Examples:

Please note that Resolution on this list is only there because I hate to leave things unresolved.,

Jack was a fine Christian man with a servant’s heart and a love for all those around him.  Jack was the guy who was always there to help his neighbors when they needed him, served as an elder at his church, sang in the choir, attended community functions and served at the soup kitchen in Thursdays.  He found joy in his service.  It made him complete.

Jack died and went to heaven and found himself standing before the pearly gates.  Saint Peter was there to greet him and asked him the question he asked of all people wanting to enter heaven.  “Why do you believe that you have a place here?”

“Well, Peter,” Jack Replied, “my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, died to cleanse me from my sins.  He promised me a place here with him.  I serve a risen savior.  You should find my name in that book of yours.  The name is Jack.”

Peter looked through the book of life for a few minutes and the suddenly smiled.

“You are so right, Jack.  Here you are!  Enter into the kingdom of God, oh good and faithful servant.  Here is your starry crown and a long white robe just your size.  When you enter these gates, just follow the street of gold to the top of the hill and you will find your mansion just to the right.” 

With that, the gates began to open, and the glory of heaven lay before him.  The wonder was truly beyond words.

But instead of entering the gates, Jack walked over to Peter and whispered, “I’m afraid there’s been a mistake, Saint Peter.  I don’t need a starry crown or fancy robe.  I don’t need a big house or streets of gold.  Save that for the next guy.”  With that Jack handed the robe and crown back to Peter and said “I don’t think you heard me correctly.  I serve a risen savior.  My work on earth may be finished but my work in heaven has just begun.  If you will kindly point me to the servant’s entrance, I’d like to get started.”

It is next to impossible to change the spirit of a servant’s heart.

It has been two weeks since my last blog.  I really have no excuse other than “life happens” which seems a little all too inclusive at times.  The truth is, I retired from my regular day job two weeks ago and I am dealing with clutter.  It is truly amazing the amount of clutter that I have managed to accumulate after working in the same place for 14 years.   There really wasn’t a lot of trash.  Just knick-knacks, presents from co-workers and vendors, miscellaneous office supplies that I needed to do my job that the company didn’t normally provide.  Not to mention plants, plaques, awards and office decorations that I just didn’t have the heart to get rid of.   I did give away as much as possible to fellow co-workers.  I gave away more plants than I kept.

The point is, when you have been doing something for a while, clutter accumulates.  I seem to attract it.  I have a most difficult time letting go.  All of which brings me to my music.

As long as I was making this transition, I started going through all my music files and I realized that I had eight or nine different version of some of my music.  I don’t know about you, but when I am writing along and manage to write myself into a corner I can’t find a way out, I have a tendency go back to the last melody or key change and start a rewrite.  But I don’t want to get rid of the original because I may need that dead-end passage for something else.  So I start a new version.  The chances are that I am never going to use that dead end passage but I just hate to throw anything away.  Just in case.

I know that this is not a good thing.  My desk gets cluttered with projects and I am forced to clean it off just so that I have a place to work.  It’s not that I am lazy.  I just have so much going on that staying organized is not as big of a priority at getting things done, even though I know in my heart of hearts that if I would put a priority on staying organized, it would probably allow me more time to work on the things that I enjoy so much.

Starting today, I am going to try harder to improve on this imperfection in my life.  I am going to try and remove the clutter (physical, emotional, and non-productive clutter) that prevents me from completing certain projects, such as getting my blog done in a time fashion.  We’ll see how it goes.  J

I was talking with a friend the other day and mentioned several of the projects that I have rolling around in my head that I am thinking about moving forward on.   Some are music related, others are not. All are ambitious.  His response confused me a little until I realized that the way he looks at things are pretty much the way most people look at such things. You see, he was concerned that I would start a project and that it would overwhelm me and then I would have to abandon it and possibly hurt the other people involved in it. I see the validity of his point.

But even more, I see the reason most important projects never get off the ground. Fear. Fear of failure. Fear of lack of funding. Fear of lack of personnel. Fear of lack of adequate space. Fear of lack of knowledge. Fear of looking stupid. Each one is legitimate. Each one is a very real fear. Each and every one can be  the silent killer of many a project before it even has a chance to expose itself, much less attempt to come to fruition.

I think that this may be the very reason that many noble causes never sees the light of day; leadership that backs down in the face of fear instead of facing it head on. I can hear some of you now, those fears are real.  I grant you that. They are real. But they are also tameable.

