Christmas and the spirit of giving

Last night, my choir had its second of two performances. It went swimmingly. It was wonderful. The choir surprised me with a bunch of flowers. It's a really lovely arrangement, full of lilies and roses.

I went to pack up my things from the kids' play room, and what did I find there but a kid, playing. She was all, "look at me!" and jumping on a beanbag chair. We chatted a little while about how cool it is to jump on a beanbag chair. I went to move my flowers, and she was immediately next to me with two questions. Why do you have flowers? and Can I have one?

I knew in that moment that I was within my rights to say "no," and gently say an age-appropriate thing about respecting other peoples' stuff, but... there was another thought in my mind. What am I gonna do with these flowers? Put them in a vase in my house. And they'll be pretty for awhile, and then they'll wither up. And they'll die, and I'll put them in the compost.

So I gave her a rose. Because, what the heck. I had like four, and she only wanted one. I carefully extracted a rose and checked it for thorns, and off she went to show everyone.

This story is just a small and happy reminder that love is a flower that becomes even more beautiful when shared. I was given a bouquet, which was happy for me; I gave away a rose, which spread the joy two ways. The rest of the night, she walked around with that rose and didn't let it go even once. She walked out the door still holding it.


Choir flowers :) on Twitpic

Merry Christmas, and I hope that a blessing comes your way by way of blessing someone else. It is a great thing. :)

"A Diner Club Christmas": radio, album, shoshosho

I cram so much into my one little life. Certain aspects of this are admirable, then... others are stupid.

For example, the past week. Jam-packed each night of the week, including Sunday. Now when it's Friday night, everyone else is out and I'm home too tired to move from the space-heated recliner corner.

And I really don't mind that one bit. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Anyway, there's this supergroup of us: the Paper Janes (Shane and Jess), Battleshy Youths (Michael, and Andrew, and Mitch) slash the Honey Badgers (Erin with Michael), and myself. We recorded the Christmas album "A Diner Club Christmas," which arrived on Monday, and we promptly began selling them to everyone we know, and will continue to do so awhile (please don't hesitate to comment or contact me if you want a copy!). I have already signed a few copies for co-workers. ^^

Okay. It's not like I've never played music with people before, and it's not like I'm opposed to it. I'm known to appear at many formal and informal jam sessions, as whim dictates. I fulfilled all my small ensemble requirements in college. To be blunt, though: I chose guitar so that I would not have to rely on anyone other than myself. I am my own one-woman band. I like the independence. (Which is probably why I am still single, and pretty happy being just that.)

Despite my hermit-like inclinations, playing with this group has been pretty delightful. Not that we have a name or anything.

Sunday we were on Hometown Heroes. I can't say enough good things about Mark Rogers, who invited us to be on the show. Hometown Heroes is run by WSTW out of Wilmington. Being in the studio is kind of magical. I've been in radio stations before, and the magic never really wears off. It's tingly, it gets under your skin, it tickles. You're stuck in an eternal grin. The half-hour in the studio really flew by, sadly, but there IS a podcast available!



The show which we were on air promoting went off last night. The Queen - wow. Onstage downstairs at the Queen is an experience and a half. The best part about it (okay, one of the best parts) was the sound guys. They were so good to us. We had such needs - instruments and equipment and vocals and man, what a headache. Luckily Michael's on top of things and the sound guys were really nice on top of being dedicated and smart about things. We played well and I'm hoping there's a podcast coming out sometime... :) I had a ton of people complimenting my mad uke skillz.

That's my brief on that. There's a show or two on the horizon, and Christmas still to get through with the choir, and plenty of dancing for the new year.

A Diner Club Christmas! Now available!

This is technically my first album release. ^^ These are 7 of the 11 tracks recorded. Make sure to get a hard copy if you'd like the FULL album! All the proceeds to to charity. ^^



And don't forget about our upcoming show at the Queen!

And there's a possibility I'mma be on the radio Sunday. Stay tuned for deets!

Head for the Hills, Open Mic Adventuring, etc.

Welp.



Watch the video. Then, if you care to read on...!


Thursday: Open mic at Steel City in Phoenixville. Driving up 202/other PA routes in the rain at night was the most awful idea I've had in awhile. I really actually don't do well driving at night, which I made fun of in a (mostly) improvised thank-you song for Cara. Steel City is real snazzy. Unfortunately, we got mixed up on the sign-up time. Lesson learned: websites lie/get outdated. Call a human being. If you can. We still got to do one song each right at the very end, which is better than nothing for the 1.5 hour drive we made.

