Organization and efficiency…can we make it easy for ourselves to go on with the steps when we are tired? Community is better than a mirror or recording device. Let’s review tools to get ready to serve our musical community wherever we find ourselves this season, there is to be yet more musical mountains ahead.
I long for energy to recreate and and refine the sounds each day and to be ready for whatever challenges and opportunities await. And some more of that energy is going to come after tonight’s rest! Psalm 4; I will lie down in sleep in peace, you make me dwell in safety. This reminds me of my mountain project of getting some good lyrics into the hands of intermediate pianist that develop their spiritual lives as they develop their musical skills. You can here a sample here:
But prior to that, I make a list- do things in the same order, try to maintain a regular schedule, but not so rigid that it does not allow for life and growth.
This year I have had a curtain, a schedule, a metronome tuner, a cellphone to record voice memos or videos, tape, MuseScore, a laser printer, reed tools, milk crates, and file cabinets. Every one of these blessings helped. MuseScore was suggested by Dr. Krystal Grant of Ars Arvole, and it really frees me up as a composer to write and arrange what I want and not have to incur any more expense really.
I am still trying to get the visual beauty of the tools in the backpack to line up with the beautiful sounds. My sharp black pencils, which are on the right side of my piano in a kids plastic pencil holder with happy face stickers, is not quite as beautiful as my the perfect-size “zibbaldone” with a tree on the cover (full of manuscript paper for making practice notes and copying favorite melodies or exercises to work on hard parts.) This is something Dr. John Mortensen suggested in his YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04RoY9wiOWI. Ah, yes YouTube has been a helpful tool–more than I would have imagined this year. But it was all beautiful that with the help of some of these tools I could get ready. So when I got a chance to pull out the flute and entertain someone in the not-too-cold weather with a Tallis Canon project I am working on…I was prepared to offer a little sweet encouragement.
Doran Music Studio 