1) Do you want to focus on hardware or software?
2) Do you want to create and have creative freedom?
3) Do you want to work with customers (customer focused) or be on the back end of a company (company focused)?
4) Do you want to consistently learn new languages as technology changes?
5) Do you want to fix other peoples software code problems?
6) Do you want to fix computer hardware issues?
7) Is programming more stable than computer repair?

(this is just a basic list of some of the questions that are running through my mind)

Unfortunately, some of these questions are harder for me to answer. I do know that I have things like this running through my head:

C++, Java, Perl, PHP, MySQL, A+, Visual Basic, .net, Linux+, Microsoft certifications, Cisco certs….ahhhh! So much to think about.

Regardless of what I decide to focus on, I know that I’m going to be completing the CompTIA A+ Certification. What I do after that is up in the air right now, as I look into programming and see if it something that can serve my personality type.

From a logical perspective, I said yes to take this class because it is being offered to me for free from a great guy, who wants to see me succeed and do well within the tech industry. I have nothing to lose by taking the class, and it is a good opportunity to get introduced to another side of the tech industry I haven’t really been exposed to that much. I’ve been very fortunate to have this opportunity, and because of that I feel I need to take it. The best way to see if you like something, is to try it, and getting classroom experience is a good way to start in my opinion. Especially when it comes to something that could potentially become a career path. The school I’m currently taking my A+ certification classes from also offers classes in many of the things I mentioned above. If I do well in the introduction to Java Programming class (as well as enjoy it!) I’m going to be considering getting a base level down in programming so that I could look into getting into that job market.

In many ways, it may seem like I’m indecisive when it comes to what exactly I want to do in the tech industry, but for me it comes down to just being open about the possibilities of my future. I don’t need to repeat anymore that I’m unhappy with my current job title and position and I wish for more, and see more for myself. I don’t want to get stuck, and the best way for me to move forward is to make the steps I need to, to get to where I want to be in my life. I want to be able to financially support myself, and with my current income, that is not possible.

In other news, It looks like I will be having a composition I recently completed premiered sometime within the next academic year! “Transition and Awakening” for flute quartet is going to be taught to a group of college students in Georgia next school year. I’m working out the details, but I’m very excited about this, and potentially heading down to the school and working with the performers on the day of the recital. It would be a really awesome experience, and I miss directly working with the performers of my works.

That’s it for now!

-Kyle

List of Compositions to complete:

Solo Works
Piccolo
Flute – Romantic style piece, “Jig”, and others.
Alto Flute
Bass Flute – Low Register stuff
Oboe
English Horn
Clarinet – 3 Sketches for A Clarinet (also other A Clarinet pieces)
Saxophone
Viola
Cello
Trumpet
Baritone
Tuba
Marimba
Soprano
Tenor
Bass
Soprano Sax
Tenor Sax
Alto Sax

Solo with Piano:
Piccolo
Flute
Alto Flute
Bass Flute (unamped)
Bass Flute (amp)
Clarinet
Soprano
Tenor/Baritone
French Horn
Trumpet
Marimba
Soprano Sax
Tenor Sax
Alto Sax

Chamber Music:
Piccolo, Flute and Piano
Flute, Alto Flute and Piano
Flute, Bass Flute and Piano
Piccolo and Bass flute
Flute Duo/Trio/Quartet/Quintet
Flute Choir (up to 8 parts)
Flute and Clarinet
Flute and Marimba
Bass Flute and Clarinet
WW Quintet (standard)
Brass Quartet (Trombone)
Brass Quartet (Trumpet)
Trumpet, Trombone, Violin, Cello
Flute, Marimba and Trumpet trio
Sax duets and trios
Sax Quartet (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass)
String Quartet
Soprano and Alto with Piano
Soprano and Bass with Piano
Tenor and Bass with Piano

Bassoon Quartet/Quintet/Sextet

Small to large ensembles:

2 piccolo/3 flute, 2 oboe, 3 clarinet, 2 bassoon, 2 alto, 1 tenor sax, 1 baritone sax, pitched percussion, snare drum (16 musicians).

