Wait! There's more.

Singing in a choir is a great enjoyment; it allows a person not only to use his or her voice, it also gives people a chance to hear and perform excellent music. Music is an important part of life and human culture, and so should be encouraged. Choirs offer people the chance to participate in culture. Too often culture is set aside, especially in this day and age, where we equate money with society. The first thing that pops into one's mind is "I wonder how much it costs?" Culture is a thing that not only has a financial value, it also has a cultural value; that's why a car is just a car, but music is more. Also, it allows for the voice of the local musicians and composers to be heard. For example, a church choir director needs to actively search out the music written by composers living in the area. Although performing music by great composers is perfectly fine, the contemporary voices from the area should also be heard. At least this is what I believe; it ...

Here's my little collection so far of my "Complete Acoustic Music". It's the black books you can see there. One of them (Music for Orchestra) is opened to show how it looks. I'll make a list soon.

As I organize my acoustic music into volumes, I have again started writing a few short pieces, but I find it difficult to finish anything. It might be that I need a goal in order to do this; for example, I finished a set of vocal pieces for Colin Bell on his Fibonacci poetry. There was a goal with this set, certainly. The words of the poem gave me the ideas to create a specific pattern. However, I would like to write a piece for flute and piano, but I cannot make it work - at least, not yet. Writing electronic pieces I can do.

So, how far am I now with my music book collection? This month I finished up my clarinet book. It's not possible (really) to organize chronologically, so it is done by ensemble size. Like this: solo clarinet. clarinet and another instrument. clarinet and string quartet clarinet and wind ensemble. Some of these pieces were written pre- computer-music-software days; I had to type these pieces in. Specifically, the piece for solo clarinet. Next month, I release my book of songs, and then my works for guitar.

Maclay Gardens in Tallahassee, Florida. I went there with Charles Baker. It's a lovely garden just north of town.

I have been spending time now organizing all my acoustic music into groups and having the completed volumes bound. It gives me the chance to go back and see how much music (acoustic, again) I have written over the years. I see, for example, that I have written a lot of vocal pieces, from my little set of  Four Haikus (on poetry by Basho) to my recent Fibonacci Songs (poetry by Colin Bell). I'm not sure how to group everything though. I am working on my pieces for flute now. Should I include pieces that use flute as a soloist only, or should I put in pieces that have flute in the mix (like a piece for flute, clarinet, and piano)? I will probably include it, mainly because if I don't, the trio will end up by itself.

It always seems composition contests are weighted against you. I may not be the best composer in the universe, but I know I'm not terrible. I recently entered a choral composition contest, and, as usual, did not win. The composers that did win were listed, so I found some of their music on YouTube and listened. It was typical choir music that is expected today: sweeping, monotonic, and totally not worth listening to again. Eric Whitacre would be proud.  The second thing, and more disturbing, is that I would say they won because they were young and fresh-faced, and are working in music. I do not work professionally in music, and I think this works against the musician. Samuel Barber, for example, called Charles Ives  ''a hack who didn't know how to put a piece together." How nice. Amateur  composers are given short shrift, I guess.