Summertime

Well once again I find an eternity has passed since I've written a blog post. Not my fault! Well, actually it is. But life does tend to keep you busy, what with work and raising a kid and doing the odd musical here and there. But it's summertime here now, which means peaceful times in the Department of Music and time to catch up on a lot of things. Including writing.

I was struck today by the thought of how things change as I was driving to work up J Street. There's still the old decaying storefronts from another era: Copenhagen's, the Pfaff Sewing Machine store, and so on. And more recent changes, such as The Beat record store on 17th and J that is now a BevMo. I used to shop at that record store when I was in high school, in fact before it moved to the downtown location from 33rd and Folsom. I guess the inclusion of DVD and BluRay movies to their arsenal of products wasn't enough to save them. I think by the time Connor becomes a teenager, no one will buy CD's anymore. Why would they? They can already hear anything they want on demand with a few pushes of buttons on their smartphones or tablets or what not.

Not that I'm much different. I used to buy and collect CD's, and I still have a pretty impressive collection. But when was the last time I popped one in a player and listened? I can't even remember. Even driving in my car I hardly use the CD player. I just plug in my iPhone and play music from that.

It's a sign of the times I guess. Things change. Times move on. The "good ol' days" are gone and but a distant memory. My kid will never know the joy of searching through a used CD bin and coming across a rare gem that you've been looking for.

Well, anyways, enough nostalgia. Today is Friday, and it's the third weekend of the musical Catch Me If You Can, which I'm directing the onstage orchestra for. I say orchestra, but really it's a modified big band. The show is pretty hot, that is to say the music cooks along and brings a lot of energy to it. And tonight I'm debuting my new white tuxedo jacket, as previously I've just been wearing a tux shirt with bow tie and cummerbund. And yes, that's the right spelling of cummerbund. Who knew? Not me. I just found out this second.

Meanwhile, music writing is going well as I've completed the first part of the fall marching band show, and we've met to go over ideas for the second part just this week. I'm also writing some charts for River City High School, and just in the last week I've had my compositions start popping up for sale on martianmusic.net. A new endeavor, hopefully that will help spread my music beyond the confines of this college music department.

So things are looking up, Connor is growing up fast and developing a personality. Boy, he loves life. He's the most energetic and happy kid I've ever seen. Except of course when he doesn't get what he wants...welcome to the terrible 2's! And at only 19 months old, he's quite the overachiever! Next trip for us will be to Hawaii in July. I've never been, and of course neither has Connor, so we're all looking forward to that!

Now if I can make a point to write on this more frequently...