The world as I see it…

Hey folks… well, I thought I had the whole “adding pictures” thing figured out, but with my new upgrade to WordPress 2.5, everything is all effed up now. It’s probably not that bad, but what I had done before to add pictures isn’t possible with this version. I would like to go back and downgrade if possible, but I don’t know if I can.

I like a lot of the new features 2.5 has… it looks cleaner, simplified and it’s more fun to navigate. But like I said, I’m having issues with the images, which bothers me for some reason or another. I’m not impatient but I only have so much time to dedicate time to messing with that stuff. And now I tried it the way they set it up and I can’t get the images to show or be placed the way I could do it before. Same with the sizing/re-sizing. Before if it was too big, I could scale it down. I don’t know… maybe I did something wrong when moving the files to my FTP? psh… too tired to wanna think about it.

Not too much to talk about today. The past couple days I was playing catch-up with my own work and getting things organized for everyone and for the summer. I’m putting together contracts for everyone, setting up file folders and getting invoices made. The biggest pain of everything that I was doing was setting up a chart through Excel. If you don’t know how to use Excel and wanted to do what I was trying to do, it’d be better off finding someone that knows how to do it and pay them. I don’t know why it has to be so complex. shi*t dude! All their little “code” things and how it works is one crazy mess. Whoever came up with that must be a complete genius. Suffering through a couple online tutorials was kinda frustrating to say the least but it’s done!

Oh well… now I’m just exhausted. But awake enough to still write something….. keeping people up to date on what I’ve been up to.

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Wow, I can’t think of anything to write! This is a first. Actually… I have things I wanna write about but my brain is so fried from the Excel stuff, working on the contracts and just going through a normal day. I just need to wait until I’m relaxed and more in the mood to write. I can promise fun stories will be back soon.

All I can say is that I’m so excited that it’s April. That means I get to start working full-time again and I’m really excited about the upcoming season.

Goodnight friends!

I know I’m going to get scolded for saying this but I am currently sitting at home… on the computer… writing a blog… and all the while, 2 miles away at Rice U. – Adolph “Bud” Herseth is giving a free master class.

Where did I go wrong? How is it that for some absurd reason I couldn’t sleep last night, was up until 7am finishing off season 6 of Scrubs and waking up at 1pm thinking “Nah… I’d rather stay home and get some more work done.”

The funny thing is the master class is close by and is only 2 hours. And instead of work… I’m writing this.

Is it because I feel “trapped” that I don’t have a car. (yeah I know… boo hoo, get over it already. I won’t talk about it anymore… just sayin’!) Or maybe that I feel like it’d be too much for me to go there and see everyone I know there. The latter is probably more the case than anything, which is kinda sad. I want to see all my friends… hang out with them and catch them up on my life and everything that’s been going on. Everything for me right now is great and I’m in a very good place. But why do I not want to be social? Why do I choose to seclude myself and sit behind the computer monitor and ramble about being someplace else right now?

It all basically comes down to this… I’m being selfish and a terrible friend. only worrying about myself and not wanting to be in that “social” atmosphere at the moment. This isn’t something that happens regularly… I believe only once in a blue moon. But it happened to happen today for some reason.

I was a little crushed when I couldn’t get a hold of anyone in my area that was going to TCGC today and could give me a ride. I even offered to pay for gas, but it was slim pick’ns. Then I found out about the master class and just folded on that opportunity. Listen to me right now… crabbing about this when I could just hop on my bike and trek up Greenbriar and catch the tail end of the masterclass. *sigh*

Wow! what is up with me lately? Emotions all over the place. I recently became conflicted with certain “feelings”… … Then there’s having so much excitement for the upcoming marching season that I’m getting way ahead of myself and writing sketches for shows that don’t even exist yet. I can’t seem to find my way out of this mental labyrinth! I need to worry about the things that have to be done right now and/or soon. I still have to do my taxes, but that’s because I’m still waiting on a lost tax form from PMHS as well as one other school (I think). Everything got all messed up when I moved last year, changed my address with the PO but I think that deal expires after 90 days?? Maybe? Either way, some people didn’t get the memo (even after I told them back in October) and they went ahead and still sent my stuff to the wrong addy. What can ya do?