Michael said it first, and I agree: the place was full of talent. There was not a single "meh" performer up there. I'd definitely be interested in going again if I can get a good handle on when sign-up starts and get on the road sooner. I really love coffeehouse open mics. Bars are fine, but I feel more pressured to cater to the raucous bar audience with covers when I really want to be doing quieter originals.


Head for the Hills was really fantastic. I'm not wanting to post a play-by-play, as it was really a jam-packed weekend. My favorite bits:

• Learning hambo! Hambo's a Swedish dance that's very tricky and can't be picked up like some dances. The workshop was well-done and it's not easy to teach, so it really speaks to the level of expertise of the instructors.
  
• Joining the pickup band in the middle of the dance floor, and onstage for three sets. It's incredible to be seated with 20-30 other talented musicians on one stage and just play dance music. I left my iPod in the cabin for most of Saturday, which I really regretted when I was playing in the pickup band. I would have liked to show a little of that.
  
• Campfires, impromptu communal singing, and late-night shenanigans. I regarded them as equal to any other workshop I participated in. :) 3 AM on Sunday found us 20-30somethings sitting on the floor in our dorm eating from a small cornucopia of variously contributed foods. By the end of the weekend, my sleep total was seven hours but my happiness percentage was seven thousand percent.
  

I think if I had to sum it up in one word, it'd be camaraderie. Sometime Saturday, people began to realize that I came by myself. They all assumed I had come up with this group or that group, and I think that just speaks to the true nature of it all. Just as you ask someone to dance, or as you would accept that invitation, you step into the community and take hands four and smile. This is a bunch of people who come together to dance, play music, eat food, try new things, teach old things. The give and take of the dance itself is echoed tenfold in everyone's collective heart. Give and take songs, new dance flourishes, encouragement, joy.

November madness

The madness never really stops!

So. What's going on.

• Playing the Gathering Place at Klondike Kate's tonight
  
• Adventuring out with Michael tomorrow for to see and play at an open mic at the Steel City Coffeehouse in Phoenixville, PA (and seeing superfan Cara!)
  
• Adventuring further on my own this weekend for dancing, dancing, musicking at Head for the Hills; I don't count my ducks before they hatch but I'm hoping to have some cool video to show you afterwards so that you can all be jealous that I had so much fun and got to make so many new friends. But I am really terrible at taking videos/photos of anything I do because I would rather be enjoying myself in the moment.
  
• Announced today: our supergroup dealiebobber (myself, Paper Janes, Battleshy Youths, ???) will be playing at the Queen, downstairs (!) on Thursday, December 1. Tickets are ON SALE! :) Come out and see us.
  

I reckon we'll probably have to practice or something ridiculous like that...!

I think we'll be featuring some of our Christmas tunes from the album, which has been all mastered up and is totally awesome-sounding. Really, seriously. A great product from a great time which was started by a great vision.

For now, I run, for I actually did not have time to blog this evening but oh well. :3

choir choir choir choir GO

Space heaters are AWESOME. I love that it's more than 60 degrees in here!

That way, I can stay comfy while I'm up arranging these songs for VCF choir. Wait... that's not what it's called. VCF Christmas Choir? The Barn Singers? (I suggested the Hayloft Singers at one point, because we sing at the Barn, and instead of a choir loft, a barn would have a hayloft... I am guessing that it was too witty and that is why I never received a response.)

Whatever it is, our first meeting is tomorrow. Kind of a late start. There are only 7 Mondays until Christmas. We are going to move at lightning speeds. Sing at the speed of light. And then be like, bam, Christmas.

It's my third year running it. I think this is my last year. I make no bones about it. I've led community choirs since 2005. And I like it. But the thing that makes them live is having them around all year.

I ask myself, why don't I just get it together, why don't I just get my act together and run it all year? And when I ask this, I find I can make excuses by the bucketload. I got a hundred up my sleeve. I think there are always plenty of excuses lying around if you ever need them. But the fact of the matter is: if you want to do something, you're gonna do it. To be honest, I just haven't wanted it to the point where it topped my priorities list. I can admit that without being a bad person.

(I think.)

For me, there has never been a lack of ideas for projects to get involved with. They simply cannot all happen. There are not enough hours in the week. I do find that I need to remind myself of this, otherwise this groundless guilt starts to set in and make everything sour. I think it's great to work hard to achieve goals, but we need to listen to our own hearts, and God's heart for us (yes, both, God does care about our wants as well as our needs) What not to listen to: the voices saying little annoying catch-phrase-y things, like Do More, Achieve, Get Involved. Being rested and healthy and spiritually well is success in and of itself, and that takes time, too. Contrary to popular belief, well-being is NOT the natural result of trying to cram more "productivity" into your day.