You see, I don’t have a problem of letting go of a project once it is under way. I’ve always been able to find someone to take the reins so that I can look to new projects. Many people are willing to step up and lead once a project is under way. The real problem is getting past the fear of starting a new project.

I face this in my music as well. When I want to start a new piece of music and see all the empty staves and it is somewhat daunting.   All those doubts and fears are hiding in the background. “Will anyone listen to it?” “Will anyone like it?” “Will I be able to finish it?” I’ve learned to treat it all as noise. It really is just background noise. Noise that if you pay attention to it will stop you in your tracks and keep you from moving forward.

I will grant you that some projects, upon examination and study, should probably be stopped before they get started, but project ideas are like mustard seeds and number of them are going to fall in fertile ground and grow into something beautiful if given the chance.  We should never allow fear to be the deciding factor into whether we sow our ideas or not.

Just think of how much we could all accomplish if we could just treat all those fears as noise. I know that there are going to be some projects that aren’t going to work out; maybe some projects that will run their course and the peter out. But that’s life. I have come to accept that fact that the one thing worse that failure is regret at never having tried.   Maybe I should tack that on my wall.

It used to be that when I came to work every day, my thoughts leaned toward trying to finish things, tie up loose ends and, if I was lucky, I might possibly begin a new project.  There were days I dreaded going into the office knowing what was waiting for me.  These days, each day is a new beginning. Yes, there are things that have to be cleaned up and details that have to be resolved but every single day holds the potential for a new project or the beginning of a new relationship. I’m not sure if that is because I am doing a greater variety of things or if the things I am doing have influenced me and just made me a more positive person. Maybe it’s a little of both.  And just maybe, it has a lot to do with putting my focus on those around me rather than letting life beat me down.

I am retiring from my job at the Tarrant Regional Water District on October 3^rd. That’s just a couple of weeks away. It is not a forced retirement and its certainly not time for me to retire but due to certain events in my life, I have a need to redirect my skills in another direction. I have plenty of opportunities. No, the American workforce is not through with me yet.  I’m considering getting into consulting or sales.  Maybe I will open a branch office in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex for one of the many vendors I know.  Maybe I will get to do some traveling.  It’s a big step for me and I am both excited and filled with trepidation.

But life it like that.  A door closes.  A door opens.  Projects end.  New projects begin.  I have an open mind towards the future and the doors that will open.  I relish the thought of new projects.  You get out of life what you put into it.  I have finished my first symphony and didn’t miss a beat starting a new suite for Chamber Orchestra based on the life of King David.  I have a friend that thinks I should start work on an opera.   I have photos that need editing, photos that need to be taken and photos that need mounting.  I hope to have more time for the arts as I take on these new challenges.  I want to be more involved with my family, my church and my community.

I am so blessed to have this opportunity. I have so many wonderful people in my life and I have the support of friends and family.

In truth, I have every reason in the world to hop out of bed in the morning and get started each and every day.  Who could ask for anything more?

Have you ever had a picture in your head created by the music you are listening to? What about smell?   Have you ever listened to a piece of oriental music and could swear you smell cherry blossoms or incense? What about texture? Do you remember listening to a piece of music that reminded you of someone scraping their fingernails across a chalkboard? Or heard music that made your skin crawl? Have you had a piece of music that made you taste the cotton candy at a carnival or taste the ocean on your tongue?

Music can do all that. It can transport the listener to places that they have never been and are not likely to ever go. Music can trigger the nerve ending of your skin, or your taste buds or bring you visual imagery.   Music is so much more than notes on a page. A good composer can even trick the ears of the listener by playing a theme and then slip into a variation that drops some of the notes in the theme but the listener never knows that they are gone. The listener hears them because they expect to hear them which allow the composer to expand his/her use of those voices and expand on the variation.

Well written music can take the listener to a different time and a different place. It can fill the listeners head with sights, sounds, actions, tastes and yes, feelings. It can even transcend space and time and take the listener into as ethereal space that is beyond what they recognize as reality. Music can bend time and shape space to give new meaning to the familiar. It can take the listener home or to somewhere far away. It can make the unreal a reality. It can take the listener to the depths of sadness or the heights of ecstasy.

Think about music that you are most familiar with (1812 Overture, William Tell Overture, Beethoven’s 5^th symphony, Claire de Lune, Penny Lane, Knights in White Satin, Bolero, Theme from Harry Potter or Star Wars, etc.) The list goes on and on. What makes this music memorable is that it takes the listener to someplace or time other than where they are.   It paints a picture complete with sights, sounds, texture and smells. It allows the listener to escape and embrace.