Besides the few obvious things, I am waiting on a deposit that should help take care of my trip to Dayton in a couple weeks. I can never be sure exactly when a check will arrive. I’ve heard everything from “the check is in the mail” to “it’ll be about another month until we can pay you…” I make a really good amount of money for what I do, however there is really no consistency to the whole process and it makes my life hell during this time of year. Literally… hell!

I remember when I was a student and didn’t have a job. I would say that my life today is much simpler and more comfortable. But I suffer to do some of the more important things that I should be much better at right now but unfortunately have no choice but to openly admit my incompetence, and that is the ability and/or willingness to save money. My car is broke (okay I lied… I brought it up again) but why don’t I have a dime to put towards it when I had the money to even buy a brand new car last fall? I don’t know if regretting anything is worth the time to do… or even talk about in a blog, except to just get it off your chest. But when I went to Japan last fall, I spent entirely too much money. I don’t regret buying the tickets for Cirque du Soleil, because that was definitely worth the trip, but I do think that the excessive amounts of bottled “Aquarius” after rehearsals, the trips to 7-11 and voluntarily buying $50 worth of “beverages” every week for the crew, I seriously spent too much time in the clouds and not enough time on Earth. (but I do kinda wish I wouldn’t have done the trip to South Korea… the experience was a little less than stellar – but the food was amazing and hangin’ out with Chris, Steve and James was the best! But financially? *pbbt* )

*As a side note, those that are wondering why I would spend $50+ on “beverages”… If you have never been to Japan (or the part that I was in) it literally cost us about $15 for a 6-pack… no joke!

And many times, I would buy a bunch and stock up… not really make a fuss if other people took some or drank… I was being generous, which is my nature, I suppose. Sometimes I’m a little too generous, but I just wanna do what I can to help, sometimes. There’s nothing about that that I regret… nothing at all. But on the other side of the world… I still had bills and was paying them. I won’t specify the numbers on here, but for the months of October thru mid December – whilst I was in Japan – I paid my full portion of the rent, my portion of the utilities, my car insurance, my cell phone bill… I realize now that combining those 3 months of bills I was paying back here in the US with the money I spent in Japan – I really didn’t spend all that much money in Japan… I just failed to balance my checkbook and make myself aware of what I would have left in the end. That was kinda stupid on my part, and those that know me well (especially my roommates) know that I micromanage my finances to be absolutely sure that I can afford everything from bills to groceries to even gas when I need it. Then there are those extra events, like WGI, TCGC, BOA, etc. that I need to be able to afford to attend. I’m just rambling again.

Either way, I made a mistake this past fall. And it’s very hard to put a finger on exactly what that ‘mistake’ was. Was it more of a mistake to go to Japan and enjoy what was an unforgettable experience, not holding back and assuming that there was a chance I’d never get to do this again? Or was it more of a mistake that I jumped on a plane 4 days after finding out they were inviting me to perform with them, thus not being able to find someone to take my room/sublet, move my stuff to storage and pay less, call my cell phone company and try to get some deal done?

I feel kinda like that Ben Stiller character from “Along Came Polly”. (If you’ve seen the movie, this should make more sense). I think if I were that character, there’s no way I would have gotten on that plane, because I would have weighed the pros and cons of the whole “timing” issue of all this and would have likely seen that the risk would be greater on me financially, even though I knew I would be having the time of my life. But you know what? I’m not like that character and I don’t think I micromanage my life in that way… but this is the first time in my life I have ever encountered anything that significant. I’m a risk taker… and I love it. I’m one of those guys that goes “All-in” on the 7 J off-suit, just hoping for the chance that I’ll get lucky! I probably gamble too much, but it’s what makes life a little more interesting sometimes.

I don’t even want to think about what it would have been like had I not gone to Japan. I was there for a mere 2 months of my life and enjoyed it so much that thinking about it brings tears to my eyes because of how much i miss it. The people there were SO amazing and I don’t even care for a second that it was difficult to understand people at times. From the moment I got there and for the entire time, I felt “at home”. I said this before in another blog, but there was a comfort about being there… a freedom… an independence… a happiness… a lifted spirit. Whatever it was, it changed my life. I returned home with such a new perspective on life and living… and I think it changed me for the better.

