On Waiting

"Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can't take it, and my heart is just going to cave in." -American Beauty 

"Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird." -Anne Lamott

"...wait for the gift my Father promised..." -Acts 1:4

In my last blog entry I wrote how I am motivated to do certain activities such as reading, composing, and lesson planning for no reason other than the pure and intrinsic joy that they give me. Indeed, I am so often engrossed and impassioned by the beauty and diversity of life. God has blessed me with so many gifts and there is just so much I want to do, and see, and experience, and be in this life. I want to be a great teacher. I want to continue to write and share music and grow in my composing abilities. I want to read everything I can get my hands on. I'd like to write books and stories of my own. I want to travel and see the world. I want to make an impact on those I meet and leave the world a better place than I found it. More than anything, I just want to be a great person, and, someday, a great husband and father.

All these goals are well-worth pursuing, but I have recently been struck by how I cannot pursue all of them well at this ripe young age of 22. I compose and read and write and travel and meet and relate and love when I can, but the reality is that the vast majority of my time continues to be consumed by the pursuit of my teaching dream. I might still be able to do all these things in my lifetime, but for now, I have to wait. My dreams of composing and reading and writing and traveling and meeting and relating and loving have largely been slowed down as I chase after the ideal of becoming a great teacher.

With a year in classrooms already under my belt, I am not yet a great teacher. In fact, I'm not even really a very good teacher right now. I struggle to translate my enthusiasm for my content into lessons that are engaging and relevant to my students. I struggle to maintain control of the class and earn student respect. I struggle to connect with my kids and remember what it was like to be in their shoes. I struggle to do anything that will have a lasting impact when I must share a room and classes this year with a considerably more experienced (and Type-A) co-teacher/mentor. I work, and work, and work, and struggle, and struggle, and struggle, and then I work and I struggle some more. And still I am not great. I have been encouraged so many times by so many people that I am going to be a great teacher and positively impact hundreds if not thousands of students. But, for now, I have to wait.

It's even harder to try to achieve all my dreams of greatness when I'm not feeling well. I have generally considered myself to be a pretty healthy person. However, last semester I just felt exhausted and run down all the time. I would come home and take 2-3 hour naps, then sleep for 7-8 hours, then wake up the next morning with a headache feeling just as tired as I did the night before. My coach at MTR was concerned and I was referred to a doctor. I found out that I not only have mild anemia, but also sleep apnea. (For those who do not know, apnea is a sleep disorder where you repeatedly stop breathing during sleep. Your body jolts you awake, you gasp for breath, and then you promptly fall back asleep without remembering any of it. Unfortunately, when these episodes happen every few minutes, you never get to the deepest, most restful stages of sleep. Your quality of life- and long-term health- suffers accordingly).

At first I was surprised and a bit shocked to learn that I had sleep apnea. However, I've come to be less surprised by it. It's simply a genetic inheritance. After a couple of nights doing overnight sleep studies, I am actually excited to get my CPAP machine/mask that will enable me to breathe properly while asleep and get that restful deep sleep I so badly need. But, I know that adjusting to the mask won't be easy, and it will take time for me to recover from my exhaustion and regain the physical and emotional stamina that I need to be able to do anything well, whether it be teaching, composing, writing, or loving. I must wait.

It has not always been easy recognizing that I have to do so much waiting before fully realizing some or all of my dreams. What has helped is the realization that there is more than one way to wait. I am striving to develop an attitude of active waiting.

I'm not a great teacher right now. So, I have a choice. I can sit on the sidelines, work and struggle as little as possible, and wait passively hoping that someday I will wake up and suddenly be a great teacher. Or, I can wait actively and seek out every opportunity to learn something new from my colleagues and students that will help push me one step further on the daunting path toward becoming a great teacher.

I don't have enough time to devote to my music right now. Again, I have a choice. I can sit in my apartment and play my keyboard to myself 15 minutes a day and wait passively hoping that someday some up-and-coming film director miraculously stumbles upon an old recording of "Finding Common Ground" and decides to hire me as the score composer. Or, I can wait actively and use my free time to write out new pieces, one note at a time, a few measures a day, and gradually build up a portfolio of work that I could present should various opportunities (large- or small-scale) arise later in life.

I'm not currently dating anyone and feel overwhelmed at the prospect of adding dating/a relationship/a spouse to my already crazy busy life. Once more, I have a choice. I can wait passively for some "Belle" to fall out of the sky five years from now and everything suddenly be perfect like it was in Beauty and the Beast (3-D or otherwise). Or, I can wait actively and devote what energy I can to investing in the numerous friendships I already have. Maybe eventually, God-willing, one of those friendships, or a connection made through a friend, will lead via a slow, careful, thoughtful, prayerful process into a healthy long-term relationship/marriage.

Waiting is inevitable. It's how you use the time that counts. Passive waiting inevitably leads to failure, frustration, and disappointment. Active waiting may not lead to perfection, but it might lead to greatness, and it will make you a better person, which is probably the most important thing anyone should be striving for anyway.

Life is what you make of it. Your attitude makes all the difference.

"Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!" -Psalm 27:14

On Reading

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." -Mark Twain

There are certain things that I just plain love to do for the pure and intrinsic joy they give me. Most people that know me know that I love playing the piano and writing. They might also suspect that teaching and learning, especially in my field of History, is something that gives me that kind of joy- I can get caught up in planning lessons and grading and lose track of time just as easily as I can composing. Something else I love in that way, and felt like giving a bit of time to in this here blog, is reading.