I want my music to do that. I am constantly working towards accomplishing that.   I want to take the listener places, show them things they have never seen and allow them to experience what they may never experience otherwise. Maybe that is unrealistic, but it is, never-the-less, my dream.

Do you remembering playing a game when you were young where everyone would sit in a circle and the first person would whisper a sentence in the second person’s ear and the second person would repeat it to the third person and so on all around the circle.  When you got to the end, the last person would repeat the phrase out loud and often with hilarious results because the sentence degraded as it moved through the circle.  It’s one of the problems with communication.  If you want your message delivered with complete accuracy, it is best to delivered to the intended ears yourself.

Now think about how you have just finished performing the premiere of a new piece of music that you have been sweating over for months.  This is the very first time the audience has heard a performance of this piece.  You know you aren’t going to please everyone but you really hope the majority of the audience enjoyed the piece.   You also know it is going to be tough when you hear someone say that they just did not enjoy it.  I’m here to tell you that it is alright.  If the audience liked it, if they disliked it, if they have an opinion about it positive or negative, you have managed to communicate with the audience.  You have elicited a reaction.  What you do not want is for the majority of the audience to leave with no opinion on what they just heard because that means that you have failed as a communicator.

This is just like when you give a speech about a topic that is close to your heart.  People may either agree or disagree with what you have said.  That is their right.  The really important thing to remember is that if they have an opinion, at least they heard you.  If they walk away with absolutely no opinion then you most likely failed as a communicator.

When I write a piece of music I am trying to elicit a response from both the musician and the audience.  This is more difficult that direct communication.  If I actually play the music, I can interpret the music through my dynamics, melodies and rhythms to try and reach those that are listening.  If someone else is playing the music that I have written, I am leaving that interpretation in the hands of a third party and yes, things can get lost in translation.  There has to be a certain level of trust between the composer and the musician.  The musician and the composer have to be in sync if the musician is going to accurately purvey the emotional content and meaning behind the piece that the composer intended.  A quality piece of music that has been appropriately played can leave an audience ecstatic or in tears, depending on the interpretation of the music.  It is when the audience leaves with no feeling at all that I have to accept the fact that I have failed to deliver my message as a composer.

To most composers, hearing someone sing or hum a tune that they have written is a huge compliment.  “They heard it.  They liked it.  They liked it enough to learn it.  My message got through!”  I have learned through years of hard knocks that they really don’t have to love it or hate it as long as they listen and actually have an opinion about it, I can be satisfied.  I learn from their opinions.  I learn how to make my music more interesting, more satisfying.  And maybe next time they will be whistling a tune when after hearing what I was trying to tell them.

I seem to do my best work when I am synced up; when I have a schedule and a plan.  I hate it when I get out of sync.  When that happens, I don’t get the things accomplished that I need to.  It’s definitely harder to stay motivated.  Not that I am inflexible, but as I said before, I am stubborn and I really need some regimen in my life that I can count on that allows me to plan and accomplish my goals.

Lots of things can interfere with my sync.  Lately, it’s been some minor surgery and the extended recovery time.  Between the meds, the pain and irritation, the soft diet and the lack of sleep because I can’t seem to sleep for more than a few hours lying down I am just not in sync.  That is not a grasp for sympathy.  I’m just saying that all these things combine make it extremely difficult to focus on any kind of work and even the simplest goal seems beyond the reach of my attention span.  This blog alone is a day late and has been eluding me.  I know that on the other end of this recovery (still a couple of weeks away) I will be better than ever and will have a greater ability to focus and keep things more organized than I did before the surgery.  So there is a positive to all this.

Illness is not the only thing that can break my rhythm.  Computer problems (don’t you hate system updates that cause hardware drivers to fail?), technical problems with phones, unexpected life events, outside forces rearranging your schedule and just the daily interruptions.  They all effect our rhythm.

Now sometimes, that can be a very good thing.  Sometimes we need our rhythm broken so that we aren’t working by rote.  Being creative means embracing the changes around us, but you still have to find the time and discipline to sit down and express that creativity.  This means that you have to at least generally have a common time that you can set aside and say, “This is my creative time” and then adhere to schedule to the best of your ability.

Sometimes when I am on my walk along the river, there are flowers along the bank.  These are very special flowers in that they behave like morning glories but are a lot larger.  Just as the sun comes up, these flowers open up their petals and face the sun.  You can watch them follow the sun.  When they sun gets too hot, they close back up and don’t open again until the next morning.  The window for watching this phenomenon is very short but it happens like clockwork.

