Coming Soon to a Blog Near You

Just a note for any of you readers out there (Hi, Mom!): starting August 1, this blog will be changing.  So far, it has primarily been about my composing and arranging exploits, mainly in the handbell arena.  Starting next month, it will change and become a blog all about creativity. 

Why the change?  The more I work and compose and arrange and write, the more I realize I'm not a composer or an arranger -- I'm a creator.  Now, I'm not talking "creator" in the God-sense of snap my fingers and, boom, there's a new universe.  I'm talking creator in the sense of a guy who creates things: music, books, stories, poems, jokes, pictures.  While composing and arranging handbell music may be of interest to a few people (and the specifics of my career as a composer and arranger of interest to far fewer), creativity is something that touches a chord with every man, woman, and child on this planet in some way, even if it's only creating a schedule for the evening's TV watching.  I hope to share my thoughts and opinions, tests and trials, successes and failures, in the hope that it will get more people out there creating, for it is only through creating that we can make this world a better place.

In the meantime, I'll still keep talking (as infrequently as ever, I'm afraid) about my composing.  By waiting until August, I'll have finished with the Year of Insanity, and can then set my next Insane goal for the following year, probably with something involving overall creativity. 

So, in that spirit, I completed an arrangement of "Be Thou My Vision" for piano (which I'll be playing in church this Sunday -- one of the joys of arranging for piano), bringing my Insane total up to 46.  Two more to go to make my goal, though I'd like to shoot for 6 more so I can say I wrote a piece a week for the year.

I'm also starting to look forward to Pinnacle, which starts two weeks from yesterday.  I honestly have no idea what to expect, but with several hundred handbell geeks from around the country (and let's face it, you have to be a handbell geek to go to something like Pinnacle), I hope that means it'll be a great party and a wonderful experience.  If nothing else, it gives my wife and I a chance to get out of dodge for a while.

The plan for the week is the same as it's been the past few: keep editing the second book of my series, keep writing some new pieces (I hope to get another piano arrangement or two done this week, as well as finish up an arrangement of "The Boar's Head Carol" for bells), and hope that I get half as much done as I hope to.