The first time I received any kind of public recognition for anything was, in fact, for reading. When I was...5? 6? I don't remember for sure...I joined my local branch library's summer reading program and read a ridiculous number of picture books. I got my picture with the librarian in the paper for it.

The next time I got myself in the paper, a year or two later, was for much the same thing. My mom was leading some community event or other and there was a photographer there. I had no interest in whatever it was my mom was doing, so I sat out in the lobby with my stack of library books. The photographer thought I looked cute curled up in the chair with a book and snapped another picture of me. It ended up in the paper with a quote from my mom about how I had read about 100 books that summer.

I haven't stopped.

The journey hasn't always been easy though. Frankly, my schooling did a pretty good job of almost stamping out the joy and education that reading gives me. By the time I reached high school, I had become so frustrated with the seemingly endless stream of tests and quizzes asking every minute literal detail from whatever work of supposedly great literature we had just read (and with the seeming irrelevance of said works of literature), that I very nearly did stop reading for pleasure. I just read those seemingly pointless books that my well-intentioned teachers were forcing me to read, and then went home and found other (in retrospect, considerably more pointless) ways to occupy my time.

It was a little easier for me to enjoy reading again in college, but only a little. I chanced revisiting books like To Kill A Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye and found that they were considerably more profound and relevant than when I had initially encountered them at age 14. Academia, though, teaches a particular way of reading that, I think, eats away so much of the pleasure of it. I became adept at consuming massive quantities of text in a very short period of time, extracting arguments and supporting details and never stopping to sit and just digest every single word and let the beauty of the language wash over me. Worse, after all the homework got done and I tried to curl up with books like, let's say, The Fountainhead or Brave New World, I just couldn't get into them. Literary novels like these don't really have an argument and details to extract in the way that a book like, let's say, Manning Marable's Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction and Beyond in Black America, 1945-2006 does. Novels are pure story, a place for your spirit to escape to and become engrossed in while your worldly body rests on a comfy sofa in front of a roaring fire as the snow falls gently outside your windowpane.

A year or two ago, I had lost the ability to do this. I'd read a page or two, get frustrated with the lack of any immediately obvious point, and then go to my computer and see what the latest three facebook statuses were. And, the viscious downward spiral of Twitterosis continues.

Now that college is mostly a memory, though, I am pleased to say that I have once again regained the ability to sit and read for an extended period of time, for no real reason more or less than that pure and intrinsic joy of it, again. I just was blessed with a glorious two week vacation at home in Western New York, and the one thing I probably did more of than anything else (well, besides planning lessons for the new semester that starts in about 33 hours) was curl up with a good book and read. I started and/or finished seven wonderful and diverse books in those two weeks. I recommend them all, for various reasons. The list is below.

1) The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 by Robert Middlekauf. This classic, the first in the Oxford History of the United States series, is filled with 700+ pages of dense text that can't be bigger than a size 9 or 10 font and answers any question anyone could ever possibly have about the circumstances surrounding our country's founding. (Alright, I'll admit it...I did skim parts of this one. But only parts!)

2) No Greater Love by Mother Theresa. In this simple and quick read, Mother Theresa shares some of her wisdom on topics such as prayer, love, poverty, and forgiveness. I couldn't read more than a sentence or two without feeling simultaneous deep humility and inspiration.

3/4) Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire: The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56 and Lighting Their Fires: Raising Extraordinary Children in a Mixed-up, Muddled-up, Shook-up World, by Rafe Esquith. Rafe is my new hero and inspiration when it comes to teaching. Esquith has spent the last 35+ years teaching 5th grade at an inner-city school in Los Angeles. None of his students speak English as a first language, but that doesn't stop them from learning every subject (yup, even science and social studies and art and music and PE), traveling the world, and putting on a full-fledged unabridged production of a Shakespeare play (complete with live rock music accompaniment) every year. In these two books, Esquith shares some of his witty wisdom and profound insights about teaching (TLYHOF) and parenting (LTF). Anyone who works with children in any capacity should take a look at these (and Rafe's first book, There Are No Shortcuts, which I read earlier last year).

5) Life Without Limits by Nick Vujicic. The author of this book was born limbless (i.e. no arms and no legs), but that hasn't stopped him from traveling the world to share his inspiring message of hope and love, stopping along the way to do things like learn how to surf and star in a lovely little short movie ("The Butterfly Circus," which I highly recommend you google and watch online immediately). In his book, Vujicic shares his story and how things like finding your purpose, having faith, and being resilient when confronted with inevitable failure are essential to living a well-lived life and achieving your dreams. Once again, I could not put this page-turner down without feeling simultaneous deep humility and inspiration.

6/7) The Gunslinger and The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King. I've been a King fan for years- he has a way of taking the most ridiculous scenarios and writing about them in such an infectious way that you can't help believe that you are watching them actually unfold. These two books are the first in King's seven-part epic "Dark Tower" series. I first tried to read The Gunslinger a couple years ago and just couldn't get into it. Upon mostly overcoming Twitterosis and regaining my ability actually read something for fun, I figured I'd give it another shot. On second reading, the first book turned out to be a solid introduction to the world of Roland, the last gunslinger in a world that has "moved on." I liked it, but it still isn't my favorite thing King has ever written; it felt like he was trying a bit too hard to be "literary." The Drawing of the Three however, has been brilliant so far (I'm about 2/3 of the way through). King stripped away the first book's pretentiousness and instead does what he does best- tell a pure and engrossing story. I won't give any of the plot away, but suffice it to say that I have really been struggling to put this one down.