Unfortunately I have to clean up my mess that was left before I went to Japan… and with the exception of what money was spent and/or wasn’t saved or budgeted properly, I am very happy today. The time without a car and struggling a bit right now is turning out to be an extremely minor inconvenience that doesn’t concern me as much as it probably used to or would most other people. I’ll get through this. I’ve been through a lot in my life, and if I could get through those things, I can get through this! I understand that things can come up… weird things happen all the time and new opportunities arise everyday. I’m probably going to be moving next year… to Austin? to Chicago? to San Francisco? It’s still very much up in the air. Either way, I’m going to be fine and I know that where I’m at now is just one of those times/places that everyone goes through in their lives. Some more than others, but still… it’s not fun, but I can honestly say I’m okay with it.

Well, I do wish I could have gone to that master class. But I’m glad I got to spend time rambling about stuff here. Probably some more personal information than I feel comfortable to share with the world… but really, it’s not that much. I need to go get some food, sit on the couch and watch some TV or somethin’. I haven’t had time for TV… lots of people who do what I do probably don’t. But I need it right now… It’s a weekend and I need the time to get my mind off work… off music… off flag designs… uniform catastrophes… funky drill moves… money… trumpet… … …pretty much everything I’ve been doing nothing but think about over the past few weeks. The only bad part about my job and working my own hours is that I never know when to give myself a break. I need to do a better job of that… and I’ll start with that now.

“George Hester is officially away from his computer for the next several hours… please check back later”

Is it less appealing to read my blogs when they are extremely lengthy? Or is it more appealing (or just fine) even though it might tend to be a lot of garble? ;o) Either way, I’m kind of on a roll here with these blogs. Never did I think that I would write 7 blogs in 7 days. Well, my Saturday blog was really written early early Sunday. Either way, I underestimated just how much I’d actually be able to write.

But in all honesty, tonight will not be much of anything. I’m really tired… my head hurts… I’m bummed about a few things right now and I need to just get away from the computer. Far, far away. If my car was running, I would start ‘er up and take her for a ride around 610 loop. There’s something very relaxing about taking a cruise around the city late at night. I used to do it a few times last summer when I would make a trip out to the 24-hour Starbucks over by the Galleria. I wish I could do that right now.

I might have to do that again this year, if I can get a new car or just get my car fixed. The only thing that sucked about being at that Starbucks at 2 or 3 in the morning was the fact that there’d be more people at that time than there is around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. I’ve gone out there at 1 or 2 am and could not find a single seat or chair to sit down and work at. I’ve literally fought over outlets so I could use my computer. But since my battery is about as fried as it can get, once my comp gets unplugged, I’m lucky if I can get 2 minutes of life outta it. I might as well leave the battery at home because it’s useless. I could get a new one, but the cost is too excessive for me to care that much. If it was like going to Wallgreens and getting a pack of AA’s, then heck yeah I’m all about it. But Dell wants to charge and arm, a leg and my first born just for a battery that didn’t have much for it’s longevity anyway. When it was brand new it would last close to only an hour. It’s just that I went for the super duper laptop rather than the ‘power efficient’ one. Anyone wanna take a guess how much that battery costs??

Hint!

Anywho, moving away from that subject… far, far away… (I’m all about this Star Wars theme today, aren’t I?)

It’s supposed to rain tomorrow… which I guess is okay considering the perfection of weather we’ve had here recently. I loved the past few days… even though I couldn’t do much but walk across the street and sit out by the pool once. I’ve been doing a lot of things with my finances, trying to crunch the numbers together to get myself some new wheels, and just working on the normal stuff.

Lately I’ve been needing to do a lot of research on music (as I might have mentioned in another blog) and today was somewhat of a dead end. I only could take it for so long before my head hurt so badly that I turned everything off and laid down on my bed. I got through about 15 pieces that were all okay but not quite what I needed. I wrote down some notes, cut/pasted some music together and just gave up a couple hours in because I couldn’t take it anymore.

One composer I’m narrowing in on is Samuel Barber. I’m a huge fan of his stuff and the specific pieces I’m listening to the most are his Second Essay for orchestra (really just the last 3:12 of the piece… the best part of the tune), and also his Piano Concerto. These probably aren’t his most famous pieces of work but for the shows I’m choosing music for, these tunes seem to fit the best of all I have listened to thus far. I plan to continue with this tomorrow and maybe I’ll find something else to add to the list. I just need to cleanse my palette and give it another go tomorrow.

