Roaming South America

Unemployed, again and how I am keeping busy

February 14, 2009

Just a quick update since my last post - I was laid off from work back in September. I had a 6 week contract job doing some PC upgrades/replacements at various Wells Fargo banks here in Tucson and up in the Phoenix area. After that contract ended I've had nothing. I've applied for over 60 jobs, and have had only 2 interviews.

With all this time available what to do? Well, some of it has been spent transribing music for one of the bands I play in. Some of you may be wondering what is transcribing?

It's the work done to write the music heard on a cd. In my case for the band I am doing this for, I listen to the song in a program that lets me select short bits fo music and repeat them over and over. As I learn the horn parts I write them down. All the horn parts - trumpets, saxes, trombones. Some songs don't have horns, or all of those, in those cases I arrange parts for the other instruments. It's a lot of work. Generally 10 hours or more per song, depending on the difficulty of the music.

Also, I've been helping a friend with organizing a fund raiser for one of the local catholic churches in town. We aren't catholic or go to that church, I've just been helping with the fund raiser.

One of the bands I play in - Latin Society - is going to be playing in San Antonio, TX again, for the third year, at the Tejano Music Awards Fan Festival, March 20th and 21st. Cheryl and I will be celebrating our anniversary that weekend as well.

Another band I play in - The New Latin Sound Allstar Band - is debuting on May 2nd backing Rudy Palacios. That will be at the Tucson Convenction Center. That's the fund raiser I've been helping my friend with organizing.