Allow me to tell you about the origin of HW’s first piece of music, Heaven’s Wait Theme.

Once the fantasy world of Heaven’s Wait had an established name, an idea entered my mind that this world should have a theme song.

I started tinkering on my piano, and the initial melody for the song came to me in bits and pieces. The song, which would establish the initial mood for the fantasy world, needed to be something that portrayed grandeur, a sense of the faraway and mysterious, and a heaven-like essence. I wanted the song to sound somewhat classical yet a little otherworldly. I had no idea how to achieve the treatment I desired.

The melody progressed nicely, and I was able to jot down a simple accompaniment. But writing the notes was a grueling task, because I wasn’t skilled enough to do it efficiently and accurately. I trudged along writing one note at a time, losing parts of the song as the notes traveled from my head to the sheet music. I didn’t know much about the chord progressions, and I certainly didn’t know which instruments to use for the mood I was after. At that point, I was simply happy that the melody sounded lovely to me.

Enter Aki Ross! I found it somewhat hard to expose my elementary work to someone who obviously knew so much about the world of music. It had been just as hard for me to send the first draft of my Heaven’s Wait manuscript to my professional story consultant, Brad Schreiber, many years ago. Back then, the fear of failure had been overwhelming. And I did fail miserably time and again until I learned some valuable writing skills and wrote numerous revisions. By the time Aki entered the picture, I had overcome the fear of criticism, and I welcomed his suggestions with open arms. I was still a little shy about the exposure, but I knew that anything he had to offer would do nothing but make it better than it was. And “better” was something I was eager to embrace.

Aki was full of ideas and suggestions. He took the piece and dug into the orchestration. It was our first time working together, and it was during the 2021 winter of COVID distancing. We passed the files back and forth and had a few Zoom meetings along the way. We discussed the progress and made sure the process was working for us. This was new territory for both of us. I was amazed by his ability to transform my simple work into something I think is now beautiful and something we’re both proud of. Please enjoy the completed Heaven’s Wait Theme. B

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