Seriously, though, I'm just looking ahead to this Christmas season, and it's going to be weird. It's going to be good and bad. I'm really bummed I can't play a Christmas concert with the Saratoga Orchestra, or with my brass ensembles, or play Christmas tunes in front of Safeway. On the other hand, I do get to record Christmas Festival with the Saratoga Orchestra's brass and percussion, and I do get to play Christmas music with the community band horns, so that's nice.
Aside from performance, I really hope to sell a lot of Christmas music this season. I have started on writing Christmas duets based off of my solo Christmas books and they're are slowly progressing. And my solo books will soon be on a promotional video from Brookwright music (which I'll share, for sure!). So, I'm excited about what this year's holidays will bring in.
On a different topic, I got involved with something else really cool last week. Ever heard of Jamulus? It's a computer program that pretty much eliminates the lag in audio over the internet (so long as you have an ethernet cable hookup). There's no video on the program, just audio. But it works amazingly well! So I'm a part of the Seattle Collaborative Orchestra this year because it's run by Anna Edwards of the Saratoga Orchestra and she invited me to play. And they broke us up into chamber groups, several different ones, actually. The first part of rehearsal was more of a logistical "figure stuff out" segment, but int he second half of rehearsal I played with a wind quintet and it went great! I was awesome playing along with them while I heard them all playing together in my headphones. And we'll be rehearsing this way every week, with the hopes of getting our performances recorded somehow. It should go well and get awesome.
So somehow the musical performance world is making things work. Professional orchestras are on stage again, although limited. And audiences are in the seats, although limited. Colleges are continuing to run and students are getting lessons and to play together. Community groups are figuring out how to make things work. So, even though COVID-19 cases seem to be going up, people are still connecting together to make and hear live music. Way to go, everyone. Keep it up.
Take care and value music.