On a totally different subject, how does this sound for a project? I’m planning on doing a total reconstruction of my current website and optimizing it for the iPhone and iPod touch! It won’t replace what is there, but I wanted to simply (for the heck of it) create a link on my home page that will take you to either the regular site as it is now or the one optimized for iPhone users! In the event anyone out there with the technology might wanna give my page a whirl in the palm of their hand, they’ll be able to do it and even be able to watch my sample drill videos in a format that will play back on the iPhones. Right now, there’s no way to get anything “Flash” to show up or playback on the iPhone/iPod Touch. It’s not that annoying to me because I don’t surf on my iPod that often to sites that are Flash based. In fact, there are many popular sites that are being optimized for the iPhone and they are just wonderful. Facebook and Amazon.com to name a couple.

So, while I’m taking a break from researching music and show design, I’ll be working on that site optimization and it might be up fairly soon actually. I know it might seem somewhat useless because, really… how many people visit my site? Well, there are several people that do I’m sure. But how many do it on an iPhone? Well, maybe a few would. ???

Considering the trend of many popular sites moving to a simpler “mobile” version of their sites for the mobile users, I think it would be cool for me, personally, to make available to those who could get a use out of it, even if that means it’s only for 1 or 2 people. I’m cool with that. As long as I’m making it fun and interesting for just one person other than me, then the optimization project will be a success! But first… I need to go online and find out some more specifics regarding the dimensions, look at demo sites and play with the layout to see what would work best for me. It’ll be a lot of fun to mess with and I’ll probably start it later this weekend or next week. Depends on when I have time.

I need to bail… get to bed early tonight. And by early, I mean before 5:30 am. I’ve made a bad habit of always fighting sleep and staying up later and later at night, as if I honestly thought I couldn’t get as much or more done in the same amount of time and if I went to bed earlier and woke up earlier. ?? I’ll just try to sleep now and not worry about it.

In my next few blogs, I hope to add more pictures and maybe even embed some audio/video clips to make them a little more interesting and interactive. I love doing stuff like that so we’ll see what I can come up with next time.

Have a great night or day… whenever you’re reading this.

May the force be with you…

Jedi Master GH

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…I don’t know. I’m really tired! P

Not having a car really sucked today… not sure why. Just had a bit of cabin fever and I honestly didn’t feel good enough to ride my bike all around Houston. I need to get out of this city. I don’t hate it… I just need to be someplace a little less busy and more like where I used to live when I was in Friendswood 2 years ago. I needed to go to Wal-Mart and a couple other places but it was difficult to find a ride. Wal-Mart is a little too far to get to by bike, and even though there’s other places I could go, I needed a Wal-Mart and only a Wal-Mart. (This is because of my car battery, which was bought there and I was gonna get it replaced). It took me 2 hours of sifting through all of my receipts to find the one I needed. No biggie… I got it now… and all I need to do is get a ride to Wal-Mart. Boo!

The weather was great again today. A tad cloudy at times, but warm. I’ll take cloudy and warm over rain any day… and of course sunny over cloudy. I bring up the rain because it looks like it’ll be raining pretty hard core here starting this weekend and going on for days. The weather predictions are very right, but when they predict it as 80% or higher chance of rain in Houston, it’s damn sure gonna rain.

If there’s ever a chance for me to get out on my bike, it’d be while it’s still dry. But tomorrow will be another day of trying to find a ride to Wal-Mart. Maybe one of the roomies can help me?

So, today I did not get out of the apartment. It was actually a very productive day though. I spent some time working through music ideas for some bands I’m writing for this fall, and I wrote a movement of drill for my Malaysia band. On top of that, I went ahead and kept plugging away on Elsa’s Procession and got about 10 measures done vertically. This score is thick… and it’s like solving a Sudoku puzzle… seriously! But it’s a lot easier than Sudoku… I suck at those. I can barely get through the easy crossword puzzles.

I remember the Michigan Daily crosswords while I was at UofM. I would sit in the lounge on my breaks between theory and orchestra, or whatever my classes were, and I would kick ass on the Monday/Tuesday ones… but anything later in the week was seriously pathetic on my part. I could get maybe 4 words total and the rest were just blank. And chances were that at least one of those 4 words I solved was wrong.

