Saturday Summary, July 23, 2011

Every Saturday, The Creative will feature a brief post about my current creative efforts and how they are progressing. If this doesn't interest you, read no further -- not only will I not be offended, I'll never know.

It was a wonderful long weekend up in Minneapolis for the Handbell Musicians of America's National Seminar.  I got to talk to so many wonderful musicians and hear so much great music.  It was quite the rejuvenating experience.  My wife and I got back home late Monday evening, and at least part of this past week was spent just catching up and recovering from being gone for six days.

Despite all that, I actually got some work done.

Music -- I worked on three different pieces this past week, finishing one and nearly finishing two.  The first one was my "Jingle Bells," which I wrote for the Raleigh Ringers a few years ago.  It had just been sitting here collecting dust, so I picked it up and dusted it off (which involved making it playable for groups from 5 to 7.5 octaves of bells) and it's now ready to be sent off for submission. 

I also worked on an arrangement of "Fum, Fum, Fum" -- I originally wrote this arrangement several years ago, but it's never been quite right.  I've started over from scratch (while still keeping several of the old ideas) and I think I've finally got something that will work.

Then, I got a sort of last-minute assignment from a publisher that I spent some time working on, and should have finished up in the next day or two, hopefully.  It sort of came up out of nowhere, but I tend to work fairly well when I have a very specific task and a short deadline. 

Writing -- I devoted this whole week to music, so I did no writing.  My hope is to go back to SC2 this week and begin work on draft 4 (which ought to be a faster affair to finish than draft 3, the one I got done right before we left for seminar). 

Publishing -- I did receive word from Lorenz that my piano arrangement of "O God of Every Nation" will be in the September/October edition of their magazine The Church Pianist.  That will make my second piano arrangement in print, so I'm pretty excited about that. 


That's about it.  After so much intense work on my novel the past month and a half or so, it was really nice to get back into the swing of composing for a change.  I hope to finish up some things in the next several days, so hopefully next week's summary will contain some good news on that front.  Until then, stay cool, and have a fantastic week.