Camp ends, camp continues
Just because camp has ended doesn't mean I'm done with camp. There's always something I can do with it. For that final, 30th year, I'd made up lists of the music we'd gotten, dating back to the second year as best I could. (Some of the earliest music got lost, and there was no program for the first year so I can't 100% verify things unless I noted it on the physical music I had.) Those lists did not include that year's music, and I always planned to do a final update.
With Lent, one of the things I've given up is not working on projects, since my list of those is never-ending. Put another way, whenever I'm home, I will spend an hour a day on whatever. (Band is on spring break this week, which is why I'm home now, and therefore I'm gaining an hour for project-tackling.) Over the weekend, I decided to look into the camp music. I've realized I want camp music only in the binders I have; other music, from grade school, high school, and college, had also been mixed in. I was able to take my anniversary lists and use those as a guide for what should be in certain sections. If the title wasn't on the list, it likely was from school and not camp, or else it was something new from 2017 that hadn't been listed yet. I ended up pulling so much music that I filled an empty binder from the Papa stash of office supplies; I was kind of impressed by that. I need to figure out what I'm doing with *that* music now, too, but I'm not there yet.
Part of my problem has to do with said lists. I have a few songs that kind of straddle categories--do I put Light Cavalry Overture under Overtures or Famous Songs? Better, we'd done one version of it three times, so I already had it in both places! Sigh. So I have to fight with myself over that, or else peek at my current band music to see how I listed it there, since we've definitely done it. The other thing is that I realized it likely would be easiest for me to put all this music into a spreadsheet similar to what I've done for my current band music...which is horrifically daunting, seeing as, again, it spans 30 years. Now, I'd say for about the past decade, I have in fact put the music into spreadsheets, similar to what I've done for my current band, but I'd still have to meld everything, and who knows if it's all in the same format. That kind of broke my brain, so once I went through all the music yesterday (and hurt my lower back, since I was sitting on the floor bending over to do it), I set it aside. This will take some thinking. And time. And patience. And sorting through files, since I wouldn't doubt that some of this stuff is on the other computer. There is a method to this madness; I want such a listing because there are a handful of songs I've done at camp that I've also done with my current band. Why make photocopies when I already have the music? This would then give me a complete, comprehensive list of said music that I can check when something looks familiar. To wit, I discovered I did, in fact, have a copy of the Dello Joio piece we'll do this summer with AD2, but it was hidden in a camp binder and I didn't realize it--I'd done it with my college for an alumni band concert at one point. Stuff like that.
I was also coming up with more ideas as well, stuff to document, what have you. I always took notes for the next year of camp while going through the previous year's notes, and I'd always meant to go through those and make sense of things. Who knows, maybe I'll be involved with another camp down the line and the notes will be useful. Even if it gains me some closure over everything, I'd just like to get everything done and move past it. There's also something comforting to me to sort through and categorize things, so there's that, too. Anyway, I'm glad I had the kick in the pants to at least start looking into this stuff. Plus, if all goes well, I'll have started myself a new habit. See, Lent isn't just a seven-week thing with me.
With Lent, one of the things I've given up is not working on projects, since my list of those is never-ending. Put another way, whenever I'm home, I will spend an hour a day on whatever. (Band is on spring break this week, which is why I'm home now, and therefore I'm gaining an hour for project-tackling.) Over the weekend, I decided to look into the camp music. I've realized I want camp music only in the binders I have; other music, from grade school, high school, and college, had also been mixed in. I was able to take my anniversary lists and use those as a guide for what should be in certain sections. If the title wasn't on the list, it likely was from school and not camp, or else it was something new from 2017 that hadn't been listed yet. I ended up pulling so much music that I filled an empty binder from the Papa stash of office supplies; I was kind of impressed by that. I need to figure out what I'm doing with *that* music now, too, but I'm not there yet.
Part of my problem has to do with said lists. I have a few songs that kind of straddle categories--do I put Light Cavalry Overture under Overtures or Famous Songs? Better, we'd done one version of it three times, so I already had it in both places! Sigh. So I have to fight with myself over that, or else peek at my current band music to see how I listed it there, since we've definitely done it. The other thing is that I realized it likely would be easiest for me to put all this music into a spreadsheet similar to what I've done for my current band music...which is horrifically daunting, seeing as, again, it spans 30 years. Now, I'd say for about the past decade, I have in fact put the music into spreadsheets, similar to what I've done for my current band, but I'd still have to meld everything, and who knows if it's all in the same format. That kind of broke my brain, so once I went through all the music yesterday (and hurt my lower back, since I was sitting on the floor bending over to do it), I set it aside. This will take some thinking. And time. And patience. And sorting through files, since I wouldn't doubt that some of this stuff is on the other computer. There is a method to this madness; I want such a listing because there are a handful of songs I've done at camp that I've also done with my current band. Why make photocopies when I already have the music? This would then give me a complete, comprehensive list of said music that I can check when something looks familiar. To wit, I discovered I did, in fact, have a copy of the Dello Joio piece we'll do this summer with AD2, but it was hidden in a camp binder and I didn't realize it--I'd done it with my college for an alumni band concert at one point. Stuff like that.
I was also coming up with more ideas as well, stuff to document, what have you. I always took notes for the next year of camp while going through the previous year's notes, and I'd always meant to go through those and make sense of things. Who knows, maybe I'll be involved with another camp down the line and the notes will be useful. Even if it gains me some closure over everything, I'd just like to get everything done and move past it. There's also something comforting to me to sort through and categorize things, so there's that, too. Anyway, I'm glad I had the kick in the pants to at least start looking into this stuff. Plus, if all goes well, I'll have started myself a new habit. See, Lent isn't just a seven-week thing with me.