2 Flutes, 2 Clarinets, 2 Bassoons, and 2 French Horns (double quartet)

Early Bands (Elm. and JH)

Beginning Band (HS)
Intermediate Band (HS)

Symphonic Band (with English horn, Soprano sax, and alto flute) (C)
Symphonic Band with Flute Quartet (Picc, C, alto, bass). (C)

Picc/2 flutes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 violins (2 parts), 2 violas (1 part),
4 cellos (2 parts), 2 Trombones, 2 trumpets, 1 tuba,
3 mixed percussion (24 musicians)

String Orchestra

Full Orchestra

Men’s choir (TTBB)
Treble Choir (SSAA)
Mixed Choir (SATB)

I would not be surprised if Apple sells 1 Million units alone or more in pre-orders on the new phone. For the first time that I can recall, the Apple store went down because it was being hit so hard by consumers who wanted to put them name in the pre-order hat. With many 1st generation iPhone users willing to now upgrade to the new device + the incentives that AT&T is giving to many iPhone 3G owners I expect the new phone will sell very quickly and will become very popular very fast. I think in this case, the “Gizmodo-gate” will help overall sales because people are aware of the phone at a much higher level than normal. It received A LOT of press, and because of that everyone has seen it already. The keynote even played on it a little bit at the announcement, which was the best thing for them to do. Although it wasn’t an intentional leak, I see it doing nothing but helping sales of the device at this point for the average consumer.

Every place that has the iPhone up for pre-order today has had problems. The AT&T internal servers have been going up and down, and because the Apple store accesses those servers to verify what price you will pay for the phone (either subsidized price, or unsubsidized, etc based on current contract, or contract renewal) they haven’t been able to have success either. This has left many people upset, but I suspect many of the vocally angry people are some of the more informed consumers, that feel they MUST have the pre-order in for the device as soon as humanly possible.

So, were you one of the ones that got booted out of either AT&T’s system or Apple when you tried to pre-order? If you got kicked out of pre-ordering, are you still going to buy the device as soon as you can get into the system? I hope that many people were ‘just talking’ and that they truly been’t going to change their mind on the device they were going to buy just because of a huge flood of interest in the device by others. Please let me know your thoughts!!

-Kyle

What else is going on?

Movie:

Fortunately, I have a lot going on and that I am going to be doing within the next couple months. The movie I’ve been composing for: Abandoned Allies; is getting closer and closer to editing being complete. This means that once all the editing is done that I will be working with the director to work out the music and thematic development to help tell the story. I’m really excited about this, and since being on the project since January *as the composer* It has been really exciting to see the editing come together and the movie’s form start to take place! Camden has been a pleasure to work with, and I’m excited about getting closer to this project finishing so that we can start to get it out.

First Choral Piece:

I decided that it was time to write a choral piece. So, I started to go through the people that I chat with a regular basis with on twitter and I stumbled upon (@missxkaren) and her work. I contacted her and asked her if she would be interested in doing a collaboration piece. She has been writing poetry for years, and has written over 200 poems! So, since we started talking about it, I have started composing a piece called “Frozen in Time” for SATB based on a poem by Karen-Maeby McCormick. I’m excited about this project, and will be talking with local choral directors to see if I can possibly get it performed!

National Band Association Composers Competition:

I will be entering in the 2012 NBA Composers competition and to be prepared for that I am going to have to write as much of the piece as I can this year so that I can work on getting it performed and recorded so that I’m able to submit it for the contest! I’ve started doing my preliminary research and I know a band director who will be willing to play it after it is done J I have an idea of what I’m going to do with it, I just need to make sure that I can execute it well.

Flute + Electronics set:

Currently, this project is on hold. I don’t have the time to invest in it with all of the other projects I have going on. I hope to complete it by the end of next year though!

Flute quartet:

I will finish the flute quartet this year. I have the first movement done and now I am just waiting for the movie project to be over so I can finish it. I’m very pleased with the first movement, and you can hear a sample of it in my music section of my web page!

Potential collaborations:

I have started to set up potential collaborations with some other people I know on twitter. Some composers, and some visual artists. I hope that these end up happening after I’m done with the movie and that as I continue to finish projects that I continue to add them. I’ve started to realize that I really like working with people (I know this sounds funny, but I’ve spent a lot of time as a composer locked away by myself, and not sharing my work!).

CompTIA A+ Certification:

I start my 2^nd class for my certification on the 16^th of this month! I’m ready for the classes to be over and to have the certification, because I haven’t been able to give it the time I’ve really needed to this year with the composition stuff. It is going to continue to be a challenge for me to balance my composition, studies, and personal/family life!

