I have some mixed feelings about how the music turned out for a few reasons. First, the piece is a strange hybrid of me and not me. The principal concept of the piece required me to write musical material that was supposed to sound like someone else. Originally the piece was going to be pretty much a very simple and slow chorale, non-minimalist, as its primary musical material to help set up for the Shock Moment at the end of the piece (involving the ringing of a mobile phone in the audience at the end of the piece’s climax). The idea i had in my head was to make it like the slow-moving parts of The Unanswered Question or for it to have the same sort of personality as Adagio for Strings. Don’t get me wrong, i love that music, but it’s not the sort of thing that I generally associate with my own musical voice, at least not exactly. But once i started writing it, it started to take a mind of its own and some very characteristic Mendel things crept into the piece, particularly rhythmically, and the result is something that definitely sounds like me, but also not me, and i don’t have a good sense right now whether or not the strength of the material is therefore diluted because of that split personality.

Secondly, the music suffers a little from the product of being the first large ensemble piece that i’ve composed (rather than arranged) in about nine or so years. It took much longer than it should have to get this piece going to the point where as recent as a couple of weeks ago i was starting to get worried that i wouldn’t finish the piece by the deadline. The piece thus feels a little bit rushed and is in need of tweaking that i don’t have time to do right now. Hopefully i’ll get a chance to revise it next summer or fall.

But while the execution of the compositional aspects of the piece may be a little below my standard, the motivation behind the piece and its thesis is very important to me, enough that I’m thinking of scripting and storyboarding a video project to talk about it not just in the context of the piece but its wider application to the classical music community as a whole.

In any case, while we were talking about it, Kate put forth the suggestion that I take a trip sometime this spring to give a presentation about it in her Music and Ethics class. My spring is fairly busy, but i think it would be good on my resumé and be a great experience to help flesh out the thesis of the piece and aid in its musical revision and accompanying video presentation that i want to put together. Plus there’s the added bonus of seeing her and her husband again in Hawaii, as it’s been a few years since i’ve seen them and more since i’ve been to Hawaii.

I’d probably get an honorarium from UH to pay for travel – although it wouldn’t be much, it’s better than nothing. The tricky part is scheduling – i have my nienteForte concert on April 22nd and the Tulane Spring Concert Band concert is on the 24th. UH’s last day of classes is the following Wednesday which Kate was going to use for final review, and since she was envisioning it being a two-day class seminar-like thing, that would mean i would have to do it on Friday/Monday which could be super tight if my parents are still in town, plus I don’t know what tickets would be like during that time since that’s prime Jazz Fest time. On the other hand, earlier could be a bit tricky since i’ll have dress rehearsals and last minute prep for the upcoming concerts.

I’m sure i can make it work – i just need to have some foresight in planning, not just because of those conerts but also because at that time i’ll probably be deep in the throes of creative brainstorming for Hermiston’s marching band show in addition to whatever Galaxy Interactive might throw at me, and on top of that i may also be trying to work on a commission for the Portland Percussion Group for PASIC that would be due in July/August if that negotiation works out.

and oh yeah, i might be writing a piece for the Portland Percussion Group for their application to PASIC in 2013. More news on that soon.

when i lived in eugene i didn’t travel that much. usually any travel were road trips related to DDR tournaments in either seattle or san fran which would occupy a weekend or four days. There were several reasons for this both philosophically and practically; mainly it was because travel felt like an expensive interruption to a flow, and i was one of those sorts that liked to hoard my PTO so i had wiggle room for its use.

since moving to new orleans a year and a half ago, i’ve now traveled four times of note. First was when i drove to nashville for hurricane evacuation. most of that time was spent with ken, playing disc golf with friends and exploring nashville stuff. Second was when i went back to PA for winter holidays, the first time i was back in the area since moving to the west coast in 1999. Third was the multihop trip in august – Eugene to visit old friends, Hawaii to see one of my oldest and dearest friends get married, and eastern oregon to teach band camp of one of my former students and to hang out for a bit. Fourth is what’s happening right now. San Francisco to see another old and dear friend get married, Anaheim to visit jjk, Long Beach to visit an old undergraduate classmate who i still connect with, Chatsworth to meet a long time LJ friend in person for the first time, Santa Barbara to visit another LJ friend in person for the first time.

What’s true about all of these trips is that they’ve all been incredibly valuable experiences for me, secondly because of the new places i’ve visited, but primarily because of the people in my life who i cherish and get to share time with. I have a lot of friends scattered everywhere in the united states, and it’s resultingly not too difficult for me to find someone or some people to hang out with if i state my intent to travel. Particularly this time around i’ve had a few people in the SF area express their interest in seeing me, and it sucks that i can’t see them because so much of my sf time is occupied with the wedding.

thinking about these experiences and the sentiments that go with them makes me reflect on how social interaction in general has changed and how that relates to the love i have for the people in my life. even when i was a teenager i had started to develop the sensibility that people were the most important thing in my life, and as the internet rose to mainstream use, that became easier to manage because the internet made it easier to keep the connection with all of these people active without the need to be physically close and/or without breaking the phone bill. But back then, social networking and social etiquette were very different; it was common for me to exchange four-page-and-up emails with friends on a semi-regular basis, it was common for me to have 2-3 hour phone converations on more than a weekly basis, and LJ as a primary outlet for personal expression had an interaction depth level that brought me close to and care deeply about people who i have never met in real life. But as the popularlity and use of LJ declined in favor of more surface-level instaorgasm social networking sites (myspace/facebook/twitter) and texting, the amount of long distance interactions that have that same degree of depth are fewer and far between (part of which i acknowledge is my own fault, but that’s tangental to this post).

Resultingly what i’ve discovered is that travel is filling that void, that these trips are very important for my soul. Seeing all of the people on these trips and the people who have visited me in new orleans for the past year and a half represent times in my life that i treasure and know i will never forget. i have amazing friends and acquaintances, and i’ve met some fantastic people, and my life is nothing without them.

This realization is causing me to further shift my financial priorities to accomodate this concept, to understand that given the choice between, say, buying a video game console or a snazzy tv or the next awesome phone versus going thorugh some complicated travel plans to try to see as many of my friends as possible during an opportune lull in my work schedule, travel will win out every time, no contest.

philosophical shift aside, i’m not certain how much more frequently i’ll be able to travel per year based on schedule and finances, but i do understand that what i should probably do some research on reward miles and similar travel-based reward packages.

original content on darkblog resonate.