Here is my game plan for the moment: reach out to local pianists and offer to host Groupmuses, in exchange for them performing one of my pieces. This has worked exactly one time, and it was a thrill! Three pieces performed by an actual human being (pianist Jun Cai) in front of a real, live audience, and a set of recordings that I can actually show to people! This was a special day for me. It was officially the first time a non-me musician performed my music. My parents were there! Here’s one of the pieces:
Jack’s Song
So now I desperately want to do this again, only bigger. My current goal is to book a church or community center and put on a real concert. I contacted a pianist named Joanna Różewska, and she told me she would be interested in playing some new music… if I write her a piece based on Polish folk music. So that’s my current project I suppose! I have been researching Polish folk tunes for a couple days, trying to wrap my head around how to write something new and original based on Polish music, without losing the flavor of the folk songs, but also without just copying Chopin’s style. I found this set of folk songs, so maybe I could use one as a theme, perhaps theme and variations? I don’t really know yet. My general plan is to sketch out various ideas using some of the Polish themes and see if anything grabs me. I started tonight by playing around with this theme: 
Pretty cheerful, perhaps too much so? But maybe as a triumphant theme in the middle of a piece? That doesn’t fit with the theme and variations idea, but maybe this could be more of a medley. A medley of dances perhaps, woven together into a tapestry where different themes come and go. As you can see, I’m in brainstorm mode. That first idea led to this totally new idea, but same tempo and key. It could easily fit with the first bit:
I like this one better, it feels more like my style. In fact, it makes me want to take these Polish themes and make them sound all “American-y”. Infuse in some bluesy stuff, jazzy stuff, strange colors. Is that destructive to the “Polish-ness”? Maybe so, maybe not. Chopin’s mazurkas weren’t reeeally all that traditional. They were infused with classical techniques, chromaticism, Chopin’s own flavors. So maybe I’ll take this old music and make it new again in my own way. After all, that’s the point of all this right? Here’s a minor one I might play with:
I think 3/4 time and minor key is the way to go with this piece. I have a lot of sketching to do, but at least I feel some momentum. I’ll keep you posted!