My students are going to read. And if I can do anything about it, they're going to enjoy what they read, damn it. However I go about achieving this goal, I hope I don't school my kidlets into not reading rather than educating them into it. Reading has so many benefits, for me and for anyone else who takes the time to set aside their Twitterosis long enough to sit down and actually read a book. (As for me, I still like reading real books...you know, the kind that are actually printed with ink on paper. I was a long, stubborn holdout on getting a cell phone and I imagine I'm going to be much the same way when it comes to trading my excessive quantity of books for a Kindle).

I guess I'll concede that vociferous reading does have a couple of downsides. First, not many people do it, so you're liable to be mocked, ridiculed, ignored, or labeled as a "nerd" or a "geek" whenever you decide it's high time to curl up in the lobby with a stack of five tomes (I've learned to just take such treatment as a compliment). Second, it can be a bit hard on your vision if you don't learn how give your eyes a rest every now and then; I'm not very good at that and seem to grow a bit more nearsighted every year. Still, all in all I'd say the trade-offs are worth it. People who read learn how to slow down, focus, concentrate, and commit to something more lasting than the latest Twitter trends. In the process, us readers gain so much knowledge and understanding, in so many different ways, about this little thing called life. As a result, I believe we are able to live better, richer, more fulfilling little lives.

And besides, it's just plain fun.

My Music, Part 3: "Transitions"

My most recent CD, Transitions, is a bit more of a mixed bag than the first two. The original intent of the project was to be a personal score in the same vein as Come Together, but inspired by my last semester at Bucknell and student teaching experience. The end result wound up including that but with additional components, such as some music inspired by more general emotions/experiences as well as my job search that ran parallel to student teaching. I also chose to include an original arrangement of the music from Lost (my favorite TV show through college).

I’m not sure whether this really qualifies as a “score” or not. A few of the pieces have themes/motifs that get repeated and additionally developed in later tracks, like Come Together and Progress. Overall, though, each track feels a lot more self-contained than with my other two CDs. I was aiming for this CD to feel overall lighter and happier than the other two, and while it does have some more serious moments, I think I succeeded in that attempt. Like the other two CDs, these are unprofessional recordings and you can hear some background noise throughout. Hopefully the music still shines through nonetheless. Brief descriptions of each track are below the update below. As with the previous two CDs, I've included the music in multimedia format with corresponding representative pictures.

I also promised an update on future projects in earlier posts. I am still coming up with new musical ideas all the time! However, my pace of composing has slowed some from my peak college days. Teaching and grad school working consume nearly all of my time and I have little time to actually get my ideas recorded, either to paper or audio. I am also not sure what I am going to do with my new ideas when it does come time to record them. While at Bucknell, I could easily just slip into a music building practice room during a quieter period of the day, switch on my audio recorder, and be done in a few hours. Here in Memphis, all I’ve got is my keyboard in my apartment; if I recorded using that and my handheld recorder, the quality would be even worse than my first three efforts, a direction I most definitely don’t want to step in. I’ll ask around with some of my connections here to see if maybe a church would let me in to record on their piano after hours, or maybe if I could even have a low-cost, near-professional recording produced.

Assuming I can find a place to record, my current goal is to have two parallel CD projects ready to record by early next summer. The first CD will be the score to my year with the Memphis Teacher Residency and for the 2012 MTR Class of Excellence. The second CD will be a musical journey through the story of the Bible, with pieces that represent each of the major Biblical events. Look forward to future recordings and updates…you’ll hear about them here first! :-)

 DISCLAIMER: Please, do not use any of the music, photos, or text from these videos without express permission from the composer/photographer/author (me). All rights belong to yours truly.

Video 1

Track # 1- “Worth Fighting For.” (0:00-3:36) I love fantasy stories and movies and wanted to write a piece that would be in the vein of what I would write if I ever had the opportunity to score a movie like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings. This track was the result. It also ends up functioning as theme of sorts for the whole CD and pops up in recurring fragments when I wanted to represent a life moment/struggle that was “worth fighting for.”

Track # 2- “The Dream.”(3:37-6:52) This piece represents my anticipation of finally getting the chance to start realizing my dream of being an educator through my student teaching experience. I tinkered with it around the end of my Fall 2010 semester and Winter Break before I actually started teaching. It serves as another theme of sorts to represent teaching and also pops up in recurring fragments in later tracks.

Track # 3- “Part of Life.” (6:53-10:55) The melody of this piece started off as a reject from my earlier efforts. I was starting to rework it into something more listenable when I received the sad news over Winter Break 2010-2011 that the past director of Bucknell’s LGBT Office, Fran McDaniel, had passed away unexpectedly. Fran had been one of the biggest encouragers of my musical work when I started sharing it in the Fall 2010 semester. Suddenly, I knew exactly what this melody represented and how it could work as a complete piece. My intention with this song was to represent the losses, struggles, and challenges we all face in life- and how, with God’s guidance and collaboration with others, we can overcome our difficulties. I was honored to have the opportunity to perform this piece at Fran’s memorial service and again at my Spring 2011 benefit concert (that was her idea).