Still, though. Choir is awesome. There is so so SO much more to worship than Sunday morning, and it's easy for me to see the connections between choral singing and the kingdom of God. Corporate sound. One sound from many bodies. Oneness, proclaiming the message of Jesus. Learning to submit your voice into that sound. Learning to take the lead, gently but firmly, when necessary, within your part to guide others through the right pitches. We don't all sing the same voice part. But bass, alto, soprano, tenor, baritone, whatever: they all listen to one another, tune to each other, sing their own unique part in a unified message.

Yep.

I wrote something completely in Garageband

Goin' Nowhere by EmKeev


This is a pretty big departure from how I'm used to writing. I used to input every note by hand, which (I think) forced me to be more creative. Garageband lends itself well to loops and to material you can lay down in a couple of measures, then copy and paste. I find its score tool is pretty obnoxious and it hurts that I can't look at the score for multiple tracks. But maybe I'll change my mind as I use it, get used to it, etc.

There are so many many many things in Garageband that I've really never messed with before. With Cakewalk and mixing, I had a very basic handle on how to get certain notes to echo, how to change the volume level for individual tracks... that might've been it. Garageband has all these options and things that I don't even know what they are so I just play with them until I see what it did there. It's fun.

This little thing is repetitive and doesn't really go anywhere, but A) the intention was to mess with the software and B) the first eight bars really capture how the day felt. And for that, I'm glad. Music really expresses stuff I can't get out any other way and I really find that words are words and all but sometimes my sentences are just little prison cells for what I'm actually trying to say. The instrumental is more pure.

How do I ignore the obvious, and how did I get so good at it?

I am massively inspired by videogame music. Nobuo Uematsu, Koji Kondo... the way they bring series like Final Fantasy and Zelda to life... the intense nostalgia that returns anytime I hear their songs...

In high school, I spent hours crafting my own music electronically in Cakewalk. Each is its own journal entry. Each is its own small bubble of personal history. Each was carefully considered and followed some sense of musical intuition; I could barely write fast enough to keep up with the ideas as they came.

I hate that I like it, because I live at odds with technology. I don't like this culture or this lifestyle that's so heavily reliant on technology, primarily because of a care for the planet and a sense that technology removes me from that planet. How can a love of electronic music trump something much more organic like songwriting with pen and paper and guitar?

These questions don't change the fact that when I'm composing electronically, I completely lose myself in the joy of the chase.

Sigh.

Soundcloud

Jumped on the soundcloud bandwagon so's to start uploading electronic compositions:

Refurbished MIDIs by EmKeev

Did you know that I'm a geek?

It's true, I am.

I've been coding my own website. I coulda done something, I dunno, easy, such as gett'n a wordpress or something like that.

But I didn't wanna.

So, today I mastered CSS stylesheets. This is a real basic affair - it's gonna be really simple HTML, maybe a little javascript, maybe. I just can't hop on the bandwagon with this wordpress stuff. I prefer clean and simple, plus I don't need a giant website that takes forever to load. A website for me is going to be a cross between a brochure and a place where I can link all my social media together.

Right now, I'm going for functionality. I know it looks a little basic, which is, again, the intent, but I have a few ideas for decoratin' once it's formatted the way I want. Plus, I think Bets is still working on some things as far as design - she got the visual arts genes in the family, true story.



In all honesty, this is REALLY fun! I can just sit here and code for hours and all of a sudden it's 9:15 PM and I didn't eat any dinner. I love it.

Here, have a gander... I'll be updating this link as I go. (I should mention this is obviously hosted on my comcast space... I WILL purchase real webspace as soon as I figure out what my URL should probably be... I can't decide between emkeevmusic, emkeev, emmckeever, etc.)

My objective was to have this finished by the end of October, and I could have a rough rough sketch of it done by then, BUT. I need to brush up on my Halloween stories for Friday at Lums Pond, practice, all that good stuff - I'm essentially planning on not having personal time between now and October 31, when I will curl up in a ball in my room. Not because it's Halloween. Because I will be tired from pulling off the Hoot again. Oh, anyway. Just go look at the website already and give me some critiques, yo.

Album. Title. Theme. Something.

It's becoming more apparent that the album has to do with feathers/wings/birds/flight. I can't pin it down, though. I'm supposed to figure out what's tying these things together so that my sis can start thinking about what the album art's gonna be.

Well, I know what ties them together, I just can't figure out how to express it in just a few words. It bothers me a bit that I can't get it because I love poetry and poetry is all about cramming words full of meaning.

I wanted to call it "Peregrine," but several other musical entities have already done it and... this also really bothers me.

So I'm back to... at least a generic idea.

It'll come to me.

I hope.

Where did my goals go? Oh yeah, recording.

