My wife, Heidi, is having her piano students do a 30 piece challenge for the teaching year (She is participating as a pianist as well). The idea is to work on a few challenging pieces, a few medium pieces, and a few easy pieces, totaling 30 altogether by June, 2016. The pieces don’t have to be long, 16 measures is the minimum. The benefits include motivation, plenty of practice material, and perhaps especially, improved sight-reading skills. She invited me to join… as a composer.

I am aiming to write 30 pieces in the next nine months. It feels a bit daunting with my teaching schedule, but a lot of fun. Not all of the pieces will be choral, maybe not even a majority (I haven’t decided). Some will be short pieces suited for blessings at the end church or something in that vein, and a few others will be larger projects.

Heidi even got a sheet for me to put stickers on as I complete pieces. What fun!

If you are a composer, I want to invite you to join in.