Now it starts...

OK, so honestly, the first couple weeks of the program at USC were a little dull. We actually started about 2 1/2 weeks before everyone else so that we could learn a bunch of software and stuff without cutting into real program time. So campus was pretty much a ghost town (except for the super-secret practicing of the football team, and the anything-but-secret practicing of the marching band), and pretty much 10am-5pm, 5 days a week, we sat on our lazy butts talking about midi tracks and mock-ups and stuff. We did get to write a short little all-electronic clip for the trailer of the upcoming TRON movie (which looks pretty smooth) to help us learn Apple's Logic. So I'm posting my contribution. Nothing special, but hey, I've never claimed to be king of the synths. Here it is:



Last week, however, classes started officially. So campus filled up, sorority girls and all. And we met all of our instructors (I say instructors because almost all of them are industry guys as opposed to academics, which can be good and can be bad--good: lots of great stories and lots of real experience; bad: not always a lot of organization, some wandering). We heard everyone in our program introduce themselves about 72 times to each new instructor, so we know each others' stories pretty well by now. The

The first week came and went and felt like 2 weeks at least, but not in the normal sense. Instead of thinking on Tuesday, "It's ONLY Tuesday?!" It was more like Tuesday felt like Tuesday, but like two Tuesdays instead of just one. Like each day kept repeating. Fascinating, I know.

So that was last week. This week has barely started, but already it was pretty awesome. Yesterday we got to go to the Sony Studios lot and watch part of a recording session with the orchestra for the animated TV show "Family Guy." That was really cool. I won't spoil the episode for anyone (I don't think I'm supposed to anyway), but it is hilarious. It will be the season premiere this season sometime at the end of Sept. It looks really funny. And it was a big orchestra for TV, like 50-something players and as always, fantastic. That was very fun. AND, today...we get to go to another session. This time on the Fox Studio lot and this time for a feature film. It's a Danny Elfman session, which is really cool, because he does really cool stuff (if you aren't familiar, look him up--you will be). More on that once I've actually been there...

So there you are. Another update. And not even a full month has passed since the last. I'm a new man.

The Return

So it may or may not have been over a year ago that I last posted. And it may or may not have been titled something like "The Night Before." It's equally possible that "The Next Day" was ever documented (if you haven't heard: the Tabernacle performance was unbelievable--perfect even, and Pres. Monson and Uchtdorf were there!)

And so now here I am, 15 months or so later on a whole new "Night Before."

For those who have not heard, last November I applied to graduate school. See, for the last few years, around Feb or March of each year, I think to myself, "Maybe I should go back to school...maybe I should actually study music...or maybe something else..." The problem with having those thoughts in Feb or March is that the deadline to apply to most grad programs worth going to is usually in Nov or Dec, and therefore long past.

In fact, over the last couple of years, I've made inquiries to a couple of different music schools (Arizona State, Univ. of Utah) to see if they'd consider accepting a Business major into their graduate music programs, but none of them seemed all that enthusiastic about the idea.

Well as I said, last November, after recovering a little from the premiere of "Blackbeard" at the Herberger in Phoenix (more on that later), the thought again occured to me to go back to school. One of the programs I'd looked at over and over again was the Scoring for Motion Pictures and Television program at the Univ. of Southern California in L.A. As it turned out, when I checked their website, I found that their application deadline was about 5 days away. So I quickly threw together a demo, updated my resume and gathered some letters of recommendation. I knew it was a longshot--it's the most prestigious program of its kind in the world, they only accept 20 students each year, and I have no real formal musical training and certainly no degree in music. But worth a try, right?

Well, the holidays came and with the new year, McKane Davis and I decided to re-work our World War II show "The Price of Freedom," record a new album, shoot some video of the piece and do a week's worth of performances at the Mesa Arts Center in February. Sounds easy, right? It wasn't, but very worth it. Amazing performances, great crowds and, as usual, good times with some of my favorite performers of all time (Tyler, Linsey, Jenee, Jordan, Kaitlynn, Aaron, Michael, and two Lisa B's). You can see most of the video we shot and hear the album here: www.spiremusic.org/tpof.

A few weeks later, I decided to finally return to the area where I served my mission: the southwest of France. I spent 2 weeks there in early April. That was certainlyl an experience (and one for another day...).

When I got back to the States I had a letter from USC. They accepted me. I don't know why, but they accepted me. I mean, ASU and U of U didn't want me and this is USC!!! Maybe the horrible economy left them with fewer applicants...

So here I am in Los Angeles. I moved here Aug 1 and will tomorrow officially start the program. The program lasts just one school year and they'll pack a whole lot into that year. Today we had our course orientation and they'll certainly have us running. Perfect for me. I love being busy. The group is quite a collection: 3 from the U.K., 1 from Spain, 1 from South Korea, 1 from Japan, just one girl and she's from Canada. Looks like, as I expected, I'm the only one without an undergraduate degree in some musical field. So we'll see how long I can fake it...