Track # 4- “Lewisburg.” (10:56-13:51) A musical representation of the community of Lewisburg, PA generally and the Green Dragons of Lewisburg Area High School, where I student taught, specifically. Another theme of sorts that pops up again in later tracks.

Video 2

Track # 5- “Long Beginning.” (0:00-4:20)  This piece represents my return to Bucknell for the Spring 2011 semester and final anticipation phase pre-student teaching (we had two weeks of seminar coursework and orientation before we actually starting teaching daily in our placement schools).

Track # 6- “Planning.” (4:21-7:57) A piece dedicated to the joys of unit/lesson planning!

Track # 7- “Brotherhood.” (7:58-12:51) This track represents Bucknell’s Gamma Eta Chapter of Theta Chi Fraternity and all of the various antics that occurred during my time as a member of said fraternity.

Track # 8- “Required Learning.” (12:52-16:05) As a student teacher I demanded a lot of my students, but also made various mistakes and had experiences that I think were necessary for me to learn from and grow into a better teacher. This piece represents the mutual learning that occurs between a teacher and his or her students…me and my first students, in this case.

Track # 9- “Isolating.” (16:06-19:07) For a job that requires so much social interaction, being a classroom teacher can indeed be a very isolating and lonely task. Without the support of MTR during my student teaching days, I found my social life to be rather lacking at times throughout the Spring 2011 semester; this sad piece is the result.

Video 3

Track # 10- “Memories.” (0:00-4:34) Social isolation can lead to the pain of the past resurfacing. I wrote in a past blog post about how at times I’ve idolized relationships with women and searched for fulfillment in my relationships of a kind that only God can truly bring. At the time about halfway through my student teaching semester when I wrote this piece, I hadn’t realized that yet. I found myself wanting more romantic female companionship and wondering how some of my past relational mistakes could have turned out differently. I might note that the time frame associated with these sad and sorry tracks 9 and 10 is roughly associated with the week that most Bucknellians were off on Spring Break and we student teachers were sticking around following the public school calendars. Another reminder of the importance of consistent human interaction and companionship!

Track # 11- “So Many Possibilities.” (4:35-7:06) A piece to represent the many and varied options soon to be confronting me as a Bucknell grad in search of a teaching position, and associated feelings of overwhelmedness.

Track # 12- “The Search.” (7:07-10:40) The job search kicked into high gear with interviews in Pittsburgh, Memphis, and New Orleans…the musical reflection is this piece.

Track # 13- “Turning Points.” (10:41-14:14) As April passed by, I was offered and accepted a spot in MTR…I continued to student teach, make mistakes, learn and grow…and enjoyed a few brief moments of rest and respite. The haze of this month is captured in this piece.

Track # 14- “Short Ending.” (14:15-15:38) And just like that…my student teaching days were over. It ended so quickly after all that anticipation! The piece represents the joy of the short experience that it was and the sense of how quickly it ended.

Video 4

Track # 15- “Success.” (0:00-3:24) I viewed May 2011 as my month of “Celebratory Transition.” At the beginning of the month, I was wrapping up student teaching; at the end of the month I was moving to Memphis to begin my next teaching adventure. In between I said farewell to my Bucknell life and graduated; experienced a newfound depth in my relationship with God; and got to have a bit of relaxing down time. This piece is intended to represent the exuberant whirlwind that was that month. This is actually one of my least favorite “original” pieces. I started disliking it once I realized that it was based around one of the most overused chord progressions of all time, heard in everything from Taylor Swift to 39% of Christian praise and worship songs to random-movie-score-from-the-1980s. Alright, I guess it’s not that bad, but still not what it otherwise might have been.

Track # 16- “The Mirror.” (3:25-5:03) Gazing into the mirror on my bedroom wall during that month of celebratory transition. Looking at who I had become during college and who I was becoming as I transitioned into my new life in Memphis (yup, I was listening to you, John Bravman). Wondering whether I liked me, whether my life was pleasing to God. Expressing these emotions musically. The results…here you go.

Track # 17- “Each Life Must Have A Narrative.” (5:04-9:14) This piece represents that newfound spiritual depth to my life that I mentioned above. The title is taken from a phone conversation I had with David Montague (and, unbeknownst to me at the time, seven subsequent months of Spiritual Life classes) as MTR and I processed through whether or not we were right for each other. Basically, the idea is that everyone is living out some kind of story. The question is, what story are you living? I, and MTR, strive to live a life story that is glorifying to God and consistent with His story.

Track # 18- “Commencement.” (9:15-12:33) May 22, 2011…Bucknell graduation and a true transition in my life and the lives of my 900ish classmates. I wanted to finish and distribute this CD before leaving Bucknell, so the piece is more of a representation of how I was envisioning walking across that stage a couple weeks before I actually did. The reality ended up being pretty consistent with that vision, though. It was bittersweet. This piece amalgamates various themes and motifs from Transitions as well as Come Together to try to tell the story of the bittersweet momentousness that was that journey of commencement and transition.

