So does skiing, for that matter. Or biking. Or running 24 miles in the mountains. Or, for that matter, blogging most every night. (Okay, that one isn't that hard, at least not physically, but it's not quite as easy as just browsing the Internet.)
So why do people boat or bike or blog? Mark Twain spelled it out for us in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer:
Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers or performing on a tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four-horse passenger-coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerable money; but if they were offered wages for the service, that would turn it into work and then they would resign.”
I realized recently that if I were being paid to blog or knew that I had an audience beyond family and friends, it would be a lot harder to do, and it might take the fun out of it. So I'm fine keeping it a hobby. (Plus, when it's a hobby it means I can keep posting in Comic Sans or whatever font I'm using right now because changing the layout would turn it into Work.)
I also realized that music isn't a hobby for me. It might seem like one since I like to just sit down and improvise, but I do feel a real obligation to do something real with it. So I've decided to stop treating it like a hobby, especially for this month. I am going to spend an hour every day transcribing music so I finally have something to share with people.
There is no way to turn transcribing into a hobby, so I'm not even going to pretend that it is. But it's important to get it done.
Point being . . . blogging might take a bit of a hit this month. Unless I desperately need it as a hobby to make up for the complete torture of transcribing. (It would be easier if I didn't have to hook my laptop up to an external monitor. My goal is to make enough money from transcriptions to buy a new laptop. Or at least pay for a domain name, haha.) We'll see.
And to keep myself accountable, here's my list:
- The First Noel (piano solo) [I want to get Christmas music done first] (update 9/5 -- 90% done with transcribing, but I still need to add dynamics and articulation)
- Silent Night (alto/bass solo with piano) (update 9/6 -- 95% done with transcribing)
- Our Savior's Love in the style of Brahms (piano solo) (update 9/3 -- 40% done)
- More Holiness Give Me in the style of Rachmaninoff (piano solo,)
- Popcorn Popping in the style of Debussy (piano solo)
- In Humility, Our Savior/Amazing Grace (piano solo . . . and an interesting combo doctrinally) (update 9/6 -- 20% done)
- Finishing up Sunbeam Waltz transcription
- Cleaning up My Heavenly Father Loves Me transcription
- For All the Saints (men's part is written, but I need to do the accompaniment)
- The Lord's My Shepherd (vocal solo + accompaniment)
- I have some other mashups that I haven't transcribed which aren't priorities because they're not hymns/classical, but if I run out of things to do I could work on transcribing those.
And, if anyone is interested, here are a few more things I'm working on:
- Souviens Toi/Nearer My God to Thee (probably piano solo, but maybe duet)
- I Need Thee Every Hour in the style of Beethoven (piano solo)
- Something in the style of Mozart (not K535 or Alla Turca)
- I tried writing a few hymns a month ago, and now that I've let them sit for a month I'm going to be able to revise them more easily.
- I hope to have a website soon to put the music on. I've looked into a few options but will take suggestions.
Anyway, I'll keep this up to date as I finish transcribing. I think comments are working again so if you want to send me pep talks I'll probably need them!
(Of course, if someone wants to pay me for the privilege of transcribing resplendent music, I won't turn them down. I learned my lesson from Tom Sawyer, after all.)
Can't wait!!!
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