I have made almost no progress on my next composition.  it’s not so much because I have no ideas, it’s more that all the ideas I’ve come up with have been either awful or unintentionally plagiaristic.

The best idea I have so far sounds almost exactly like a concert band rendition of a combination of the openings of “Star Trek: Voyager” and “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”.  I actually really like it but there’s no way I can use it.

And also, it’s become very clear how much I don’t know about composition.  That’s not to say my first composition is bad – it stands on it’s own, it’s pretty good for a first composition, and I’d be proud to have someone, somewhere, play it someday.  But it could have been a lot better, and I don’t even know how it could have been a lot better.

So, I’m going back to school.

I’m exploring going to Temple College to finish my music degree, but at the moment I’m just taking some classes on Preply (turns out teachers/tutors aren’t all that expensive there).  One of those tutors is composition (the other two are piano and Japanese).  We’re starting from the basics (things I mostly know but there are gaps) and going on from there.

So when will I come up with my next piece?  I don’t know.  I don’t know anything about when, what, or how I’m going to come up with something.  But I haven’t forgotten, and hopefully the next one will be a lot better than this one.  There are a couple of other pieces by Dwight Armstrong I want to butcher compose for, but I want to write something completely original first.

I’ve come to understand recently a few things about my music education.  One of those things is that my lack of skill over the past thirty years, and a lot of my mental blocks, aren’t solely my fault.  I mean, yes, of course I bear some responsibility for my own failings, but I think I had some bad teachers too.  And the other thing I’ve learned is that a lot of teachers who are solely artists just don’t understand how my mind works, so they couldn’t work with me in ways I could understand (that’s kind of back to the “bad teacher” comment – maybe they were just bad for me).  Anyway, now that I know, I can start filling those gaps.

Meanwhile, I hope someone picks “Dream Requiem” up eventually.  That would be nice.