We'll be constantly writing, recording, learning technology and technique. We'll be scoring student films (from one of the best film schools in the world): narratives, documentaries, animated films and even video games. And my goal is to document it all here.

I know you're all thinking right now, "Yeah right. Next entry will be at the end of the semester." But I'm really going to try, not only to keep everyone who cares up to speed on everything I get to do here, but also for my own sake (if you can't guess, I'm not the best journal-keeper).

So there you are. Another adventure, another city. I've hit the beach twice already and it's been gorgeous. Especially after another Arizona July.

Till next time...

The Night Before

So tomorrow night about this time, we'll be getting everyone situated on stage for our first night of "Joseph Smith the Prophet" at the Tabernacle. I'm pretty excited. Though the week didn't start that way.

First of all, one thing I've learned over the years is that, starting about 10 days before any given performance, you begin getting cancellations from your performers. Some have legit emergencies that come up, others mistakenly double-booked, but most just don't have any sense of commitment or what they put you through when they cancel so late in the game. So, as usual, I had about 6-7% of the group cancel on me in the last couple weeks leading up to now. And with a group over 300 in number, that's a lot of people. The really unfortunate thing is that they always tend to congregate in one section of the orchestra or choir. This time it was tenors and violins. So I emailed about 8 more violins, all of which could not do it.

MORAL: Don't cancel on people. Period. Once you make a commitment, keep it. If you absolutely HAVE TO break it, find a replacement solution before you contact them. Let them decide whether they'll take it or not. It's the considerate, honest and professional thing to do.

Then last Saturday I woke up with the worst flu of my life. Now granted, I don't get sick often, so some of you may have scoffed at my pain, but I was out for the count. I couldn't spend more than a half hour or so at a time out of bed it seemed. By Monday, I was still really sick and my flight left that night. I tried to reschedule, but they wanted $1 million to switch, so I decided to infect their entire crew and every passenger with my disease. I started to wonder whether I should get a replacement conductor, just in case. It was that bad.

But Tuesday morning came and, I believe miraculously, I was at just about 100%. Just in time for our only choir rehearsal in the Tabernacle. The rehearsal went flawlessly. Everyone was ready to go, totally prepared, we had an awesome accompanist and an extremely kind and helpful Tabernacle staff, I got to wear what I call a "Madonna" mic (Britney wears one too, but she's insane and so does Garth, but he's country), so that was pretty cool.

What's wonderful about such a great rehearsal, is it totally puts me at ease until the performance. Which is tomorrow. And if it goes anything like our rehearsal on Tuesday, it just well could be the most spectacular performance I've ever been involved with yet. Maybe I'll let you know.

The 2nd Semi-annual Blog Post

OK, so as all of the wonderful comments have pointed out, perhaps I haven't kept up on this like I should. It's not for lack of news, just laziness. Good ole fashioned laziness.

Two weeks ago, we did two nights of "The Price of Freedom" in concert at Mountian View High School in Mesa. The last time we'd done that one was over 3 years ago and it was well overdue. Everything turned out really great. The cast was fantastic and the audience was blown away. It's hard as a conductor for these concerts, because if the audience loves it, they're really quiet. So you start to wonder, "Are they bored? Asleep? Have they left the building?" But when we finished on Friday night, by the time I turned around to take a bow to the "sleeping crowd," they were on their feet and they brought us out for a second bow. Saturday was the same. As usual, I wish we could have had at least 2 more nights.

So now, I've been talking to McKane Davis (my close friend and fellow 259-er) who wrote the show with me, and we're working toward refining the show to be filmed for broadcast on PBS and public television in general. In June BYU-TV will begin airing our Abravanel "Joseph Smith the Prophet" performance, and depending on the reaction to that, I think "The Price of Freedom" would be an obvious follow-up.

In two weeks, we'll be performing "Joseph Smith the Prophet" at the Tabernacle on Temple Square in Salt Lake City. We'll have an enormous choir of almost 300 voices, a full orchestra (if I can somehow track down the elusive oboe position) and some of my favorite soloists, as well as some first-timers and it should be an amazing experience. I mean, it's the Tabernacle. And it's already sold out, which just makes it that much more exciting. If you're reading this, you'll be in town and don't have tickets, not to fret, the Temple Square people usually let in a lot of standby people, so I would try your luck for sure.

So there you go. The latest news. If things continue like they have, I should be posting again sometime in 2009. Till then...

The First Entry

So here I go. The purpose of this blog is basically two-fold, I guess. First, to let anybody who cares know what projects, concerts, recordings, etc. I'm up to. The second, is for myself because I've never been good at keeping a journal and, hopefully, this will at least keep track of what I've done, at least publicly. So there you go. Let me know what you think. Whoever you may be.