I was talking in a different blog about how I heard that reading can enhance one’s vocabulary and even ability to write. (I think I said that… did I?) Anyway, maybe if I read more books, I won’t feel like all of my blogs read/sound exactly the same and I can perhaps add more inflection, emotion… maybe just some more appeal to what is written. I don’t know… maybe it all reads just fine? hmmm…

Something I remember about high school was the fact that I was actually a really good writer. At least my teachers thought I was. I remember my advanced comp class my sophomore year. Can’t remember the teacher’s name, but he was really cool. I thoroughly enjoyed every writing assignment we had and I did very well in the class. But thinking back it makes me wonder what has happened over the past 15 years since.

Back then, we didn’t really type papers on computer. We had computers and typewriters but you didn’t write a paper for class that was typed. It was always to be in blue or black ink and written in cursive. (boy, now that I think about it, what the hell was the point in writing in cursive?) So now, everyone types their papers… people even type notes while sitting in class. I never really thought about doing that when I was in school, but then again I never had my own computer at the time.

What I think is kinda neat is the fact that even though I don’t type correctly, I type fairly fast and fairly efficiently. I make a few mistakes here and there, but it’s nothing too terrible. But what I think is interesting about typing this out vs. writing in a home journal are both the facts that it’s less tiring or time consuming, and the fact that when you’re writing it by hand you can think about what you’re saying a little better. That’s just my thought on that.

Lets just say this. I don’t talk very fast, but if someone was here looking over my shoulder, it’s safe to say that I’m only a touch slower in my typing than if I was actually saying it out loud. I don’t think anyone can write by hand that fast, unless it’s some sick version of short hand. But in this case, my thoughts are literally spilling out onto the computer screen as I say them in my head. Pretty cool, huh? Well, I think it’s such a different thought process from what I did when I was in high school, or even when I wrote out blogs by hand.

But there’s also that problem of writing by hand so slow that you forget what you’re writing down mid-sentence. haha! Yeah, that’s happened to me a few times. I’ve also seriously turned in an in-class paper before with sentences that just stopped half-way through and never concluded. In fact, I have done that LOTS of times even on the computer. I don’t know why or how that happens. Sometimes I’ll be thinking about what to say… type it as I go and maybe I’ll make a mistake… fumble with the keys a bit… not sure… then I wrap up the sentence with what should have been the end of the NEXT sentence that I hadn’t actually typed out yet and there I have a sentence that starts talking about one thing, completely skips whatever you were thinking and ends with whatever would have been the next thought or point. (Does that even make a little sense?) I guess I’ll have to assume everyone understands because I don’t feel like explaining.

I’ve done it before with older blogs… at least I think I have. I don’t proof read or really go back and re-read much of what I say. A lot of my older blogs (especially from 2004) are a tad too painful to want to remember. So I just leave them. The only blogs I usually check up on are ones that are a little more fun… maybe the ones where I post videos. I don’t know… I guess the writing is there for others to read. I typed it and thought it so I don’t know if I need to go back and read it. *shrug* But it’s not like I think reading back is dumb. I think there’s just a time and a place to do it… but for me right now, not really that time or place yet. But these past few I’ve posted are so fresh in my mind that it’s not like I forgot and need to remind myself about what I said. I guess that’s not the point.

By the way, what am I talking about in this blog? Am I sticking to any particular topic? We’re basically talking about typing vs. writing by hand. Well, to conclude this topic, I’ll just say that I thank God for computers and the ease of typing… but damn all you that made me write 15-page papers on college ruled paper in cursive. And if you made a mistake, you either get yourself some white-out or you started that page all over again. I don’t miss that at all.

I was talking to several people about this over the past few months, and it’s just one of those things that puts me into some deep thoughts about my life. As most of you know, I’m basically a full-time visual designer emphasizing in drill design for marching groups and doing a little bit of web design on the side and looking forward to possibly making a career out of it. I majored in music performance in college and basically did little to nothing at the computer. My life was all about the trumpet and nothing else. If there was anything, it would be the piano that was in the practice room with me those 4-5 hours per day. A computer had little to no use in my life, and I was even bad at checking my e-mail. Seriously… it went from once a day to maybe once a week. I just never had a computer of my own and I never was able to get myself out of the practice rooms. Well, at least until around my 3rd year at Michigan.