Things got nebulous for a second. They always do that when I don’t bother to set goals. The only thing that’s been keeping me focused is this recording thing. I sat down last night, though, and came up with 8 main goals to accomplish by the end of December. Then I taped them to my fridge so I can cross them off when I accomplish them. ^^

And, yes, recording is one of them. 4 tracks pretty well stabbed at, now. “Half-Decent” is hard to record because I alternately yell, then don’t. >.< That’s the price of having a personality.

Another main one is this website. I was investigating everything... thinking about how I could just do wordpress, like everyone else... but, you know, I hate doing what everyone else does. So I might just try to make my own site and learn some CSS, XML, and javascript as I go (I already have HTML skilllllz, yes, beyond the b, i, and u tags, thankyaverymuch).

It’ll probably take a bunch of time to learn, but honestly, any time you can invest in bolstering your computa skills is time well spent, if every job I’ve held has taught me anything...

Christmas in October

There are always, always, always, excuses. Mary Oliver probably puts it best in her poem, Kookaburras: "In every heart there is a coward and a procrastinator." She goes on to say, though, "In every heart there is a god of flowers, just waiting / to stride out of a cloud and lift its wings."

Her poem has a strong and stern message: Do not choose the former of the two, if you can possibly avoid it.

See, there are things in life, balances to be struck, bargains to be made. People answer this question - what's more important today? - while ignoring this question - what's more important for my life?

Yesterday, a group of us (incl. Battleshy Youths, Paper Janes, and various folks) chose to answer the second question in complete and utter defiance of the first.

And it was rockin'.

A lot of what's real and good in life makes no sense on the surface. Looking from the outside, you'd have seen a group of young people who have homework and school and jobs and obligations; you'd have seen them temporarily discard most of their obligations, including the forfeit of sleep; one of them has a recording studio in the basement, for some reason; his folks are somehow okay with about 20 people making use of all but a few rooms in the house for practicing, collaborating, eating, and hanging out; the house, by midnight, is littered with coffee mugs and bowls of chili; musicians climb in and out of the studio with a menagerie of instruments, some loud and obnoxious; and the last few stragglers finally leave the house at 3 AM to dodge herds of deer as they navigate through rural Pennsylvania to capture a few precious hours of sleep.

I know a number of people who would NOT be okay with this happening in or around their house.

So what's under the surface that makes it all worth it?

Friends, new ones and old ones. The practicing of creativity and generosity. Giving help, accepting help, asking for help. Encouragement to make full use of the special and unique gifts given to each of us.

Also, we possibly recorded some sweet tunes somewhere in there.

What a day.

Something's in the details and it's actually good.

I kinda like that this setup totally trumps the TV. (Come to think of it, I should probably make up a dust cover for it, since I use it like, once a week, maybe?)

I always underestimate the value of having a nice workspace. And I always kid myself into thinking that music isn't work. I know, inherently, that it is work, and I do take it as seriously as I take any other job I've had. I just make stupid decisions, like, having a workspace doesn't do that much for ya.

Um, yes, it does. baka!!

I'll be the first to admit that I am in a learning process. I mean, shoot. Despite years of classical training, I hardly ever played in front of a mic before I started pursuing singer-songwritership. That takes getting used to; it's a whole crazy world of understanding how to play and sing into microphones, why feedback happens, how sound system setups work (for the longest time I wasn't even sure I knew what a "monitor" was). But the learning is fun and I don't mind admitting I'm an idiot if it means I also get to talk about having fun.

I've been selecting, detailing, preparing songs. Ditching songs that don't resonate with me (cos why should I record songs I'm not 300% in love with?). Printing out lyrics sheets to my own songs, getting into the nitty-gritty of how and why I want to express certain elements of them, questioning and editing chord choices... I freakin' love it. Details, details, details, I love them. An ounce of detail can convey pounds of meaning, even if unperceived by the majority of listeners. They matter, and I love making them matter ^^

Zeal, and Pre-chickens

There has been a lot of this in my life lately.

It's a terrific thing.


In case you can't tell what "it" is, it's musicing. Musicing with people randomly, awesomely, at odd hours of the day and night. Running around water fountains, instruments in hand, yelling the lyrics to a minutes-old song (aptly named, I think, the "one chord song"). Improvising a song on Main Street in the rain about how we weren't busking. Guitaring on the beach with four friends and ten-foot breakers. Referring a new friend to a store that sells balalaikas.

You know how when you leave a place for a long time, you come back and it feels wrong? The doorknobs aren't at the right height, you can't remember the little tricks to all the sticky locks, the faucets turn the wrong way? This is like the opposite. This is like arriving at a place where all the little things actually feel familiar, even though you've never lived there before.

