Hey everyone, Joel here.

So now that that music camp is done, I’ve spent a lovely week with my girlfriend in Maine, and I’m back home in Michigan with time to think about the future, it’s starting to sink in: much like my friend Nathan, I have no idea where I’m going….and that’s okay.

College so far has been a journey of discovery, whether that means discovering what kinds of music I like more than I thought I would, or discovering that some friendships are shorter lived than others, or discovering that anthropology is really cool too. It’s easy to look at everything I’ve learned over the last three years and think, “Hey, looks like I’ve got it all figured out. Now I can be a real adult!” (or some such nonsense), but there are a few more questions that need answering; more than I can fit into one more year of undergrad. As a musician, and a performer, what’s my niche? As a composer, why the heck do I keep trying to compose? As a Christian, how am I supposed to fit in the world of the arts? As a Torah keeper, how am I supposed to fit in the Church? Where do these questions intersect, and when do they matter most? On the more practical side of things. should I go to grad school, or try to get a job and pay off these loans I’ve been accumulating? With any luck (or more accurately, a lot of prayer, faith, tears, sweat, and lifting with Nathan hopefully), I’ll find an answer to maybe one of those questions.

If you’re reading this…..thanks, I guess. I can’t say what this is going to be like, never having written a blog and such. Nathan’s a more experienced writer than I am. Anyway, get ready for rants on trumpet technique and ethics and contemporary concert music and Levitical festivals and how my life is going, the good and the bad!

Short start, but there it is.

Cheers.

Soli Deo Gloria