Reality is that I've been very, very busy. I essentially had just one more round of editing to do before sending the sheet music to Vienna and her management,... but even if I was 95% done, that last 5% was still promising to be a non-trivial time commitment, and in the months from March to October, I just never felt like I had a single large block of time to devote to it. And in the mean time, I found myself avoiding showing my face at the VT fan forum, considering that it might have appeared that I had given up the sheet music project right before reaching the "finish line", which would not make people very happy, and which was, for all intents and purposes, true!
Well, I'm back. Two things have changed, recently. The first, I will let Vienna and her management announce, when the time comes, because I don't want to spoil it, jump the gun, or steal their thunder.
The second, however, is an even more recent development, in my personal life. Last Friday, I was informed by my boss, where I have been working for the last 3 and a half years in what was certainly the closest thing in the entire computer industry to my dream job!, that due to the hard economic times, personnel cuts were being made, and it had been decided that I would be laid off. Unexepctedly, therefore, and suddenly, I am now jobless!
So... I'm not looking for pity, nor any off-topic (computer-industry) networking here on the VT forum... because... I don't actually want it! While I can't deny a sense of unease and uncertainty about how exactly I'm going to pay my bills, long term, if I don't have a regular salary... in a fairly significant sense, I'm looking on the bright side, with excitement, at the sorts of things this lay-off experience is going to give me time to do in the near future. Specifically, things outside the computer industry. Things like working on Vienna Teng sheet music full time until it's done, and then maybe part time after that! Hopefully that will eventually make up for my dropping the ball for the last 9 months, and will make a lot of people who might visit here from time to time happy.
But I'm not just thinking about finishing a brief sheet music project and then returning once more to the land of the non-musically-inclined. Instead, I'm thinking of pulling a "Vienna", and making an attempt (we'll see if it's successful as time goes by), to actually switch careers: to be leaving, indefinitely the industry where I've been working for 8+ years with a computer science degree from college (sound familiar anyone?), and follow vaguely in the footsteps of our favorite artist, to pursue music in a much more serious way!
So with all this background, I've arrived at the main point of my post.
Obviously, I still have some music work in my queue of things to do (namely finishing an album of sheet music for Vienna). But after that, as time goes on, I'll be increasingly "available" to take on other projects and/or roles in the world of music. Clearly some day, I want to record albums of my own music, and be a performer / recording artist myself. But this takes time, and in the interim, I have a lot more technical skills that I can offer which may benefit other people. I'm very willing and interested in doing more in the world of sheet music. But I've also played piano my whole life, and I play guitar, and I'm an experienced singer, arranger, accompanist, and in some small sense a studio recording artist. I also tune pianos, and I'm willing to give piano lessons if I find any interested students.
In summary, then, if anybody has anything they need done, musically, especially, but not limited to, sheet music transcribing, or if you know anybody who needs any of my services, then send them my way. I don't have any delusions that just posting my availability for music work on a fan forum of an amazing, but not-yet-well-enough-known artist will suddenly flood me with interesting, profitable work to do... but hey, it's worth a try.
((And although I said up front that I am not interested in further computer programming work, it's really the long term, full-time computer job that I'm trying to avoid at the moment, so if one of you has a special request in that department, too--something short term or part time and something I don't have to move for--then feel free to run it by me and see if I am interested, because obviously I'll need to pay my bills somehow, and music might not be perfectly lucrative for a while.
))
I hope you all have been doing well, and I look forward to being online here at the forum a bit more in the near future than I have been.
--David
Sorry to hear about your job loss, but it's great to know that you're thinking of using that opportunity to turn to a musical/creative career! I look forward to anything that you'll be churning out. ^_^