A New Summer, a New life.

I just finished my BM in music composition. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. My last semester I had 10 credit hours because of a mistake I made in registering for a class, but holy crap I am so glad I only had 10. I easily spent over a thousand hours on composing my senior project, which was a wind ensemble piece, that ended up being about six and a half minutes long. After hearing the piece read through it changed my life, I honestly felt like my DNA changed. It was one of the most rewarding things I have ever done in my life. I feel like the piece could still use some work, but I haven’t buckled down and worked on it yet. I am honestly excited to though. It is weird, I always feel like starting to compose is a slow process that feels more like someone or something is dying, but after about an hour it is a raging storm that engulfs you, and holds you prisoner. Consuming every thought, demanding the respect and precedence that sailing through a tropical storm commands

It is not easy to be married when a monkey like that is on your back, mostly for your spouse. Jackie would be talking to me, and notice a blank stare come across my face. She would see the milk I put in the pantry and the cereal box I set in the washing machine. In normal life I felt like a complete moron, but before my score I felt like... what did I feel like? A god? A warrior? I felt I became who I have believed myself to be my whole life. As if, I have always tried to be who I think I am, but before my score, there was no trying. I just was.

With the finishing of my degree, a new chapter in our lives unfolds. Jackie and I are moving to Illinois in August. Right now we live in a scummy 2 room duplex, that we are subletting from a couple that left the place nice and filthy for us. We wanted to stay in Colorado for the summer to enjoy the mountains before we left.

I am working on a few pieces right now, one of which I collaborated with Emily Fox. She wrote a poem that I am setting to a choir, I like the direction the piece is going. I am meeting with her today to talk about it. She hasn’t heard anything from it so I hope she likes it.