I couldn’t wait. I bought a copy of Ableton Suite 8. It’s kind of mind-blowingly great and while the onboard lessons and online tutorials I’ve found are quite helpful, I have a ton to learn. I love it though, and it already feels much more intuitive that programs I have used before. I went ahead and sequenced in all of the parts for “When It WIll Bloom” and am working out the drummy/samply/loopy/glitchy stuff I have in my mind. My vision about this project is to record the whole album with live instruments (string and woodwinds, primarily with me on piano), so it’s still a little unrewarding to hear computerized version, especially of the string quartet. Somehow, sampled oboe and piano are much more tolerable. I think the strings on my keyboard are quite good, but it’s hard to play them the way a real string player would do it. I just keep reminding myself that what i am doing right now is creating demos and this isn’t the finished product.
Writing still on the musical that I don’t want to name for the theater that shall also remain nameless. The closing song started to come to me tonight and I wrote what seem to be a sort of verse or two. not perfectly happy with the lyrics, but extremely happy with these moments at the piano where I feel myself clicking in (or maybe just getting out of the way) and letting the music happen.
I have one more week of full on teaching and then free time opens up for the summer. I have a couple of pianist gigs this summer, a show for the New York Musical Theater Festival, and my friend Steven’s one man show, Methtacular! looks like it is a go, though I don’t think I can officially talk details about that either. I am also visualizing my life in which I work only as a composer/performer. Feel free to join me in this. 🙂
So movement forward is happening. I am always thinking about writing music with a passion I have not felt for a long time. I love this.
In other news, this new Elan Tamara is really lovely.
