On Wholeness, Dorothy, Snippets, Job Searching, Illustration

Hello friends, I have some brief updates regarding my music and life. If you have no idea who I am, I’m a piano composer named Ben from Austin, TX. I moved my little flock of ~100 subscribers to Substack because TinyLetter shut down, but feel free to unsubscribe if you still don’t remember me or just need less emails in your life.

The album I am (slowly) working on is tentatively titled “Toward Wholeness” because wholeness is something I’ve been thinking about a lot. I find that it is what I desire more both for myself and for others. It has a kind of breadth that things like career success, fascinating work or art-making, money, etc. just don’t have. Kind of like ecology, it just seems to connect with everything.

I have a bandcamp album of some drafts, although those are old and initial ideas, whereas the newer stuff I have been posting as snippets on Instagram. Look for the black background ones in my reels.

The music is more directly religious, which I was going to say is new, but both of my two most recent albums have also been like that so I guess it’s not that new. I have found my instrumental music fits really well in quiet prayer church services, like gregorian chant or Taize etc. I have a melody I wrote for the Hail Mary prayer which I haven’t recorded yet.

I got a new piano last summer because Silas (my almost 2 year old son) was crawling under the beloved CP-80 and pulling on the legs. The new piano has a soft pedal which is how I have mostly been playing it. I love a soft pedal and sustain. Speaking of children, we also had a daughter born earlier this year, our sweet Dorothy. She is precious. I have a little song for her I am working on too.

In my journey to integrate work and art-making I am once again in a situation in which I have overbalanced one way (I really enjoy this article on the topic of art-making and sharing). Last March I resigned from my software engineering job to take a job doing some garden design and mostly garden maintenance. Kind of like my stint as a full-time composer in 2013-2014, it has has some beautiful moments but just isn’t working so I need to get back into tech. I’m thinking I want to try a role that is a mix of technical and relational skills, something like a solutions consultant, IT business analyst, Technical Account Manager, etc — though since I’ve gotten into design it would also be cool to do a hybrid software engineer and designer role.

I did a fun illustration and graphic design project for Central Texas Seed Savers. I also did a book cover for a book on native plant gardening. One I haven’t added to my portfolio yet (though it’s on Instagram) was some illustrations for a sustainability non-profit called A Rocha.

I’d love to hear what you have been making or enjoying. Peace to you.

Ben