Honestly, there is so much freedom in my life right now, and if somebody saw me running around in the rain singing Puff the Magic Dragon in vocal harmony with my friends, they would seriously doubt my sanity, they would say something disparaging about how kids these days should get a job and become contributing members of society. And, you know what? I wouldn't care. Because I am contributing, just not in one person's narrow mindview. I'm really happy just being crazy. If this is the only life I ever live, I hope I've done it well and much to the consternation of narrow-minded people.

Lately I have been doing a lot of networking, though, and some playing out (most recently, the Queen's open mic). Things are happening, things have been scheduled, mulled over, talked about, collaborated and elaborated upon.

However, I do not count my chickens before they hatch. Ideas are not actual things. So expect updates when the actual things happen, but feel free to ask me in person about ideas, if you want to get your head talked off.

There's a lot of excitement. A lot of potential and energy (potential energy!!) and I hope the momentum doesn't get lost, I hope crazy new things start happening, I hope I will have the courage to take some steps and leaps and bounds when they start manifesting in real life.

And the rest of August went something like this.

Strawberry ice cream flat root beer float.

Both ingredients are remnants of social gatherings I've had here at my bachelorette pad, and there's no decent way to get rid of them... so I've merely deferred to the indecent methods.

Speaking of indecent, hellooooooooooo not updating my blog for a month.

Here, before you read on, click "play" on this song I wrote. Then you can listen and read at once. It'll be magical.

Click here for lyrics and stuff

What happened in that time?

• First paying gig since May! Or so I believe, since I haven't yet received a check. If I don't, I guess I volunteered to play background music for a dinner party. (I guess it's not really in good form to report publicly that I haven't been paid yet, but, that's just the thing... here's a transparent look at how I'm growing from my experiences. /tangent)
  
• Played for the Delaware Friends of Folk coffeehouse. It was their second round of performers for the Delmarva Folk Hero contest. Michael said I should do it, so I did, and I did my darndest and I just didn't make it. Reasons I'm not disappointed: there's a lot of good performers in the area, I can't win everyone over, and I planned and played my absolute best. Anyway, I ran into my fellow FAWMer and songwriter Aaron Nathans, which was kinda cool, and I got a taste of how the open mics are run by the Delaware Friends of Folk. Plus I met a ton of cool folks, which I always try to do wherever I am and it's always a good time. Michael & Erin's duo, the Honey Badgers, were finalists from the first round so they'll be playing at the Delmarva Folk Festival in October. Yay!
  
• Played at Mojo Main's open mic a couple of times, which was snazzy. One night I brought the dulcimer onstage, which was pretty fun. ^^ Oh, my snapshot was also in the local paper... it's not in the online version, but they wrote an article about some of Delaware's open mics, and Mojo Main was featured (of course!). In my own humble estimation - this is one great open mic. I've played/run a few in my time...
  
• I lost all my guitar students. Yep. So. There's that. I know my role as a guitar teacher, and if I've got beginners I generally expect that they will discover more of their musical identity while studying with me; once they know who they are, they might find another teacher or program that fits better, or they might decide that a little bit is enough for now. As long as the decision's what's best for the student and the student's family (and as long as it's not because I stink), I'm a happy teacher.
  
• The timing of it, though, is impeccable... which is to say, I'm not sorry to have a little of my time back to focus on what I'm doing, at least for now. Looking into the fall is like looking into a smoke-filled room. Fragments and bits of opportunity are drifting around and it's hard to say what's going to happen. Some exciting and new stuff's over the horizon, though.
  
• Also I finally joined ReverbNation. Michael told me to do it at the end of July and I told him I'd look into doing it the next week. Better late than never!! I don't know how the rankings work but somehow I shot up to #19 for Newark, which is quite strange.
  

So, yep. Ready for September. The end of summer means fewer hours at work which means greater hours for music!! :)

Basking in some local music...

TA-DAAAAAAAA~!

Camps are over. I prayed hard and I worked hard and it turned out beautifully. We had a pizza party on Friday, and there's a few of us who'll go in and deep-clean this week... but it's pretty much... done.

The monsoon cancelled our weekend programs, so I just got to sit around the house. It was a good thing... I was in a little physical pain and a little spiritual pain, neither of which I'd like to go into detail about on this here blog. Most of my weekend, therefore, was NOT dedicated to cleaning (so the house still looks like it's the last week of camp), but rather to sitting in my favorite recliner and busting out some Final Fantasy III.

Anyway, it was a good weekend, full of music and people. I had the chance to see a couple different shows... Bullbuckers played at Home Grown in Newark on Saturday night. Facebook informed me of it about 8 hours prior. I have my ups and my downs with social media, but that was a definite UP!

