Hello, Newgroundlings! Happy Spooktacular. 👻 This is my usual personal update, but first, some thoughts on a few things I enjoyed here recently:

• I've been a fan of the Salad Fingers series for years, so it was great to see David Firth (@Doki) publish a new one this past month. I think the NG Money Gang is a great idea and a Salad Fingers episode is a great choice for its first sponsorship opportunity. If you'd like to support David yourself, sign up for his Patreon.
• Similarly, I thought the recent release by Adam Bohorquez (@DeadlyComics) was amazing: Easy Bake is a little surreal masterpiece. It inhabits that same uneasy buried mental space as something by Don Hertzfeldt (or, come to think of it, David Firth).

And now, in the words of Monty Python, for something completely different.

Expanding Piano Lessons

My main project recently has been building up my piano studio. I'm trying to get more students at Timbral Music so I can rent an office in that space 24/7 (as opposed to part time, which is what I'm doing now).

I'm teaching around 20 students there, and I'm still teaching a few students at Premier Music Academy and the Armstrong Community Music School.

Video Game Development

I'm engaged in some hobby projects. For example, I'm developing a video game for one of my composition students, to give him the experience of writing a soundtrack.

I'm not a professional programmer, and the design of this game probably isn't anything to write home about. The graphics are ripped from one of the Zelda games, after all. However, it's fun to have a creative outlet that isn't music. It's a nice change of pace.

(If you'd like to see a game I made in the past, check out Blob Story.)

Bonus Content For My Website

Another computer-y thing I've been working on is an update to my subscribers' content.

I have a subscription option on my website where people can support me and the free content I put online for a few dollars a month. As a way of thanking people for doing that, I have an "exclusive content area" for subscribers, where I throw a bunch of behind the scenes stuff I figure they might be interested in.

I had this idea recently that I might expand that quite a bit with more material. I'm writing out new sheet music, making video recordings, and experimenting with creating audio commentary. I'd also like to revamp those pages so the whole thing looks and feels more like a streaming service.

It's still in the works. I've been chipping away at this for the last two months. When it's done, I think it'll be cool.

Student Art

I did a call for student art at Timbral this past month, and made a silly little video advertising the event.

Basically, I'm trying to get more artwork for the walls, and I thought it would be fun to ask students if they wanted to submit anything. We're putting the submissions up in the kitchen.

If you're one of my students and you're reading this, feel free to approach me with something that you drew or painted to showcase it there. I'll be putting up the submissions next week.

New Piano Four Hands Recording

There's a new recording on my YouTube channel of my composition, "On the Road Again".

This is a kind of rhapsody or variations on a theme using the Willie Nelson song as starting material. I took the melody and I arranged it in a creative way for piano four hands (one piano played by two people). This was recorded with my friend Graham Yates, who I premiered it with two years ago. I'm really proud of this piece and recording.

Upcoming Projects

In addition to the work in progress I mentioned above, I've got some videos in the works for my YouTube channel; I'm writing another piece for Keith Allegretti's pump organ (like this horror-themed animation project I did earlier this year); and I'm looking forward to a concert in January that I've organized with my friends at Central Texas Composers. I plan to do another update like this in two months.

And that's about it! Thanks for reading. Happy creating :)

Best wishes,

Ben