I will feel much better about things overall once I get my first tech certification done so that I can start to prepare for the others that I have planned out. I really want to get into a career that can and will help support my artistic endeavors and I feel the tech industry is the right one for me. I just need to make it happen and continue to move forward!

Thanks for your support as always,

Kyle

The way the competition will work:

All composers have been given from April 21st to May 14th to score a video (1 video; 2; 2 minute clips) downloadable from Vimeo.

Once submissions are received, TILT will do another blog posting with the entries and people will have until May 31st to cast their vote for which they like the best.

After all votes are received, the top 3 entries will be considered by the TILT team and someone will be selected an offered the opportunity to score the movie. The winner will be announced on June 3rd!
(paraphrased from TILT website)

Here is my entry!

Voting starts May 17th!

To say that I want this opportunity is an understatement. I know that I would do everything I can to give them what they are looking for to score their film, and I hope that I can at least make it to the top 3 so that I’m truly ‘in-the-running’. I’ve talked with Phil, and interacted with other members of the team, and they seem like a great group of motivated and talented people. To be able to work with them would be a great opportunity and a pleasure, and I’d love to be part of their creative team to help bring their vision to life. If you’d like more information about TILT, you can go the following places:

TILT Website
Twitter: Phil (director), King and Keck (writers), TILT on twitter

While working with Camden, the Director of Abandoned Allies, I realized that I really enjoy the process of creating music for someone else’s vision. It is a very different creative process than what I would normally do when just composing music for me and it is something I really enjoy. I’ve had nothing but a great experience working with Camden, and she has been a great motivator for me to move forward to look into other scoring opportunities. I’m still currently working on Abandoned Allies, and progress is being made as the film comes together and more research and interviews are added. I’m really happy to be part of Camden’s team, and as more happens with Abandoned Allies, I’ll post! I’m meeting with Camden on Thursday to see the movie where it stands now and to talk about musical needs. Thank you Camden for your support and faith in me as we work together, now and hopefully in the future!

If you like my entry, when the contest is open for voting, I ask that you please vote for me and my submission to get me in the top 3. Again, I’d love this opportunity to work with the TILT team, and I can’t do this by myself. I need the support from those who like my music and who want to see me succeed in this area of music composition. I’ll be posting updates here as I find out what is happening with the contest, and you can check out other samples of my work at my home page, kyleowen.com!

Thanks again,

Kyle

OS 4 will be released sometime this summer…not soon enough. So, here is my basic breakdown on the features and what they have to offer.

Multitasking:

I’m very happy that Apple has added multitasking to the list of things that the iPhone will be able to do. For many of it’s users, we wanted it awhile ago and were just willing to deal with not having it. The UI is okay, but I don’t like the fact that it will push the current app up. I would rather have it up over as a ‘pop up’ and just switch that way. It is a personal design aesthetic like I think I’d personally like more than what they showed, but I’m not going to complain about having multitasking. Now, to be fair, it isn’t “true multitasking” in all cases, because some apps are just essentially paused instead of keep going in the background, but I think for the user that is best anyways. You don’t want a game to keep going when you need/want to do other tasks. The ability to use music streaming apps and geo location apps in the background will be a big plus overall with the phone. I’ll stream last.fm in the background while I do other things on my phone.

iAds:

This honestly makes me nervous. I understand that Apple is directly competing with Google in this and that all they want to do (besides make money) is to show that they can compete. It may be nice fo devs to integrate their ads better into the app, but I hope that with paid apps we won’t see them. Free apps I’m okay with seeing them, as long as they aren’t overwhelming. I don’t have the issue with Apple. I have the issue with devs getting greedy and making ads obtrusive. Overall, it just makes me nervous, and for now until I see it in a real life application I can’t judge it.

Application Folders:

This will finally allow me to store apps on the iPhone that I don’t use all the time. I still expect to use the search feature to find most apps, but at least I can keep my app pages down to 1 or 2. The first page of apps I use often, and the 2nd of apps I don’t use all that much but still want to have on hand just incase. The UI is nice, but it isn’t what I imagined.