Video 5

Track # 19- “The Journey: A Tribute to the Music of LOST.” (0:00-18:04) I was rather obsessed with the TV show LOST throughout my time at Bucknell…and why shouldn’t I have been? The show had so much to love…starting with Michael Giacchino’s gloriously beautiful orchestral score. I spent a good chunk of my Winter Break 2010-2011 writing my own piano arrangement of the music from LOST. (And yes, unlike every other track on my three CDs, which still exist only in audio and mental form, I actually wrote this arrangement down. Old school style, using only my pencil, hand, and some staff paper). It turned out decently, I think. I included it on this CD both because I had just enough extra space to share it, and because I felt it was a good metaphor for my own journey from being “lost” to achieving the spiritual peace that comes from knowing God and striving to love Him and others in the same way that He loves us- the truth that, in its somewhat misguided way, I think the show was trying to tell all along.

"Transitions" Videos

My Music, Part 2: "Progress"

One of my life goals has always been to write a novel. I have been kicking around an idea for a novel in my head since my sophomore year of high school (roughly 7 years now). The title of my perpetually un-progressing novel project is Progress. I currently have nearly 60 pages of the book written, but between writer's block and lack of time, it's been over a year since I've touched the manuscript.

God willing, I will still finish the book someday. In the meantime, though, I decided to record the score to the movie that would be made of the book if it ever gets finished and published. I also wrote the main theme to the score in my sophomore year of high school around the same time I came up with the idea for the story. Otherwise, the rest of the musical version of Progress was composed during my first 3 1/2 years at Bucknell, parallel to my composing of Come Together. Sometimes on those nights when I'd go lock myself in a practice room, I worked on creating the themes and motifs to Progress. I finally put them all together and recorded them over the span of about a month at the end of 2010 after I recorded and distributed Come Together. As with Come Together, the recording is unprofessional, but I still say the character of the music shines through despite that and the intent that it be performed by an orchestra. For what it's worth, I do think this is my personal favorite of the three CDs I've recorded so far. It's certainly the most complete and well-developed.

Most of the text below is taken directly from the CD insert I included with every personalized copy of Progress. It includes an introduction to the story, brief descriptions of where each song fits into the plot, and an excerpt from the novel's prologue. Videos of the pieces with corresponding Mojave Desert photographs can be found in the previous post. Have fun!

 DISCLAIMER: Please, do not use any of the music, photos, or text from these videos without express permission from the composer/photographer/author (me). All rights belong to yours truly.

--

Plot Introduction

Progress is set in the not-too-distant future in Sun Mesa, a small but growing city in California’s Mojave Desert. The story traces the relationships of two Sun Mesa families, the Droffards and the Adkins, both with each other and their city, across a time span of two-and-a-half decades. The city’s struggle to survive in spite of perpetual drought and an ever-decreasing water supply plays a crucial role throughout the story.

 

Major Characters

Will Droffard: A high school-educated groundskeeper for the Sun Mesa Parks and Recreation Department, who has lived in Sun Mesa his entire life. Will is a heavy smoker and drinker with a prickly personality and a propensity to heavily complain about his job. However, when a plot is hatched to destroy the city, Will may be the only one with the knowledge of how to save the city and its residents.

Darcy Droffard: A native of Central Pennsylvania, who eloped with Will while on an extended vacation in California one summer. Despite her college education, Darcy remains a homemaker from her marriage with Will until her untimely death from breast cancer. Darcy often questions whether her marriage to Will was a mistake and never stops hoping that she will one day be able to move back to Pennsylvania, with its four seasons and greenery.

Zack Droffard: The only child of Will and Darcy. Zack is highly intelligent and excels at academics, but can be very socially awkward and timid. His best friend is Martin Adkins; their friendship survives for many years in spite of Martin’s increasing insanity, mainly because Zack feels as though he has no one else to turn to (particularly following the death of his mother). Throughout the story, Zack is forced to make a series of difficult choices that puts his relationships with his father, Martin, his love interest Sara, and even the fate of Sun Mesa in jeopardy.

Horton Adkins: Like Will, Horton has lived in Sun Mesa his entire life, but their social statures could not be more different. Horton owns a highly successful firm, Sunset Engineering Solutions (SES), serves as general manager for the Sun Mesa Water District (SMWD), and is eventually elected as the city’s mayor. Horton is motivated by a desire to see Sun Mesa turn into a destination on the scale of Las Vegas, no matter what the economic and environmental cost. During his term as mayor, Horton also hatches a scheme to convert the public agency SMWD into a for-profit private corporation with himself at the head. Horton is a greedy, selfish, manipulative womanizer, but he also possesses a great deal of charisma and speaking ability, and is therefore beloved by a majority of Sun Mesa residents. However, Horton engages in a wide variety of illegal dealings and corrupt actions over the years, which eventually become public knowledge and result in scandal. At the story’s end, Horton has become a disgraced shadow of his former self.

