Long Distance Collaboration

So, for the past few years I’ve been collaborating with this guy I met on the internet.

It’s true! When I said this to a group of teachers a few weeks ago there were laughs, like I was joking. But, I wasn’t. My partner in crime, Neeki Bey, and I had just met face to face around noon two days before. It did seem bizarre then, but up to that time it had seemed completely normal.

Neeki is the artist behind Piano Accents: A World of Music for the Piano. We met when he asked me to review his first volume, Africa. I had written a book of songs and activities from around the world, when I was working on my doctorate, and I was looking for a way to take the academic and make it work in the real world.

I sent my work to him and asked if he might want to do some collaboration. Luckily for me he said yes. It seemed, he had been looking for a way to bring something new into the future volumes he had planned. We settled on a Latin American book as our first project. Now, almost 2 years later, I am working on an Asian book and he has just finished a group of Bollywood arrangements.

Cyberspace and modern technology have made working from different locations totally possible. We have Skyped, phoned, texted, and Dropboxed from many cities and once from Africa to Tucson. When Neeki walked into my studio for the first time, he said, “I know this room!”

It was wonderful to find that we really did get along in person and that teachers and students responded so positively to our music. We have had some super reviews online and become friends with some wonderful blogger colleagues. But somehow, as we sat in that booth in the exhibit hall, with the tracks to all the pieces playing, it all became physically real. After the Showcase, I felt like the bride who had just found her wedding gown. We had actually done it! (and, yes signing books helped that feeling along for sure)

You never know where a your passions will take you or how they will combine to make something new. In the 90’s, three colleagues and I worked with Yamaha to put on Cool Sounds Music Camp in which we taught piano ensemble, sequencing, composition, and arranging. Little did I know all that experience plus a blog, and a grad school project would lead to a new career facet in composition and arranging (or that my love for Messiaen would lead to a solution for bringing Taiko drums to life on the piano).

But they did. And all with a guy I met on the internet! Thanks Neeki.