That’s what we have to do.  We have to find our place in the sun as creative and figure out how to use that time to make the most of our creativity.  I figure that is God can work out a schedule for these unique and beautiful flowers, then He can do the very same thing for me and show me that time when it is best to embrace the Son.  There are going to be times when that just isn’t going to happen.  Life is not always cooperative.   Sometimes, the storm clouds brew and it’s too dark for those flowers to open up.  But just like those flowers, I look forward to those moments in the Son and it leaves me hopeful and grateful for those moments.  So much so that I can get past the clouds and the gray knowing that tomorrow is another opportunity.

There are always plenty of notes on the page; sometimes, too many. As composers, we often pay the most attention to the taming of those notes including their value, pitch, instrumentation, flow, tempo, accent and volume. That’s a lot to balance all at once when you are looking at a single note. Now add all the other notes included on a page and include all the parts and it becomes extremely difficult to separate them out. But just as important as taming all those notes; one has to listen to space between the notes. What do you hear? Do you hear the resonating pitch from the previous note? Do you hear silence? Do you hear other notes in the background? Do you hear background noise? It all becomes part of the music experience, good or bad. Composers don’t have to compensate for that crying baby in the fifth row but the musicians and the audience do, so it becomes part of the performance whether we want it to or not. The same is true of that rattling air conditioner or squeaking door.

Still, even in our solitude as we write, the composer has to listen to the space between the notes. That space can give rest or pause. It can emphasize the notes before and after it. It can leave an opening for additional background melodies. It’s kind of like outer space. You always hear people talk about the vacuum of space. Well, there really is no such thing. It’s just that the atoms and molecules are so much farther apart there. You hear people talk about the lifelessness of the dessert, but, in truth, the dessert is teeming with life, we just don’t always see it. Those empty spaces are a good place for the composer, musician and audience to regain perspective on where the piece is coming from and where it is going.

I’m not really like some modern composers who think that three minutes of silence can be called music, but I do have a healthy respect for the spaces in between notes. Those spaces remind me a lot about how life works. I have spaces between events in my life. Sometimes the spaces are short and sometimes they are long. Most of the time, I revel in that space. It’s restful. It’s needed. It gives perspective to the rest of my life. It allows me to spend time with my Creator. It allows me time to let things be. Some people fear the silence even though it is never really silent. I find that a little sad. There can be immense joy in silence. There can be strength in silence. So I encourage you to embrace the spaces between the notes and between the events in your life. They are a gift to be cherished.

I have finished my first symphony. It’s a lot like finishing a first novel. It’s almost like giving birth. First, there was this blank score and now, nearly an hour’s worth of music written for a chamber orchestra. The sweat, the starts and stops, the hesitations, the moments of sheer frustration and the other moments where you believe that you are a fool to have ever started such a task that can never be finished, the exhilaration as each movement comes together all pulling together for that final moment when you can announce the birth of a symphony.  But by the grace of God did this come together. For by myself I had neither the sill nor the fortitude to make this happen.

Finished is a relative word. That’s the hard part to admit. What I actually have is a digital symphony and the ability to print out a conductor’s score. Now, I get to create the individual scores for each of the instruments. You might think this simple since I already have the conductor’s score but in truth, it’s more complicated than it seems. Each instrument has a different way of viewing the score and there are idiosyncrasies that need to be addressed. The difficulty of this is augmented by the fact that I have never played with an orchestra so I have to rely on the kindness of others to help me succeed with this.

But these are details and I can do it. I just need to do a little each day, just like when I am writing the music. I just need to break it up into chewable pieces. That’s true of a lot of things in my life. Many of the things I set out to do are daunting. I used to be afraid of even trying to accomplish great things, but then I came up with a set of rules that makes it palatable. I will share them with you. Embrace what you want and ignore the rest if it suits you.

No job it too big if you:

a. break it into manageable parts

b. give yourself realistic expectations in regards to time

c. delegate whenever possible but never delegate what is your responsibility

d. choose your destination before you start your journey

e. dedicate you time and energy to the project

f. find ways to turn your weaknesses into strengths

g. take ownership

h. avoid nay sayers

i. Let God do the leading and have an open heart to what he wants accomplished.

I hope these help you with your next big project and I pray you don’t back away when given the opportunity. How tall the mountain is boils down to a matter of perspective.