Martin Adkins: The only son of Horton and his first wife Linda. At age four, Martin witnesses his mother die a tragic death when a major earthquake strikes Sun Mesa, and sits alone in the rubble of his house for nine hours before Horton returns. Martin’s childhood is a casualty to Horton’s self-promoting aspirations; following Linda’s death, Horton marries his secretary, Julie, and lets her do most of the work in raising his son. Martin instantly loathes his stepmother and terrorizes her for years until she eventually seeks a divorce. Martin has a certain natural brilliance and inherits his father’s charisma, but he is scarred by his unpleasant childhood and gradually develops serious mental health problems that are left untreated. After graduating from Cornell University into an economy in deep recession, Martin is unable to find employment and refuses to work for his father. He creates an anarchist, ecoterrorist group called Greenspots and recruits hundreds of similarly disaffected young adults to the cause. As the drought and economy worsens and Sun Mesa’s government under his father’s leadership becomes ever more corrupt, Martin and Greenspots hatch a destructive plot of truly apocalyptic proportions.

Sara Wallean: A short, overweight young woman with a heart of gold. Sara takes an interest in shy, enigmatic Zack. The pair become close friends and then on-again, off-again lovers.

A Personal Note on the Story and Score

The idea for Progress popped into my head one day around the middle of my sophomore year of high school. I instantly knew that I wanted to not only tell the story in novel form and hopefully eventually also as a film, but also to tell it musically in the form of the film’s score. I composed the score’s main theme, heard most prominently in “Reverse Metamorphosis,” shortly thereafter. Over the next six years, bits and pieces of the novel and score were gradually put together, with my creative process marked by occasional flashes of brief but intense creativity and long, desolate stretches in which the realities of being a full-time student and part-time employee trumped my more creative impulses. After I successfully completed the original score Come Together for Common Ground 2010, to an overwhelmingly positive reception, I was inspired to return to Progress and, at the very least, complete its score. My approach to composing this score was highly character-based. Each of the major characters has a recurring theme that develops along with them throughout the story. In addition, I have created a series of recurring motifs that represent important locations, situations, or ideas, such as a motif to represent drought and a motif to represent Martin’s anarchist organization Greenspots. All told, there are more than 20 such repeating themes and motifs that work their way into the score. Like Come Together, this is consequently very much a CD that is intended to be listened to as a whole rather than as a collection of disconnected individual tracks. Also like Come Together, this score is performed on the piano but written with a full orchestra in mind for the intended eventual recording for film. However, this CD also has a number of differences when compared to Come Together. The story is darker and the music reflects that in its more brooding and intense tone. This score is more structurally complex, and is in many places more restrained and subtle (though it still contains a number of tracks, such as “Saving the People,” that are anything but). As it is written very much with a specific story and series of events in mind, it is perhaps not as listenable as Come Together. However, it is my hope that it will still be accessible to a general audience and enjoyable as a self-contained work.

–MT, 12/4/10

Track-by-Track: Matching Music with Story

 Video 1

1)      “Six Days, Maybe Seven” (0:00-2:25)- Prologue scene (excerpt from novel appended). Martin and Zack meet on the outskirts of the city and discuss the Greenspots plot to destroy civilization in the American West.

2)      “Reverse Metamorphosis” (2:26-4:23)- The score’s main theme is introduced as the main titles play over a reverse-time lapse image of Sun Mesa’s development to 23 years previously.

3)      “Family” (4:24-6:40)- Will and Darcy Droffard are introduced. Darcy gives birth to Zack.

4)      “Mud” (6:41-8:22)- When ¼ of Sun Mesa’s residents start getting mud out of their faucets instead of water, the city government and the SMWD realize that the underground aquifer that provides the city with its water supply is drying up. SMWD director Horton Adkins is introduced.

5)      “Horton’s Speech” (8:23-10:37)- Horton reveals the Sun Mesa Water Security Project, his plan to build a series of aqueducts and dams to ensure that the city has a long-term water supply.

6)      “Dam It” (10:38-12:13)- Horton oversees the construction of the Sun Mesa Water Security Project. 

        Video 2

7)      “Crisis Averted…Sort Of” (0:00-4:08)- A disastrous 7.4 magnitude earthquake strikes Sun Mesa. The Droffard family attempts to cope with the disaster. Martin Adkins witnesses the death of his mother and becomes trapped in their partially destroyed home. Horton frantically scrambles around assessing the damage to the newly constructed aqueducts and dams. He returns home hours later, where he is greeted by police who were called after the neighbors heard the sounds of Martin screaming from the rubble.

8)      “Horton Rising” (4:09-5:12)- Horton is elected mayor of Sun Mesa and oversees the city’s recovery from the earthquake and continued growth.

9)      “We’ll Be Friends” (5:13-7:26)- Zack and Martin meet on the first day of kindergarten and become friends.

10)    “Birthday Proposal” (7:27-10:03)- Will and Horton meet when Zack attends Martin’s sixth birthday party. Horton reveals an important secret about Sun Mesa’s water supply and offers Will a job with SES. Will declines, preferring the familiarity of his job with Parks and Recreation.

11)    “Escape Attempt” (10:04-11:23)- One day in first grade, Martin is already bored with school and convinces Zack to attempt to run out the school’s front gate with him during recess. The pair is detained by a school security officer.

12)    “Up and Out” (11:24-13:14)- Underscores a montage sequence covering approximately a decade of Sun Mesa’s continued growth and Zack and Martin’s progression through elementary, middle, and part of high school. 

        Video 3

13)    “Strain” (0:00-2:07)- Zack and Martin’s friendship is challenged when Martin attracts numerous female classmates and Zack attracts none.

14)    “Sara” (2:08-5:04)- Classmate Sara befriends Zack while Martin is off messing around. The pair draws closer and begins to fall in love.

