Piles of music everywhere

I've learned to live with the fact that when I'm working on a project something in my life is always going to be out of control. If the leaves are raked, the house will be in disarray. If the dishes are clean and put away, there are usually piles of laundry waiting to be taken care of. If the downstairs is tidy, the upstairs is probably a disaster. And if EVERYthing happens to look great on the surface, just be careful if you decide to open a closet door.

Right now I'm working on three projects (my holiday concert November 29th, the Musicorum concerts December 12 and 14, and the Prima Vox concert February 13). And there's not a clear surface in the house.

This was the scene the morning after a Prima Vox
rehearsal in the kitchen.
This happens to be a pile of set list rejects.
(Shortly after taking this photo, I put this music into another pile...)

Moving to the living/music room,
music is scattered all over the floor, the coffee table,
the couch, the chair.
Walk carefully. Music on wood floors is slippery.
Believe me.

Sometimes people ask me how I get the inspiration for my concerts. I think they want to hear about some sort of divine guidance to the right songs (and divine intervention telling me that SamTheDrummer probably wouldn't be willing to put on some deer horns and cavort around to the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance...ahem). And while I do believe I receive quite a bit of guidance, I also owe a lot of my concert programming to the work of making and rearranging piles of music. Piles of music I've played through, piles of music I like, piles of music I don't like, piles of music I'll use this year, piles of music I'll save for another year, piles of music I'd like to learn.

They may be getting more streamlined, but there are still piles of music everywhere I look. And that's ok. Because at least the laundry's done.