AN IMPORTANT NOTE - START HERE
When you write a book, there is one piece of advice in every how-to manual. Make sure you are writing for someone, even if it is just one person.
I didn’t bother researching how to write a book when I first released I Hate Practice, and thus, I couldn’t exactly tell you who I was writing for.
Yeah, I can.
No one.
They also tell you to solve one problem. Unless it was that by the end of the book I had discovered I was a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-less than none, then problem solving was also a bust.
This is why I am putting out this revision. (That, and my mom and sister both hated the original title.)
Since the initial publication in 2016, here’s what changed: The Los Angeles Inception Orchestra.
As of this writing in August 2024, we have completed six years of successful programming of our Young Composers Mentoring Program.
If you’re reading this, you most likely know at least a little bit about it. If you don’t, you’re about to find out a whole lot. Apologies in advance.
Originally this nonprofit organization was formed so I could be more responsible about funding another piano concert with orchestra. At the first Board meeting, however, someone casually mentioned that we should figure out a music education program.
With that one comment, the Inception Orchestra became about solving something. About how we can find great under-represented young composers and pass along our knowledge to the next generation. About how we can inspire students who may not have exposure to Classical music and the symphony orchestra in an immersive and engaging way.
Once the program becomes about something more important than just you, musicians of the caliber you never thought in your music career you would ever work with, come forward to support the mission in a hugely collaborative way.
Not just one or two of them.
Since November 2018, the young composers ranging in age from 7-18, worked with over one hundred of the music industry’s top instrumentalists, arrangers, composers, engineers, and producers in a program which defied COVID-19 and took advantage of the pandemic’s forced pivot to virtual. You will meet them all – students and mentors alike… as the program eventually found it’s way back to the recording studio and onto bigger collaborations.
So what is this book now about and who is it written for?
It’s for you, the young composer. Or you, the curious. Or you, the donor. Or you, the musician. Or you, the parent. Or you, the creative. It is a discussion of innovative practice through piano, video, filmmaking, writing, stage plays, friendships, composition, mentorship, networking, and collaboration.
This is an exploration of my own creative journey, full of flaws, procrastination, and failures.
The second half is the story of the build-out of the Inception Orchestra Young Composers Mentorship Program. The ideas, the stumbles, the luck, the set-backs, and the successes, even the small ones.
This book is meant to make you laugh, hopefully inspire and allow you to allow yourself some bumps in your own artistic journey.
Mostly it is to say…
DREAM! COMPOSE! CREATE! GO!!!
This "journey" combines a rewrite of my first book, I Hate Practice (now called I [Don't] Hate Practice) exploring my piano adventures up through the formation of Inception. And the second half details the program to date.
Note: These are my personal reflections and do not necessarily reflect the organization.
Please use the buttons at the bottom of each entry to navigate through the journey chronologically. You may start at the beginning (when I was 5?) or at the kick-off of the Inception journey (2017ish).
If you are looking for a specific entry (or just want to read about yourself, ha!), Wix lists them backwards by date.
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