A Range Mint (say it fast and altogether)

I suppose it's time to begin another new foray into the wilderness. This one's not so wild though. I've been arranging music for a while now. So it's not so new.

When I was in college, I spent a lot of time arranging vocal music for a new group we had formed called "Best Friends." Most of the stuff I did was luck of the draw, at best. I was more interested in following the rules of theory that were being pounded into me daily than I was in putting out good music.

But, fortune favors the foolish I suppose. Most of the arrangements worked out. I believe they were even using some of them still up to about 5 years ago. 15 year shelf life is not bad for a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants piece of music.

Later, I spent 15 years working with Acappella Ministries and did a TON of arranging there. Unfortunately most of it never made it to paper. But my ear was being perfected during that time.

Sometime around 2002 (I think), an old friend from Tyler approached me to do some arranging for his LTC choir. At this point, I was able to combine the skills of theory with the experience of the studio. Now I could do arranging and know what I was putting on paper as I was doing it. I could hear it before it went to the page. I had the arrangement done before the writing.

I could finally understand the quote by Mozart from the 1984 movie Amadeus, "It's all right here in my noodle. The rest is just scribbling. Scribbling and bibbling, bibbling and scribbling."

I have done more than 20 songs for Chuck, my friend in Tyler. And I seem to be knocking them out pretty regularly here in Midland. He and his wife Lisa have been encouraging me to publish my arrangements for years now. I suppose it's time.

So, sometime in the next six months I hope to be making my stuff available. Look for more information coming soon. For now, I've got to figure out how to go about this legally, easily and still make it worth the effort. I'm certainly no Mozart, but maybe God can use me to help other singing groups out there.