Universal mailbox:

I like having my e-mail addresses separate, so this isn’t a big deal to me, but I’m sure there are a lot of people that are really happy about this. They also have threaded messaging, which is nice, but again, I’ve learned to live without it.

iPad:

It won’t be available for the iPad until Fall. To me, this bites. I knew that the new OS would run on the iPad, I was just expecting them to release it at the same time as the iPhone update. It isn’t really logical to me that they are waiting to add it to the iPad, but that is the decision they are making. It just means that I will be buying the iPad when multitasking is an option. I really like the iPad, after having played with it in person for about 2 hours now, but I’m still going to wait until I can do several things at once and use it the way I want to.

Other:

Spell check – Finally!

Bluetooth keyboard – Finally, although I don’t see myself using it with something other than the iPad

User-defined wallpaper – Just like the iPad…finally, it is here. Will I use it? I doubt it, but we’ll see.

Tap to focus on video as well as 5x digital zoom for camera – Video: about time; Camera: meh

Playlist creation – I use smart playlists for that, and that is sufficient for me. I actually keep very little music on my iPad now that I use last.fm for most of my music discovery.

iBooks for iPhone – This isn’t a big deal to me, but I’m sure it will make the people who plan on using the iBooks store heavily happy. They are trying to make it available on more devices and I believe that they are responding to Amazon here.

More enterprise features – I don’t use it, but again the people who do will be happy I’m sure.

Game Center – meh. I don’t see the value in it yet, but I hope to later.

Conclusion:

Overall, it is good that Apple is updating the iPhone OS. It is about time, and some of the things they are fixing I’m very happy about. Most of it I am able to gloss over though because I’m not an App developer and truly can’t understand the power of everything announced until I see how it affects me as an end user.

oh, it will only work on the iPhone 3GS and the new hardware they are most likely coming out with in June/July. I have a 3GS because I’m fine upgrading every 2 years. I’m sorry for the 3G owners who will have to upgrade to get multitasking and other features, but I understand that Apple wants to push newer hardware with faster processors.

-Kyle

Check out Apple, Gizmodo, Engadget, and any other tech sites you enjoy to see videos and pictures of the features.

I have this strong desire to create, simply create. I love to play with sound, because it is what I exposed myself to the most when growing up being active in the music world. I also love to look at and enjoy movies, paintings, and other various types of art, because even though they aren’t musical, I still get musical ideas and impressions from them. I miss taking the time to focus on this more, and expose myself to new various types of art.

Today, overall, was a great day. I finished the first of my 3 classes for the computer certification that I’m working on. I’m very happy that I passed the class exam so that I can move on to the next, but it wasn’t easy to get there. The material itself wasn’t hard, but forcing myself into the logic part of my brain has been the hardest part of it. It has been a struggle for me to make sure that I’ve been putting in the time to study, and work on everything to prepare myself for future job opportunities and goals that I have. I would find myself composing or listening to music, or working on my main website, or doing something other than studying the facts needed to do well in the computer world. It is nice to finally put a name to so many things that I’ve known of (conceptually) for a long time, but the other part of my brain goes “okay…you know this stuff..you have been dealing with it for years…why do you need to put a formal name to it?” I had similar thoughts when I first started studying music in college. I knew I needed the theory, but part of me didn’t want to learn it. I had blissful ignorance being able to explore the sounds without being limited to traditional music theory that is beat down all musicians throats when they go to college. I know many people will disagree with this, but I truly feel that the name of certain compositional and theory techniques don’t matter in the real world of composing. They are good to know to help you analyze and be more objective of your music, but the reality is, they aren’t NEEDED to do well.

I started exploring composition techniques when I was really young, and just found that I learn more when I can explore when I’m not told what my ‘limitations’ are. Terms – by definition – limit exploration. They make things more ‘cut and dry’ and give a name to things that really don’t need to be named. I find this to be much more true in the music world than the computer world, but to a degree it applies. Again, I’m not suggesting musicians don’t need to know anything about the music they are playing or creating, but I think sometimes education doesn’t help people understand things, that it just puts a limitation on what a concept is. Perhaps my overall opinions on education is more fluid, or it is possible I’m dumb and I have no idea what I’m talking about . I just don’t feel EVERYTHING needs to be given a name for us to be able to interact with it.

I’m still learning new things about music and computers on a daily basis. I love it, and I love to learn and explore new concepts. Sometimes more than anything else though, I just want to be downed in art, creation, and emotions from various forms of art, that I just want to get lost in it, and not remember all of the technical stuff that I’ve been taught about it. Understanding art, on a technical level, can make it harder to enjoy it. I find myself analyzing music as I listen to it, because that is what I was taught to do, and quite frankly, sometimes I just want to be able to turn it off!