15)    “Unfamiliar Territory” (5:05-6:59)- Represents Zack and Sara’s love and Zack’s uncertainty about how to conduct himself in close relationships.

16)    “Crossroads” (7:00-10:15)- Zack, Sara, and Martin approach the end of high school and must make their college decisions. Sara chooses to attend the local public school, Sun Mesa State University, while Martin nabs a legacy spot at his father’s alma mater, Cornell University. Zack applies to and is accepted to both schools and is conflicted about his choice, feeling that he is implicitly choosing to favor either his longstanding but damaged friendship with Martin or his short-lived but passionate love for Sara. He ultimately chooses Cornell for its greater academic reputation.

17)    “Split” (10:16-12:11)- Sara is upset by Zack’s decision to move to the opposite end of the country and attend Cornell. Sara chooses to break up with Zack rather than attempt to maintain a long-distance relationship. The friends graduate from high school. 

        Video 4

18)    “Ithaca” (0:00-2:34)- Zack and Martin move to Ithaca, NY to attend Cornell University and are faced with the highs and lows of college life. Zack feels somewhat lost in the crowd of such a large university and Martin is basically his only friend at Cornell. He is also still very much in love with Sara and pines over their breakup and the distance between them. Martin, by contrast, makes many other friends and continues to mess around with a wide variety of young women, even as the stresses of college worsen his untreated mental health problems.

19)    “Reckless Expansion” (2:35-3:06)- Sun Mesa continues to grow rapidly while the aqueducts and dams constructed earlier in the story begin to show signs of strain.

20)    “Pause” (3:07-5:20)- During the summer prior to Zack’s senior year, Darcy is diagnosed with a severe case of breast cancer. Her condition rapidly deteriorates and she passes away just days before Zack is set to return to Cornell. Always the intellectual, Zack does decide to return for his senior year, but struggles with ever-worsening depression and isolation.

21)    “Bad Timing” (5:21-6:27)- Zack and Martin graduate from Cornell just as the economy crashes and enters a severe, lengthy depression.

22)    “Confusion” (6:28-7:45)- Zack and Martin unsuccessfully attempt to find post-collegiate employment. Zack is unable to find a good job and returns to live with his father, where he takes a job as a substitute school bus driver and writes gruesome horror stories in his free time, hoping to become a published author. Martin is unable to find a job on his own; his father offers him employment as an assistant in the mayor’s office, but filled with hate for his father, Martin declines. After months of boredom, Martin founds Greenspots, an anarchist, ecoterrorist organization, and begins recruiting members. Zack reluctantly joins the organization as a sign of his ongoing friendship with Martin.

23)    “The Harder They Fall” (7:46-9:33)- A journalist for the Sun Mesa Observer uncovers the truth about Horton’s long record of corruption. The scandal engulfs the town, directing public attention away from the more severe problem: the impending collapse of the city’s water supply. 

        Video 5

24)    “Young, Smart, and Bored” (0:00-2:13)- Martin’s organization Greenspots rapidly grows in size and popularity among the region’s largely unemployed twentysomethings.

25)    “The Only Solution” (2:14-3:42)- After studying the facts about the American West’s rapidly vanishing water supply, Martin concludes that there is no way the region’s civilization can survive. He hatches a plan to set fires at strategic locations throughout the West, believing that the fires will all converge and burn up the entire region and all of its inhabitants. In his insane mind, Martin believes that doing so would ultimately be more humane than the protracted decline of society he otherwise perceives, and also sees the action as a way of returning nature to a balanced state in the long-term. He reveals his plan to the other members of Greenspots, using his charisma to convince them that it is the only viable plan for the future of the city and region.

26)    “Overheard" (3:43-4:59)- Will, concerned about Zack’s well-being, secretly follows him to the meeting at which Martin reveals his apocalyptic plan. Will confronts Zack after the meeting and the pair discuss the situation and their conflicted feelings and loyalties.

27)    “It’s Time” (5:00-7:21)- Martin and Greenspots put their plan into action by lighting the fires throughout the American West. A major character is killed.

28)    “Convergence” (7:22-10:01)- Montage sequence: As the fires converge, the major characters speed toward their ultimate destinies. 

        Video 6

29)    “Unlikely Savior” (0:00-1:30)- A major character makes a last-ditch attempt at halting the Greenspots plan and is killed.

30)    “Never Easy” (1:31-2:58)- Zack and Martin have a final confrontation, the outcome of which has potentially millions of lives hanging in the balance. Another major character dies.

31)    “Saving the People” (2:59-7:34)- The residents of Sun Mesa frantically try to survive as the fires begin to engulf their city. Sara returns and plays and important role in the story’s conclusion.

32)    “Miracle” (7:35-10:16)- Three days after the Greenspots plan is put into action, a huge rainstorm appears over the American West and gives the survivors hope that they will be able to rebuild their civilization.

33)    “Beauty” (10:17-11:41)- Two of the surviving major characters discuss the story’s climactic events, concluding that while the situation is certainly bleak, things of beauty and hope can always be found even in the darkest of times.

34)    “Progress” (11:42-18:39)- Mishmash of various themes and motifs from the score played over the film’s end credits.

 

Prologue

            Engimatic. If one word had to sum up Martin Adkins, that would be it.

