Thursday, May 05, 2005
If I found my way to Minnesoter
Tomorrow (today, technically) I'm driving to Minnesota. Chris has been working on "Mirth and Hilarity" with a pianist who is, I'm told, extremely good. So I'm going up to Northfield to check on the progess of things, I guess. Anyway, it should be fun and interesting and slightly terrifying. It's amazing: I poured hours into writing and revising a piece of music, and tomorrow, at long last, I'm going to actually hear it played by two brilliant instrumentalists. It'll be extremely weird to hear something that originated in my brain come out of other people's instruments. I'm slightly intimidated. I don't know if I'll have anything to say... They'll want me to say stuff (that's the whole point of me going up there), and I'm worried that the secret will come out that I don't really know much about composition. Ah well, I'm sure it'll be fine. And it will definitely be nice to see Christer again, not to mention getting out of Iowa City for a little bit.
This week will be the ultimate musical ego trip for me, as the next day (Friday) I'll be performing "I, the Undersigned" with my band at Best Of. I made a new arrangement of the song that features a more complex instrumental section and a slightly cooler ending. And we're going to have a microphone this time around, so the lyrics will actually be audible! Um, there's another scary thought.
One final thing: yesterday I learned of the death of an artist named Al Turner. He was a friend of me and my family, and an absolutely brilliant illustrator of sci-fi and fantasy stuff. I did an internet search for him and, shockingly, couldn't really find anything; I guess I always figured he was more well-known. Well, he committed suicide this week, for reasons that I don't know. I'm very depressed about this, as this guy to me was a beacon of artistic triumph... he had kind of a hard life, always worked factory jobs, but until about a year ago he never saw hardship as a reason not to do art. And when he found out I had dropped out of college in 2002 he wrote me a very serious letter to express his disappointment. I wonder now exactly how much Al was responsible for me pushing myself to go back to school. Anyway, this is all still sort of sinking in (as these things always do take some time to digest). I guess I'll have plenty of time to think about it in the car tomorrow.
Well, wish me luck!
This week will be the ultimate musical ego trip for me, as the next day (Friday) I'll be performing "I, the Undersigned" with my band at Best Of. I made a new arrangement of the song that features a more complex instrumental section and a slightly cooler ending. And we're going to have a microphone this time around, so the lyrics will actually be audible! Um, there's another scary thought.
One final thing: yesterday I learned of the death of an artist named Al Turner. He was a friend of me and my family, and an absolutely brilliant illustrator of sci-fi and fantasy stuff. I did an internet search for him and, shockingly, couldn't really find anything; I guess I always figured he was more well-known. Well, he committed suicide this week, for reasons that I don't know. I'm very depressed about this, as this guy to me was a beacon of artistic triumph... he had kind of a hard life, always worked factory jobs, but until about a year ago he never saw hardship as a reason not to do art. And when he found out I had dropped out of college in 2002 he wrote me a very serious letter to express his disappointment. I wonder now exactly how much Al was responsible for me pushing myself to go back to school. Anyway, this is all still sort of sinking in (as these things always do take some time to digest). I guess I'll have plenty of time to think about it in the car tomorrow.
Well, wish me luck!