I was 25 when I got my first computer… it was a laptop and the only reason I bought it was because I needed one to be able to write drill. I remember talking to Mitch about it and we agreed to work together and get me going in what I believed to be, at the time, just a ‘hobby’ that would assist me in my trumpet performance career. Up until that time, I had never really had any intentions on buying a computer, nor doing any sort of job that required one. Little did I know that I would eventually become not an ‘addict’ or anything, but eventually doing work that used a computer exclusively. Not only that, with my newly acquired Adobe CS3 suite, I’ve been going to town on this Flash stuff and I LOVE it!!!

What this makes me wonder though… had I had all of this at my disposal 13 or 14 years ago and technology was what it is today, would I still have majored in music?

Of course, we would have to assume I had the money for the computer, the Adobe suite, the internet service, etc. Even though money for us was very tight when I was in HS, assuming there was the slightest chance I had any or all of what I have now (just meaning the basics with the computer, software and internet services) I honestly believe I would have not majored in music. I may not have majored in design either, but with the ease of use of the computer, the transition to what is now somewhat of a “necessity” and the fact that I don’t even need to pick up and dial a phone number to order a pizza from papa johns – all that tells me is that I’m actually thankful I did NOT have any of this stuff 15 years ago.

I’ll admit… I’m kinda lazy now. Not sure it’s really “me” though. I mean, I’m not a lazy bum or anything… but I sure know how to bum out when I wanna. I know how to be productive and get shit done… but now that I’m working 90% of the time at the computer, I tend to get a “feeling” that I’m not doing enough.

So lets back up for a second. You would ask, “Well, are you happy doing what you’re doing?” Yes I am. I love my job more than I can express. I love listening to music and writing sketched ideas on Pyware, trying to figure out new tricks and new drill moves and do things that can actually be my own and not borrowed or copied from other designers. I love the whole process of designing a show around a theme… or even just a feeling or emotion or set of emotions. I enjoy the thrill of watching people perform shows I designed, no matter how clean or dirty it is. It’s an art and an expression of me and that’s what I love about this job. I get to bring out the best I can in my artistry and musicianship, and hopefully bring everything together into an exciting marching band show for the students and fans. Maybe in some other blog I’ll talk about growing up as an artist and how I transitioned away from that to become a full-blown musician. Now I am back to being an artist again, with a strength in music. I’ve pretty much come full circle.

So, bringing up that whole idea of “What if…” and all that with the computers and technology 14+ years ago… Even though it’s a useless discussion, I’m just thankful my life went the course and the direction it did. I’m very happy with where I am now and I enjoy being able to express myself in all the ways I can – both in my visual artistic skills as well as musical. I’ve found the perfect combination of those, and the best part about the path I’m on is that it’s a constant learning experience and I have had significant improvements every year. My hopes (as always) is to again improve this coming season, and I hope my prior 6 years of designing will help propel me into having another successful season.

Okay… what did I talk about in this blog. Rainy weather, car batteries, cursive writing and drill design. Hm, kinda random. Yeah, that’s how I work sometimes. Kinda just comes out as I think it.

In case it wasn’t obvious, I don’t really set a plan for what I’m gonna say or talk about. It’s completely random based on whatever comes to mind when I start and where it leads to from there. I sometimes wonder if I should in fact plan the blog around a particular subject and stick to that. That doesn’t seem to work for me, but whatever… maybe I’ve done that or do it already?? I don’t know. Like I said, I don’t usually go back and read my own blogs. hahaha!

Okay, I need to head to bed now. I’m going to see the movie “21? this weekend. I can’t wait. I don’t know why I’m so excited about seeing it except that it’s called “21?. Most people know that 21 is my favorite number and has been with me forever. (Forever 21… HA!) Oy, I’m so gay. Anyway, I love Kevin Spacey and I’m into card games, so I think I’ll totally dig this movie. But now I need to find a date. Er… well, not so much a date as much as a ride to the theater. haha. Geez, not having a car is a good thing right now with gas prices going up, but geez is it inconvenient if all you wanna do is go to the movies.

Wow, I sure know how to stall when I’m ending a blog.

It’s almost the end of the month… and it’s almost TCGC time. Geez… wtf? how am I gonna get out there for the show next weekend?? *sigh*

Well, goodnight for now. Take care!

George

It was another day… not a whole lot happened as I was actually stranded at my apartment and unfortunately did not find a ride to Joe’s recital. I’m bummed about that… I promised him I would go after all the help he gave me with picking me up at Chic-Fil-A that one time I was stranded… wow, that was a long time ago too. My car has been in bad shape for a while. Maybe even over a year?