I’m sorry if I lost you in my slight rant…I just hope someone somewhere can understand what I mean and the points I’m trying to get across. Now that my first computer class is done, I hope to be able to focus more on art and content creation. My vacation with my family is at the end of May and as soon as I get back I will be starting on my 2nd CompTIA A+ certification class. I’m excited about it, and I’m also excited about writing more music for the movie project that I’m a part of! I feel incredibly lucky that I’m able to expose my creative experience with people, and network with other people that can also just love the arts for what they are: controlled and sometimes uncontrolled self expression.

-Kyle

They interviewed me about Gazelle.com, which was a service that I used back in July of last year, and blogged about here. The post has gotten off and on traffic since I wrote it, but either way it was nice to be interviewed for something on the news. Next time I get interviewed I want to get interviewed about my music. I don’t know if it can/will happen, but it is still nice to dream.

Here is the video from the broadcast:

I have the option of “locking things down” and making all of my music and projects “paid only” but that doesn’t help spread the openess that music promotes. Realistically, I’m lucky if I have 1 or 2 fans of my music. Mainly because I haven’t put it out there for people to have access to it. I’m sure that as I put more and more of my music out there and expose myself to more people, I will eventually have 10 fans, and maybe even 100. I know that I’ll greatly appreciate anyone that says they like my music, and I’m willing to take criticism and feed back from those who don’t. I want to better myself as a composer, and one of the only ways I can do that is to get feedback from those who know about music and those who just enjoy listening to it.

Can a “freemium” (free content with an optional buy-in) business model work for a composer? I’m unsure if it really can. I think that I’d rather give my music away and find out where my fans are, and if they exist, rather than holding onto my music without anyone able to hear it. I think I have more to gain by giving it away, even if it comes down to just getting feedback. Yes, I’d love to make money off my music, but I don’t know if it is realistic to think that I ever will. One can always hope, but it isn’t something that I expect. I have invested a lot of time and money into my music education and experience and I hope that it translates in my final product, but I can’t make people decide that my music is ‘good’ or ‘respectable’. Ideally I’d give my music away, and then just give a way for people to donate to me if they wanted or felt my music was worth the money. That way it would be completely opt-in, and hopefully all parties would be happy.

I do have some larger goals that I still want to accomplish: Getting my music published, and getting a CD made (even if only digitally distributed). I feel they can both happen, it is just a matter of how. With everything digital now, it makes it much easier to distribute music (PDF, MP3s, etc) and I want to utilize it the way that ‘my audience’ wants. So I guess the best way for me to get my name out there will also still allow me the opportunities to accomplish those bigger goals. Realistically though, no matter what, I’d just be happy if people were playing my music and talking to me about it, outside of the small group of people that know about it.

I’m currently in the process of setting up my main domain, that will have samples of my music and information about my music and projects. I hope that this will become a good way for me to start interacting with people and to share my music with them. I plan on having samples, if not full piece downloads (PDF, MP3) for people to have and interact with. I just have to do some soul searching and decide how I want to peruse these goals while still keeping everything else going.

Any ideas or thoughts?? Please comment.

Thank you,

-Kyle

In many cases the music I write, writes itself. I do editing and I move things around. Once I got used to the process of composing it has become very natural to me. To write music for “someone else” is a different process. You cater to different needs and you have to try and be 100% objective and willing to make changes when the other people don’t like or agree with what you did. You have to be willing to change things you pour your heart into to make it work. A lot of give-and-take will be essential to a successful project. Fortunately I’m working with people who love what they do and are just happy to have me as part of the team.

Last night I gave the director/producer and music coordinator samples of my music and they listened to it as we spoke music. So much of last night was spent talking about the overall tone of the movie and the roles that the music needs to play in it. My biggest challenge will be taking music from the natives (in the movie) and using it as inspiration for some of the music I’ll be writing. I want to create music to honor them, not insult, so the way I write it will be done with as much research as I can beforehand to insure that tonally I’m where I need to be. This is a fun challenge in itself.

I’m nothing but excited for this project and I will be trying to document everything I can regarding my experience so that I can learn from
It more. I have software that I need to get comfortable with (outside of Sibelius) and it needs to become a tool and not an obstacle. On top of working on my Computer Certification I also have software I need to learn!!! Time to take my notes and start writing music.

-Kyle