Bullbuckers is a local ska band - I saw them open for the Toasters here in Delaware a month or two ago. (Another one Facebook told me about.) I lost my favored FAWM hoodie there, but the bands did such a good job keepin' everyone skankin' all night that frankly, I just didn't care. Bullbuckers are a seven- or eight-piece band, and they rocked at Mojo 13 that night. I couldn't believe they were a local band - with a sound that polished, they had to be touring from somewhere. Anyway, I'm glad I had the chance to see them at a bonafide ska show surrounded by that ska energy... they did a great job at Home Grown, don't get me wrong, it just wasn't a ska show. ^^

I go out by myself with moderate frequency. This was the case all this weekend. It's not like I have no one to ask, but I just like adventures sometimes. Going out with people is a very safe thing. Safety is the hazard.

But the cool bit was running into some old friends from high school who are also ska aficionados. Sitting at the bar alone would have been just fine, but it's great to be at a show with fellow appreciators who will yell and clap in appreciation when the saxophone player mutes the low note with his knee, leaving himself to stand on one foot while blaring the sax.

Sunday, I went to a house show here in Newark, DE. This is a relatively new venue. The family just loves local music and having folks over and I'm not sure if this was the case, but it seems very much like the house was designed just for those two things. Runa is an awesome contemporary Celtic band. One of their members is genuinely Irish... :) His wife is American but she did a great job singing in Gaelic on many songs. They are just an incredibly enchanting and mesmerizing group. It was wonderful to see them in such an intimate setting - there were about 12 or 14 audience members, so I got to meet a lot of new folks and I got to chat with a good number of the band members. I had thought the guitarist was classically trained (got excited when he had to pause mid-set to file a broken nail), but it turns out he has just busked a lot. ^^ I have to admit a bit of guitar envy because his guitar sounded positively magical. He played a steel string like it was a classical. I have yet to figure out how one does that without destroying the nails. :( Shannon, the singer, told me a good deal of her story, how she was working and trying to make ends meet that way (in the "normal" way that so many people know), and that her husband (the guitarist) encouraged her to quit her job and see if they could make the band work. She commented that it's been three years and it seems like most small businesses need those three years to actually start taking off. They're now playing tons of festivals and it's really easy to see why... they are just a fabulous Celtic band and they have definitely come into their own.

And let me not forget to mention - the awesome drum battle! Bodhran versus the drum kit. (Well, it wasn't really a kit, but it was the best acoustic percussion setup I have ever seen, played by a great percussionist from Canada.) (Did I mention that the fiddle player was from Japan? None of them was from the same country. :)

Apart from being a tad jealous ;) it was a great weekend for music. Now that the summer's more or less over, it's time to burn more demos, cut more business cards, and renew myself musically.

And clean the house.

Deciding

Today I convinced a bunch of kids to become songwriters.

I brought my instruments to camp and enchanted the kids for about 25 or 30 minutes. The banjo and the dulcimer are just strange instruments to begin with, and all things strange and unusual are guaranteed attention-pilferers. You need such things in order to keep the attention spans of 12 youngin's whose main problems are loose teeth and not enough cookies for snack.

Granted... this group was creatively minded. I think children are massively creative as a general state of being, but these kids... they made up all their own games and played them for hours. I think they all played collaboratively at selling pretend ice cream for at least 45 minutes straight. (I might've played a role in purchasing the initial double-scoop of Rosewood-flavored ice cream. The generous store owner made me try a sample before I made my purchase, though.)

Anyone who has worked with kids for even half a day can tell you that children crave role models. They look to you. They take their cues from you. If you are silly and relaxed, the kids are going to have a great time. Apparently, they are also going to copy everything you do, because you are just really great for some reason that you won't be able to fathom.

So after I played a few of my own songs, and improvised a few on the spot, they immediately wanted to write their own. And they didn't forget about it. Over the next few hours, they wanted paper, and pens, or crayons. They wanted the paper stapled into booklets so that they could use it to collect their lyrics. They came to me with their songs and they sang them or wanted me to help them sing them. They were stories about clowns and fish, or songs about contradictions (yes seriously), or about how the camps at this park are the best (!!!). They wanted to collaborate and put their songs together.

They were awesome! I was really honestly floored by some of the songwriting talent in this camp. One kid was improvising lyrics, callback lines, with perfect rhythm and pitch that was all in one key.

It really made me think about some of the stuff I write... or don't write. Some of the things God pours on my heart which I ignore because it doesn't conform to my own standards. God said, my songs look and sound like all kinds of things, who are you to ignore the songs I ask you to write? I love those songs just like you love the songs these kids are writing.

Thanks God.

