Saturday, January 3, 2009

musings for the new year

What a crazy, crazy year this has been.

I suppose it wouldn't be a stretch to say that 2008 has been the best year of my life. Some amazing things have happened over the past twelve months, both in my personal life and in my career. Some of those things may lead somewhere; others will never happen again, but I will always remember those experiences fondly and without regret.

It's impossible to say what 2009 will bring, but I'll throw out some predictions nonetheless. My musical odyssey is taking some interesting paths, and I truly don't know where I'll end up, except that I foresee myself composing on commission far more regularly than before. It's nice to acknowledge, for the first time, the actual *possibility* of writing music for a living. Not that it would be easy, or that it would be possible to do exclusively (an ideal which remains, for now, out of reach.) If anything, 2009 promises to be an even busier year than 2008, work-wise -- though perhaps one with less concentrated bursts of insanity.

The absence of any word on "Gooby", and the relatively intense concert music life I'm now engaged in, means that my film music aspirations -- sadly -- will probably have to lie dormant for a while. At least, until I have the head space to pursue that front again.

The wildcard is the videogame music side of things, which may still have the potential to prove promising. For now, I'm leaving that it the capable hands of Aaron, my Lightmotif partner, for whom this project means the most.

As for my personal life...I suppose there's really no use in guessing, but it doesn't hurt either! My gut feeling is that if I'm lucky, I might exit the year with an interesting story or two, but that nothing earth-shattering will happen, partly because I will probably be too focused on managing the chaos of work to really responsibly take care of that side of things, and partly because...well, I'm still healing.

As productive as this winter break has been, I'm still behind, and that's a slightly depressing thought. I've finished the celtic band & orchestra piece, and on top of that a 20-minute string quartet that was commissioned for a wedding (by the same student who originally commissioned my Violin Concerto.) But I have yet to finish "Rebirth", the bass clarinet & piano piece, or the arrangement for my teacher's percussion concerto, and new projects are popping up all over the place. Not to mention my duties at the Mississauga Symphony, the Sneak Peek Orchestra, and...teaching. I've never had so much to juggle all at once.

Still, there's always room for a video game or seven.

I'm getting a bit better at controlling my character in "Mirror's Edge", although I still have the tendency to die in silly ways at regular intervals. The physics of the game are exhilarating -- I just wish I could 'sight-read' a level as proficiently as I could with an old-school side-scroller like, say, Mario 3. I know that it's entirely possible if you have a really well-trained eye for virtual 3D environments. Aaron comes pretty damn close.

The new "Prince of Persia" game (whatever it's called) is fun, amusing (the dialogue is hilarious), and very pretty to look at. It's also extremely easy, even for me. You can't die because you have a sidekick who will rescue you every time you mistakenly jump off a wall into a chasm. The combat is also easy, and slightly ridiculous in that the screen tells you what buttons to press every time you engage an enemy. But I suppose it's meant to be as un-intimidating as possible. The music by Inon Zur (of "Champions of Norath" fame) is as wonderful and as bizarrely spotted as ever.

"Wipeout" is just fantastic. It's a very simple, futuristic racing game (think of the pod-racers in Episode I), complete with weapons (a la Mario Kart.) There aren't enough tracks, though, and it does get repetitive after a while. I am certain that in the future, I will grow nostalgic for this game, because of my current habit of eating instant noodles with Aaron very late at night while playing it.

The multi-player classics, like "Smash Bros. Brawl," still get airtime once in a while.

Then, of course, there is "Rock Band." I still refuse to sing, but I finally feel as though I'm making some progress into developing my fake-guitar and fake-drumset skills. For guitar, I'm comfortable attempting many of the songs on HARD now, and I hope to graduate to HARD for drums soon... It's still embarrassingly difficult to make any sort of real headway in "Panic Attack" on these levels, though.