I listened to a great podcast today, the subject of which was actually podcasting itself, and blogging.  I know it's been a while since I blogged anything, but I'm newly energized to get back in the habit.

The fact is I've actually been busy with a ton of stuff lately!

First, I'm happy to say that the first SCOREcast podcast of 2009 is now available on iTunes.  This is the first episode of the "rebooted" SCOREcast, of which I'm on the leadership team.  It's a great episode, especially for "media composers"- folks who write music for film, TV, video games, and everything else you can think of.  This episode, Deane Ogden talks about putting together demo packages, which is sort of like a combination of cover letter, credits, and a demo CD, all packaged up to make a great impression.  The way I think of it, businesspeople have resumes, artists have portfolios, bands have press kits- media composers have demo packages.  It's a good segment that really has me thinking of how I can make mine more effective.  Another great segment is from Houston Haynes, who gives a review of this year's NAMM show and discusses some of the latest music and production technology.  I'm especially psyched about Cubase 5.  I don't claim any participation in this particular SCOREcast episode, but I'm working on a couple segments for future episodes.

Another big project I'm working on is for my church.  We're launching a new type of church service for Sunday nights called TXT3, and I'm in the praise band playing keyboards, doing sequencing, and maybe some percussion.  It's time consuming at the moment because we're working up a completely new repertoire of tunes.  Once we get a good 30 or so tunes nailed down, things should start to calm down a bit.

Meanwhile, I'm also working on augmenting my studio with the addition of another computer, swapping my old one to be a supporting machine to my new main machine (a.k.a. "The Big Switch").  I'm excited about this because the new machine should give me the speed and horsepower I need to work smoothly on my projects, which I've had challenges with in the past.  If you're not familiar with the all the composing and synth software out there these days, it can require an enormous amount of computing power.  Once I finish The Big Switch, I'll not only have a much better main computer, but I'll also have a dedicated video machine.  And that's pretty awesome.

Last, I'm still trying to find time to work on Shelter.  It looks like the project will not only have purely orchestral music, but I also plan to write some pieces for solo instruments, and enlist some guest musicians to perform on the CD.  Something new that is very exciting to me, I'm talking to a group of ladies that specialize in acapella music, to record a piece or two on Shelter.  I'm still figuring out what tune(s) to arrange for them, but I'll provide more details as things progress.

Definitely not bored!