Well, besides staying in all day, I got lots of work done on some Flash banners I’m designing and even took some time working on music. (yeah, I figured out a way to pry myself away from my Adobe suite). Anyway, I am continuing to work on my massive brass arrangement of Wagner’s “Elsa’s Procession”… one of my favorite classical pieces of music. I played it in HS for my band director’s retirement concert. I’ll never forget how amazing that was, and also how tired my chops were at the end. (I couldn’t hit the high C… just wasn’t happening after already playing like 2 hours worth of music).

It was about 10 years ago that I starting thinking about arranging it on my own. I have heard numerous transcriptions and they’re all great. I’ve even heard some not-so-good ones. Eh, I might not do that much better than even the bad ones, but it’s a lot of fun and I think it might sound okay. But when I describe it as “massive”, that’s mostly pertaining to the demands of the ensemble itself. This ensemble is being treated as an actual ‘choir’, meaning there are parts that will include up to 4 or 5 people playing the same music. My vision of how this should be played or interpreted is that of a string ensemble or a chorus. When you hear a vocal piece, there are moments that are phrased in a way that the entire ensemble breathes in unison, yet many of the longer and stretched out phrases are easily done with the staggering of the individuals breathing. The way I’m composing this arrangement… or… I guess, just arranging it, is to actually write in places where the instruments enter/exit to give it it’s own stagger.

This might sound like a science fair project, but the way I’m doing it is simple. I’m just taking the part, splitting it 4 or 5 ways and then going through and finding the key areas that would make the most sense to have someone lay out for either a measure or multiple measures at a time and divide it as equally as I can, taking into account what I believe would make sense for the particular instrument to be able to play on one breath, the range they are in and make the music literally sound seamless, which is next to impossible with most brass ensemble pieces. (sorry for the run-on sentence).

I guess you would have to see it to understand what I’m doing and why I am doing it. This would obviously require some musicians that match sounds very well (or at least somewhat close – in tune would help also) and then simply having enough people to cover all of the parts. The way it is laid out at this point in time would require 12 trumpets, 2 flugelhorns, 12 french horns, 8 trombones, 6 euphoniums and (brace yourself) 8 tubas.

Before anyone cringes at the thought of having so many people, you should know that the way I am setting this arrangement up is with the full intention that the numbers are basically set to accommodate the seamlessness of the music and with the exception of the final 8+ measures, there would only be about 1/2 of the group playing at one time. There’s constant entrances and exits that I am incorporating directly into the music, giving people specific places to breath and specific places where all they are responsible for is to support or sustain the note or chord during a section that needs to be held out longer than a single brass player could on any breath.

In a way, this might seem kind of frustrating for the musicians performing. Trust me, I know… thinking about it, it almost seems like this is a waste of good music perhaps? Well, honestly I don’t see it that way… but some musicians would play their individual parts and not know why the heck all they do is play this note for 2 measures, rest a bit, play a few notes of a melody and stop halfway, etc. And what I’m being very careful I do and being aware of is the attention to detail regarding the notes the instruments enter on and making sure it’s not too exposed (in the event of an attack being too much) and not making people drop out during very loud sections, thus losing the “mass” of the sound when people trade off. Actually, when it gets louder at the end, I plan to set it so there’s about 3/4 of the ensemble playing and adding on little by little until the huge impact, having everyone playing together from there to the end. This “effect” I believe, if done correctly, could create such a nice emotional boost/impact to the music where the listener’s ears hear the constant volume and balance of the smaller ensemble of musicians, and as the music intensifies and more instruments add on it will add mass to the music as well as volume and with the more people playing together and at the same time, by the end it should leave the audience somewhat stunned by the shear ‘volume’ that ended the tune. (remember, they’re not sitting there waiting to play, they have been playing the whole time but trading off and playing supporting roles until the end when they play constantly).

So you see… the music (if you’re not familiar with it) is very much like Adagio for strings. Well, nothing is like Adagio… I don’t know if anything is as beautiful… well, that’s a discussion for another time. Anyway, where was I? Oh… so in Adagio, the music is slow, soft, stretched, somewhat moving yet not dirge-like… and it then starts a crescendo… and keeps getting louder… and more… and it peaks at this climactic moment that releases in the silence of the piece… ………. one of the most incredible moments in all of music. ahh… it’s giving me chills just thinking about it. and the piece then ends soft again.

