I realized this morning I’ve been neglecting to make an update here for quite a while. The main reason for that is I have a ton of work to do. Each day I’m not at work, I spend the entire day holed up in my room to write and record. Since I last left you, I mentioned the film scores I’m working on. Now there’s an additional, equally exciting project I have – to write and perform a piece commissioned by the Cincinnati Ballet. I got a call a few weeks ago from a local choreographer who described the project to me as using local musicians to create new dance pieces. I knew I already had  a lot on my plate, but this was simply too cool to pass up. It’s going to be a 10-20 minute piece, which is far longer than anything I’ve written before (I think “Antarctica” and “The Seventh Seal” both clock in around seven minutes), so it presents some challenges. Also having to write with the visual element of the dancers in mind (I’m told there will be eighteen(!) for my piece) is forcing me to approach writing in a different way.

It’s kind of unfortunate that all these recording-intensive projects are happening right as the brutal Cincinnati summer is getting underway. I finally invested in an air-conditioned for my room (or rather, I found an old one in our basement that nobody was using) and am hoping it will cool things down enough for me to turn off the fan and close the windows for 10 to 15-minute bursts of recording, after which I will turn the AC back on to cool the room down. I’m not sure how professional studios maintain a comfortable temperature without having the noise of moving air – I’m sure it would help if I was in the basement instead of on the second story of a house with two nice big windows that let it lots of light.

I do find it very helpful to be working with outside deadlines. Nothing focuses your attention like a looming deadline. In the past, when I’ve been working on songs for an album at my own pace, I always found it very hard to figure out when a song was actually “done.” It was also much easier to decide to go see a movie instead of working on a recording when there was no external pressure forcing me to get it done. Not that I always want to be working on other people’s projects from now on, but it is a nice change of pace