I’ve never really considered myself a leader. I’m really more of a get-er-doner. Don’t get me wrong; we need both in this world. But get-er-doners don’t always make good leaders and vice versa. A leader should lead by example which means that sometimes he/she is a get-er-doner. The major problem with get-er-doners is that sometimes they forget that there are others around to help. They often insist on doing it on their own. They see a problem and set about rectifying it, sometimes without even checking to see if someone else is already working on the problem. There are even get-er-doners that believe that they don’t need anyone else and that they are quite capable of doing it all themselves. The thing that get-er-doners have to learn (including me) is that service is a privilege. It is its own blessing. When we decide we don’t need others involved we deny them the blessings that we are experiencing. It’s true, there are people who just don’t want to get their hands dirty, but if they do want to get involved, who am I to deny them? I do not always have to be at the head of the class or in front of the platoon. Maybe if I get out of the way, they will find that leadership gene and experience the blessings that I experience.

My music is like that. I’ve written things for solo instruments and I have put solos into my orchestral arrangements. There is certainly a time and place for going solo. But what happens when you add another instrument? Well, you get a lot more that harmony. You get all the tonal qualities, the craftsmanship of the creator of the instrument, the skill and emotion of the musician and yes, you get harmony. And if you add another instrument and then another, you compound all those qualities. There are things I can do with a group of instruments that I could never accomplish with a single instrument.

There is a time and place for both. I know I need to treat my life more like my orchestrations and allow the other instruments to come through. It not only accomplishes more but it makes life interesting. How boring life would be if I was the only person in the world, never able to harmonize with anyone else. How much more exciting life is when I take a back seat and just listen to the sound as others play and harmonize. Oh, there are moments when I have to step up to the plate but it takes nine men on a team to play baseball. Sometimes, it is just best to realize your place in the music and give it all you got. It may be a solo, it may be the melody, it may be the harmony, it may be the baseline but if you don’t do your part, something is off. Something is missing. The same is true if you don’t let others do their part. It is the coming together of all the parts that makes the difference between a nice piece of music and a masterpiece. Now imagine God as the conductor… That’s just awesome!

I was at the dinner table the other night with my wife, daughter and granddaughter and the ladies were discussing some remodeling ideas. My granddaughter wants her room to be black but we are not going to let her paint it black because it is too hard to paint over in the future.   But we have agreed to let her hang black fabric on the wall. My wife has an embroidery machine and she offered to teach granddaughter how to use the machine so that she could embroider various images on the cloth before it gets hung. I thought it was kind of a nifty idea but my granddaughter said no, she was not willing to learn to use the machine because she would never have a need to know how to embroider. That answer left me confused and I had to explain to her that anytime anyone was willing to teach someone a skillset it is foolhardy to refuse to learn that skillset. You never know when that skillset might come in handy. There may come a time when you need it to make a living and feed yourself. Knowledge is power. Skills reign supreme when you are job seeking.

I have a lot of skills. Some I learned on my own but many were taught to me by others. I am grateful for the opportunities that have been presented to me so that I can learn and expand on my skills. Our parents are probably our greatest teachers. My dad taught me life skills as well as how to use tools, repair the house, paint, work on cars, mow the lawn and drive a tractor. Mom taught me about perseverance, dedication and the importance of household chores. Lois Cook taught me to play the piano. June Sexton and June Kelly taught me to sing. My Uncle Wesley taught me preach and my Uncle Rolla and Aunt Genevieve taught me about service.  Mrs. Barnett, my first grade teacher, tried to teach me to read. My mother kept pushing until the lessons sunk in. My wife has taught me love, understanding and acceptance. Jim Lewis, Jim Brown, Mike Meece, Joe Konjevick and Charles Harrell taught me about design and implementation. My children taught me patience and God continues to teach me about unconditional love and the glories of the universe.

Although no one has taught me orchestration, a good friend from church, Jon Bell, has loaned me a wonderful book on orchestration. I am always learning new things and open to learning new things. It broadens my world and helps bring excitement to each and every day. I am so very grateful to all of the relatives, teachers, friends, acquaintances and strangers that have shared their amazing skills with me. I am humbled by it.

These days I do my best to pass these skills on to others. Sometimes I am more successful than others. The point here is that we all have skills; skills that have been graciously shared with us throughout our lives. We have a choice on what we do with those skills. We can hoard them and keep them to ourselves, our secret little cache of tools to get us through life, or we can choose to share them with others to help them improve their lives and fortunes. I choose the latter and I pray others continue to share their skills with me because, quite frankly, I don’t think I will ever know enough.