But anyway, that’s kind of what Elsa’s Procession is like. It’s slow and soft and stretched out for the first 5 minutes of the tune. There’s definitely moments of dynamic contrast to be incorporated into the music, so it’s not completely monotone. And similar to Adagio, there’s a slow crescendo that builds and builds and peaks…. and rather than releasing and going to some silence, it will stay strong and finish off the music with an full ensemble mass sound that closes with an Eb major chord that will release and hopefully leave the audience in awe of what they just heard. (I somehow transitioned from explaining the original piece to explaining what I’m going for in it… haha! well, you get the idea).

My goals in this arrangement are:

1 – make sure it’s not choppy

2 – find 50 musicians that can play it (which would be a miracle)

3 – get the rights to it and possibly sell it/publish it… or whatever it is those people need to do.

I probably listed those in the wrong order, but whatever. I’m only about 1/3 of the way through, but it’s going well. I hope to be done with it by Christmas… but then it’ll probably be another 7 years before I find enough people to play it for me. haha!

Moving on… A good thing that happened this afternoon was I got a phone call from a couple band directors I’ve been talking with over the past couple weeks and we have basically come to an agreement on things and it looks like I got the job writing for Dripping Springs HS. This should be a lot of fun. Like I said in an earlier post, I lightened my load this year so I could give myself a better opportunity to write higher quality shows which is something I struggled with doing last year. Not that I was not pleased with what I wrote, but I wrote a little too much and had some rough times last summer dealing with things that I hope to not have to deal with this year. I’m basically set with those 7 bands that have signed on for sure at this point and if I can add one more that’d be awesome…. but if not I’ll be plenty comfortable regardless.

So, I’m really excited about writing for them this year and I hope they are happy with what I am able to do for them. They talked about flying me out for a meeting in May so I’ll be looking forward to that. I’ll have to look at my schedule for Spartans before I can commit to dates, but I’m sure it’ll be fine. We’ll probably meet during the week, which is easier for me.

I wonder if there’s any way I can write a blog that’s short and sweet… hmm? I didn’t expect to write this much, but look at me. only 5 blogs in and I’m halfway through a damn novel. (a fairly boring one, I’m sure). haha! I know I’m not really a writer. My vocab and word use and variety is somewhat sub-par in my opinion. They say that if you read a lot of books, you can usually write better. I feel like I could use more time away from working on Flash and music and read more. Alisa loaned me her favorite book ‘Middlesex’ and I have yet to read it. I think that if all works out tomorrow and I can get things organized enough, I might ditch the comp and sit out by the pool again and read some of that book. I would still like to finish 1984 also, which I haven’t touched in a couple days… mostly because of the car drama I had yesterday. And another thing I need to do is go on a little music search. A couple of my clients are in need of some ideas for music and I need to pull up my iTunes and listen away. This process is tedious, but a blast. I mean, who else gets paid to spend hours a day at the computer, putting together a list of songs that they think would work well for the show their designing? I mean, there’s a chance they might not like the selections I choose, however, 95% of the time I’ve done this, I’m able to find something we all dig. Tomorrow should be very fun and productive.

Okay, I need a snack and I’m off to sleep. I was too lazy to cook dinner tonight so I ordered a pizza from Villa Roma. They have specials on M-Tu of $5.99 Large/1-top. If I get a large pizza, I typically eat a few slices (usually half) and then bag the rest and save it for another day. Well, today I ate the WHOLE pizza. wtf? I’m a friggin’ fatty. How did I do that? I hope it’s not a bad thing. I mean, I can’t usually eat more than 4 slices on any day… I ate the whole thing.

Anywho, (that’s for Cathy) I’m signing off now.

Oh, and also… I woke up this morning to check my e-mail and found like SIX new comments on my blogs. I got SO excited you don’t even know. And then I went to check them and approve them – they were ALL spam. Dammit! I forgot to change the settings when I restarted my blog a few days ago. What is up with Spam? I don’t get it. Do people actually click on that shit and take it seriously. Besides that, do people PAY other people to Spam the world? If so, who’s paying the people that pay the spammers? If it’s the companies that the spammers are advertising, how do they make any money when all their mail is being filtered and trashed by default through most e-mail clients? Huge double-you, tee, eff!

g’night all!

George