Ok, I know it’s been a little while. I’ve been extremely busy lately, and there are some exciting things coming up. Here’s the rundown:
1) I’ve applied to GRAMMY Camp
GRAMMY Camp is a summer music program for high school-aged musicians put on by the GRAMMY foundation. Yes, the GRAMMY foundation. It sounds amazing, and I think it would be incredible to get the chance to go and learn as much as I possibly can from GRAMMY-winners and nominees.
I applied for the Engineering for Audio & Video and the Electronic Music Production tracks. The camp seems to be pretty competitive to get into. I mean, I think only about 110 kids got accepted last year, and who knows how many applied. Part of the reason why I haven’t blogged as much recently is because I’ve been so busy working on the application. I’ve Macdinked my video essay to pieces, and I’ve tried as well as I know how in order to get the best possible mix quality out of the 160 kbps mp3s that I had to send in. I’ve read and re-read my recording descriptions of what I did for each song, which was part of the application, and I even had the sound man from church and an electrical engineer (my dad) read it over just to be sure there weren’t any blatant technical errors in my explanations. I’ve done everything in my power to give me the best chances of getting in–not to even mention the years I’ve spent apart from this doing my best to get better at what I do. Now all I can do is hope and wait.
2) New songs
Sometime in the next month, I’m planning on releasing my latest original single “I Am Free.” It’s probably the best song I’ve ever written, and it’s a big deal because before that, I wasn’t happy with most of the lyrics I’d written for the past year or two. I’ve written plenty of music that I liked, but I just wasn’t writing any good lyrics. “I Am Free” also has a new musical sound. The songs I’ve been producing usually have dozens of tracks. “I Am Free” is a power ballad, and it only has piano, drums, three synths, some guitar, and the vocals. “Change” and “Your Love (How Deep, How Wide)” had 35 and 45 tracks respectively.
I’m also working on another piano ballad, that I just call “D Major” right now because I don’t have a name or any lyrics for it yet. Totally different feel from “I Am Free.” If I keep writing songs at this rate, I should be able to release an album this fall under Azhure. People have been asking me to do an album for like five years.
3) New classical compositions (At least, I hope…)
I’m trying to write some more classical music, including my first string quartet and another orchestral piece. I’m just really stuck, though. I keep running into the same counterpoint problems, and falling into the same musical ruts. I’m trying to follow Sonata Form for once just to show that I can do it, but I’m having a hard time coming up with a Theme II that will actually work with the minor Theme I that I have. I recently got an orchestration textbook, so I’m hoping that maybe something in there will help me figure out what to do. In the meantime, I guess I’ll just have to wait until I can learn more, or until I hear Theme II. What I really need to do is go off to college, but I guess I’ll have to wait another year.
4) My book
I’m still working hard to finish my keyboard book in time to release it on the Apple iBooks store late this May, or early June at the latest. I’m up to about 10,500 words, but I haven’t even started the most advanced section on topics such as sound synthesis and using MIDI. Also, once the text is finished, I have to film video, record audio examples, and create other interactive material for the book. That’s why I’m choosing the iBook store for the first release.
So that’s pretty much what has been going on in my life recently. I guess you could say I’ve been busy, but that’s the way I like it.
My question for you, my subscribers and fellow bloggers, is what have you been up to? What have I missed while I’ve been away?