It’s happened. It’s finally happened. After seven and a half months of waiting, I have finally received an encouraging word from one of the music publishers to whom I sent several scores late last year. Until now, all I had received for my efforts was one cordial “thanks but no thanks” letter from Augsburg Fortress (although they did encourage me to send them more things) and otherwise dead silence . . . until today.
It was actually yesterday afternoon that I finally got around to listening to a voice mail message that had been left for me this past Friday – a message I thought was from a someone else but which turned out to be from a music publisher. (I want to keep the name out of this for now; suffice to say that it wasn’t Ma & Pa Publishing in Gopher Creek, Kentucky.) The message said that they were interested in two of the pieces I had submitted, but had some questions about them and asked me to call them back. The message was simple and straightforward, and yet I literally couldn’t believe my ears. Fortunately, Kathy was home to listen to the voice mail herself and confirm that I hadn’t imagined the whole thing. Someone was Interested in my music! Hallelujah!
Needless to say, I was tempting to call them back exactly thirty seconds after 9:00 this morning, but I decided I didn’t want to seem too eager or frantic, so I actually managed to wait until 10:30 to call them back. (It was a good thing I had stuff to do at the radio station, or I would have jumped right out of my skin.) I called the number and a person answered – – – thank you, God! – – – and with as calm and collected a voice as I could muster, I introduced myself and said I was returning a call to so-and-so. She cheerfully put me right through to her. . . but after three rings, it went to voice mail. Curses! (I don’t know why leaving a voice mail was so much harder than talking to the actual person.) Swallowing, I did my best to leave a succinct message, which as some of you might know is as hard for me as juggling five electric eels . . . especially if I’m nervous. But somehow I didn’t sound too foolish or nerdy, except when I got to the part about where I invited her to call me back at her convenience, but I could also call her back if that’s what she preferred. . . blah blah blah. Why isn’t there a “Do-Over” button to press when you find yourself in just such a predicament?
At that point, I was resigned to waiting for a possible callback, but since I get such terrible cell reception in my office at Carthage, I headed home . . . camped out in front of the TV with one of my favorite documentaries (an amazing film about the fall of Saigon that I thought might be a sufficient distraction) and resolved that by the time the program ended (in two hours,) if I had not yet heard back from the music publisher, I would call them again. I never knew that time could crawl as slowly as it crawled for that two hours that I waited in vain for the phone to ring! After that then it took me another half an hour to scrape up the courage to finally call them back myself. And this time, when the operator put me through to the person in question, they picked up the extension. Eureka!
Anyway, to make a somewhat long story short, this publisher is interested in two of my original compositions: “Great and Glorious Light” and “Shepherd’s Gloria.” At this point, I’m not sure what exactly they mean by “interested.” Interested as in “we got nothing better to look at”? Interested as in “these are the works of a brilliant genius”? Somewhere in between the two? Probably. 🙂 Nothing this person said implied that any of this was a done deal- but on the other hand, they are intrigued enough to want to know more. Specifically, their questions centered on some differences between the printed scores and the recordings I’d sent with them- and which should be considered the final and definitive version. I think the fact that they had paid close enough attention to notice the differences is a good sign… or am I just grasping at straws here? Trying to feel firmer about a situation that is still more question mark than exclamation point?
Except who am I kidding here? This is one of the biggest exclamation points I have experienced in a long, long time – and even if all this does not end in actual publication, I will still be thankful that something I composed has caught the attention of a complete stranger whose desk is probably piled high with the scores of aspiring composers. In that scenario, just being noticed is almost the biggest accomplishment of all. (Please remind me of what I just wrote if in fact all this ends in disappointment.)
*Pictured above: a neat glass sculpture in a store on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago. By the way, when it comes to this latest development, I would be remiss if I didn’t reiterate my thanks to Paul Marchese who all of his help in putting these works down on paper in coherent form, accompaniments and all. This would not have been possible without his generous and skilled assistance.