Feast

Well, I did it. Four songs in a row. What's called a "feast" in 50/90 or FAWM terminology. A feast is anytime you write multiple songs in the same sitting.

A couple songs, I couldn't tell you what they're about even if I tried. ("Unfamiliar Places" and "Bound Away") But the last two are about an abandoned bandana that I found while wandering the streets of Newark, and the Emerald Ash Borer, which is very much a threat to our ash trees.

All these ideas are related in that they've been kicking around my head for a little while, so I made a stab at focusing on completing a bunch at once. It was a good experiment and I'm pleased, but the problematic bit is the bit where I sit around on the computer and wait for comments. I need something to eject me from the internet.

Anyway, I've been going back and forth with various commitments. Time is precious and I haven't sat down and focused on an album, but I can sit down and spend all day writing songs. Also I still haven't got a website or anything fancy like that. I can blame it on the tighter work schedule I've got, but I know that's not all of it. You do what you want to do, ultimately, and I guess I just don't know what I want with music right now. Part of my problem is that I haven't lifted up most of it in prayer. If it's not time for an album, if that's just an idea I've got in my head that shouldn't happen right now, I'm fine with that. But have I even asked? No.

So there you go.

The fever pitch of my day job will go down drastically in three weeks when our camps end. I'm planning some stuff, including A) an appointment so I can get a really cute haircut ^^, B) vacation days for later August. I'm really looking forward to it.

I wrote it, but it's not mine.

Nothing currently happening in my life reflects what's going on in this song, so I have to admit it's from God to me for someone else.

Sweet Life


I've been posting other stuff, too, that I didn't feel was noteworthy enough to talk about on the blog, but here's the link to the rest of my 50/90 material. I'm 6 songs in, probably a little behind but I'm still optimistic.

50/90: The videogame connection

Every musician has founding moments.

One of mine was stumbling across a particular set of MIDI files, compiled by my brother. He'd downloaded hundreds of tracks from various versions of Final Fantasy. As I listened, I just got more and more entranced by the music.

At the same time, my honest-to-God prevailing thought was this: Pff, I could do this!

Nobuo Uematsu has a quote, which I can't find... he essentially believes in writing what sounds good. Which is a LOT LOT LOT different from what you learn when you study composition. Still, studying composition and music theory is really important. As a person who advocates music that sounds good - it's important to also write studies for purely academic purposes and to analyze other musical works.

Anyway, I took this memory and decided to draft ten ideas for short tracks for a made-up RPG I imagined in my mind. Here's the third track.

Click to listen to "Mischief."

I don't think I even like it entirely, but it was SO. FREAKING. FUN. to write.

I love this.

Doubt

All right. I need to stop with this posting-an-entry-then-taking-it-down. Thing.

All's I wanna say is that it seems like I have walked in doubt over my musical gifting for. ev. er. I wanted to say it without seeming like I was whining, too.

I don't think that doubt is always a bad thing. I've had it happen where God took peace away from certain options during times of decision, and it has helped to shepherd me in the right direction.

To be sure, sometimes it is a bad thing. Sometimes doubt needs to be bulldozed.

For me, music is a really broad area. Years of study and all. Not bragging. Just saying... I finally get that my understanding of music is extremely deep and broad, and it's not something that everyone has innately. So when God gives me an instruction like, "hey, go do music"... that's kind of like telling an engineer "hey, go make things."

I think what I've done is confine songwriting to guitar, banjo, lyrics, a set form, a nice melodic line, and some catchy riffs. And I think I'm really unsatisfied in those confines. So if the role of doubt is to bust me out of the four walls I've set around my God-given creativity, that's probably not a terrible thing.

50/90: First Blood

I don't know how this came out of me. Thank you, God.

Branded

2 Kings (Another Bible interlude)

I don't know a lot of the background here. I've been reading Kings lately and I just love this.

2 Kings 6, 8-17 (NIV):

8 Now the king of Aram was at war with Israel. After conferring with his officers, he said, “I will set up my camp in such and such a place.”

9 The man of God [Elisha, a prophet] sent word to the king of Israel: “Beware of passing that place, because the Arameans are going down there.” 10 So the king of Israel checked on the place indicated by the man of God. Time and again Elisha warned the king, so that he was on his guard in such places.

11 This enraged the king of Aram. He summoned his officers and demanded of them, “Tell me! Which of us is on the side of the king of Israel?”

12 “None of us, my lord the king,” said one of his officers, “but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom.”

13 “Go, find out where he is,” the king ordered, “so I can send men and capture him.” The report came back: “He is in Dothan.”