            Of course, no one is simple enough to be summed up in one word, and if there was anything that Martin Adkins wasn’t, it was simple. That was a great deal more than could be said for the rest of his family, of course, which just so happened to be one of the main reasons why he had driven out to this abysmal place on this equally abysmal day.

            At last, his blue Chevy Volt reached the gate at the top of the steep hill. He put on the parking brake, turned off the ignition, and stepped out of the car. His long, dark hair fluttered in the ubiquitous Mojave wind.

            He gazed beyond the gate into the large, lonely reservoir. Or, rather, what was left of it. The last time he remembered any rain falling on Sun Mesa was more than four years ago now. The small, several-inch-deep puddle in the middle of the reservoir was all that remained of Sun Mesa’s water supply.

            The Mesa’s 265,000 or so residents remained blissfully ignorant. The reservoir was located well outside the developed portion of the Mesa at the end of a steep, winding, unpaved, rocky path, and it was closed to recreation. Not that anyone would want to recreate in this miserable heat to begin with.

            Moreover, the Sun Mesa Water District hadn’t exactly jumped at the chance to let the Observer or Channel 6 in on the secret, considering that they were still raving about the scandal involving the Sun Mesa mayor, Exelon, $2 billion, seventeen prostitutes, and a brand-new nuclear power plant whose construction had, under the circumstances, temporarily been put on hold. The distraction had provided the SMWD with an opportunity to quietly attempt to negotiate water-exchange agreements with the nearby cities, but as it transpired they were all on the verge of looming crises of their own. The Colorado River was now dry before it even reached the I-10, and Lake Mead was down to a depth of only about four feet and hadn’t been open to boaters in six years.

            So, barring some unforeseen miracle, Sun Mesa, in spite of all its regulations and penalties for excessive water usage, in spite of the fervent prayers for rain that had taken up most of the last four SVWD board meetings, was going to run out of water in fourteen days, give or take a few. Like a row of dominoes, most of the rest of the American Southwest would suffer the same fate shortly thereafter.

            “Go West, young man,” the youth of generations past had been advised. West they had in fact gone, and by the millions. The only problem was that someone forgot to tell them to bring more water with them.

            Newton’s third law: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In short, the reaction was about to begin.

            As Martin Adkins stared out at the decaying earthen dam and the increasingly miniscule reservoir it contained, a second, rather short man descended from the nearby rocky hills and joined him.

            “Morning, Adkins,” the newcomer said. “Feeling better?”

            “Well?” Martin inquired, without answering.

            “The gas is being obtained from Bakersfield as we speak.”

            “Excellent. How long until we can begin implementation?”

            “Six days. Maybe seven.”

            Martin grimaced. “Many thanks, my friend. We could have done so many more great things together. Not that we aren’t going to do great things. But you know what I mean.”

            The newcomer gave a noncommittal grunt in response. He hesitated for a moment before asking, “Is that all?”

            Martin looked pensive and was silent for a moment. “No. I want you to answer one question for me before you go.”

            “Yes?”

            “How can there be so much hate in a world filled with so much beauty?”

            “I assume that’s a rhetorical question?”

            “Hmph. You always were a bit of a smartass.”

“Perhaps. Anyway, I’ve always tried to focus on the beauty more than the hate.”

Yet the man’s voice wavered, as though he were in fact trying to mask a great deal of hatred.

Martin appeared not to notice. “There is no beauty left in this hellhole now. Hate destroyed it. All of it,” he replied.

            “Well,” the second man replied, “beauty can be a rather strange thing. Sara…”

            “Are you finished?” Martin interjected. “Spare me your nonsensical nostalgia. Sara is going to die, you know.”

            “We’re all going to die,” the other man said. “The only question is when and how.”

            Martin sighed and shook his head.

            “Is that all?” the second man asked again.

            Martin hesitated a moment, then nodded.

The short man began walking away. Just as he began to hope that he was in the clear, however, Martin Adkins shouted after him.

            “Zack, wait,” he said. “There’s just one more thing. You and I both know that there is one person who knows what we’re up to, and he will do all that he can to try and stop us. But he is the one who is going to be stopped. And you are going to have to be the one to do it, Zack.”

            “I was afraid you were going to say that,” Zack responded, unable to mask his fear and anger. 

            “Let him try to stop us. He will come here first. And when he does, we will be ready for him. And by we, I mean you,” Martin said. “I’m going to stand here and watch you do it.”

            “Whatever you say, my friend.” The last word was dripping with sarcasm. Zack raised a hand in goodbye and disappeared back into the rocks.

            Martin continued to stare out at the dying reservoir as the wind blew his dark hair askew. He heard the drone of an Air Force jet above.

            There really was so much hatred in the world, he thought. Why was there so much goddamn hate? He remembered a time when this place had been beautiful. Now it was just another dull, sprawling conurbation, filled with freeways, strip malls, casinos, gangs, and corrupt politicians and businessmen. And this horrific reservoir. Adkins Reservoir.

It was not named after him. It also might have been up for a name change in the not-too-distant future, were it not for Martin’s plans.

            He watched several large chunks of the earthen dam break off and crumble to the dead, dry ground below. They burst into dust and were no more.

Beauty. There was no beauty to be found here, whatever his oldest and best friend said. Not anymore.

            Six days. Maybe seven.

            He honestly wouldn’t miss the place much.