Truman Retrospective

Recently, I had the pleasure of chatting over coffee with a fellow former composition student from Truman State University. My friend Adam (not sure if I have permission to use full names here) was in Austin for his honeymoon. I hadn't seen him in person in nine years, and it was great to hang out with him again. We talked about many things, mostly focusing on our respective new wives. But we also talked music, of course.

We talked about how we are finally at the age where we can look back on our lives in terms of periods, eras, or chapters--whatever you want to call it. I definitely noticed this a while ago, and I'm sure I've mentioned it in a recent blog post, but my mind has become more and more compartmentalized by those so-called chapters. Childhood and high school at "Home," then Truman, Bowling Green, Kansas City, St. Louis, Home again, and finally Austin.

I told Adam that in the process of setting up iTunes on my new computer, I've been rediscovering lots of old music with more mature ears. It's been a spastic shuffle of recollection--one day I'll be entrenched in certain music and memories and personal goals I had in Kansas City, the next day I'll be absorbed by Halloween fun. One night I'll practically time-travel to Truman, the next morning I'll wake up with tunnel-vision for a random other chapter.

Most of the time, I'm living in the present, so don't lecture me, and don't judge. Most of the time, I am mentally in the moment. I'm worried about bills, I'm having fun with my wife and friends, I'm cleaning the house. But there's always something tugging at the back of my mind. Sometimes it's just a fleeting feeling, other times it's a persistent temptation to over-indulge in music I've heard a thousand times.

A couple months ago, I was singularly obsessed with redeeming the two years I spent in Bowling Green, Ohio, possessed by a pure hatred of BGSU and a deep sense of urgency for how "time is running out," how I have fewer and fewer allies or connections as more temporal distance is put between us. More on that later, I suppose. I don't want to think about BGSU right now, because that one in particular is a slippery slope, and today I have a different focus.

But I have recently collected a considerable amount of images from different "chapters," gathered from Google, Flickr, etc. and put them into a folder for sharpening my focus at a later juncture. Little details like the face of a background building or the color and texture of a table can jog memories of bigger details. So I cycle through these random shots as my desktop wallpaper. Right now, my laptop's wallpaper is the view of Ophelia Parrish, the fine arts building at Truman, from the view of Normal Street. Tomorrow, it will be a different place, a different time. Actually, tomorrow I'll be really busy, "living in the present." Tomorrow, I won't have time for these shenanigans, but I digress.

I'm not even that old. I turn 33 in a few weeks. Imagine what I'll be like when I'm 73?

Anyway, so, in small part due to seeing and talking to Adam about our music, it got me thinking about how it has now been ten years since Truman (for me, anyway). 2004 to 2014. I remember thinking back then, "In ten years, where will we all be? How successful will we be? Where will we end up?" I never imagined I'd be here.

But I just wanted to post something I typed up today. I started yet another Word file outlining yet another big project that will probably never get done, but I listened to all my recordings from my undergraduate years, and I wrote the following draft of liner notes:


Truman Retrospective:
Student Compositions Revisited (10th Anniversary)

I finished my Bachelor’s Degree in December 2003, but was still actively involved in the composition studio for the spring semester of 2004, taking graduate level lessons, participating in master classes, and composing for student collaborations and recitals. I left Kirksville, MO in July 2004.

In June 2014, I was looking back on a decade of my life, and my thoughts fell upon my portfolio of compositions from my undergraduate years. Many of them were never recorded live, and the MIDI representations were flawed or out of date. If I could, of course, I would go back in time and change things about all of the pieces—such is the nature of being a composer. But the 10-year anniversary mark of leaving Truman felt like a good impetus for revisiting those compositions.

This album is the result. Some pieces were simply re-mastered with more recent digital instruments. Some pieces were expanded with new movements. Some pieces that were never really considered “finished” were edited to a bit more personal satisfaction. Still others were used as source material for new works.

There were other compositions from those years that I did not revisit, for various reasons. Pieces calling for vocalists were not included. Student film scores and electronica were left alone; my focus here was on chamber music. Some composition files were simply lost due to data corruption long ago, the music itself forgotten in time.

This is by no means a comprehensive anthology of student works, nor is it a “best of” selection. It is simply a collection of pieces I was compelled to “refurbish” in different ways. It is a partial retrospective of the early years of my journey as a composer.

  

--TJS

So that's what I wrote, but I have yet to actually work on those old compositions.

And now I find myself thinking about what to do with all this music I'm so dissatisfied with. I cringe at every single piece in my iTunes playlist from Truman. Either I'm cringing because of my own writing, or I'm cringing from specific memories surrounding the pieces. In so many ways, I almost wish I could tweak history. In so many ways, almost I wish I could do it all over again. But not really. Only an unwise man would truly want to change petty little details that don't matter to anyone anymore.

Actually, I can think of only three people, maybe four, who would even be interested in hearing the results. Five, if you count my wife, and even that's suspending disbelief.

In all likelihood, this will never get done. Because it's not that important. It matters to me, yes. To curb my regrets about Truman, it is something I must do at some point. But it's a low priority. Today, it was a high priority, but now I am coming back to my senses. What I'm saying is that, by the time I actually do "finish" the Truman Retrospective tracks, it will probably be well after the 10th anniversary. And nobody makes a 12-th anniversary album. That's just stupid.