14 Then he sent horses and chariots and a strong force there. They went by night and surrounded the city.

15 When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” the servant asked.

16 “Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

17 And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, LORD, so that he may see.” Then the LORD opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

Those who are with us are more than those who are with them. I think he lived his life knowing this all the time. The servant gets just one glimpse of Elisha's everyday reality, and it's only his reality because of his relationship with the Lord. I think Elisha lived his life knowing, not in an abstract sense but a real and definite way, that God's protection was always there in greater numbers than the opposition.

'Nother great open mic (and sundry other things)

We had another open mic right here at my place. It was really snazzy, and it made me feel awesomely about the human race. Or at least, the humans I know personally who play music up in this here part of the world. It's not really an open mic... it's a gathering of friends and friendly people who just wanna play music and support other people playing music. The balance can be tricky since I think we had somewhere from 8-10 people who wanted to play, and I want everyone to be able to play as many songs as they want, but it never works out that way. I'm convinced we need to just take a camping trip in the wilderness and play music all weekend.

Honestly, though. I've never been a huge fan of TV and it actually kind of irritates me. Groucho Marx has a quote that resonates deeply with me: "I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book." I have been convinced for a long time that when people hang out together by watching television, they're actually not. Their consciousnesses are suspended inside the television or some other realm entirely. Time spent watching television, generally, is time... lost. In my own humble opinion. I just felt like people desiring to spend time together should actually spend time together, like playing games, talking, eating, or musicking. And last night was a really rich time of hanging out and connecting.

Oh, anyway. Other things that are going on...worship, and writing. I think I'm about to embark on a tune-writing voyage. Last Sunday, someone prayed for me and they said I'd be hearing a lot from God and pushing it out in song form. I already hear from God a lot (I actually have a book that I write down stuff I hear, which this person had no clue) so it's just a matter of opening myself up to obey. And honestly, I think that means fasting from... music in the car, music on youtube, etc. Because I'm always listening too loud or just getting absorbed (my consciousness is in the music, so to speak), and really, when you think about it - driving in the car is the perfect time to just sing whatever. Write songs out loud. So... I'll try it. I'll try it. That's all I can do.

(It's not bad to listen to music, obviously - there are times to absorb and times to release music, and I think I need to focus on releasing instead of absorbing, if that makes sense.)

I might sign up for 50/90, an offshoot of FAWM, just so I can see how much I'll write in this time. I do not anticipate actually writing 50 songs in 90 days, but why not see how far I can go? That's how I started with FAWM...

Been doing some worship with Wilmington church, and that's awesome. I also went to a sweet worship kinship that they set up at church, and had a blast 'cause it's a safe place to try out using the banjo with worship tunes (I know, banjo in CHURCH?!) I'm looking forward to seeing what God's gonna do with that.

Lessons are starting up again in a week... looking forward to that, too.

I need to be getting my butt in gear about recording, but Shane gave me some good advice and I'm still meditating on it. He said, write too many songs and then choose from those. Problem is I don't think I have "too many songs" yet. And then, I don't know if I need to record just nature songs, just folk songs, or some odd amalgamation of the two. It could be nice to focus them that way. Blargh, I dunno.

I'm gonna go hang some laundry and go to sleep. Got church in the morning ^^

"You're My Home," by Billy Joel, on Youtube.

I guess I forgot to blog about Gillian and myself recording a cover of Billy Joel's "You're My Home."

Well, we did!

The story behind it: Gil wanted to surprise my brother with a song at their wedding. It had to be Billy Joel. So, as I started to learn this song, I realized... that I hated all the arrangements that I could find. Good thing I can do my own arrangements. ^^



I was convinced we needed to record this puppy and get it on youtube, and their apartment recently exploded which means that they're stuck at my parents' house for a little while. So it alllllllll worked out. ^^

There's also a little bonus at the end where we just got... wacky. ^^

I feel less than awesome. Usually I exist somewhere between optimism and skyrocket determination, but I fell. It happens, and I'll get back there. By God's grace, which is wholly undeserved by me.

I bounce back and forth from this place, and the intervals between my visits here get longer as time goes on. I don't accept it as any kind of normal. I reject it in Jesus' name, actually. Because periodically, my joy gets snatched from me. I stop believing I'm actually doing anything constructive or meaningful.

Cynicism is a dangerous, dangerous place. Cynicism is a place of numbness that I find terribly repulsive. I can't live there, simply and purely because there is nothing nourishing in that place.

But nothing, so far, has managed to snatch God's goodness from me. When the fire goes out, I still have a spark. I guess sometimes I just sit in the dark for a minute and remember that this is how it was, all the time. There was no spark and nothing, nothing, but the dark.

Sorry this is so cryptic. Here, instead of me writing anymore, just go listen to this piece from Final Fantasy X. To Zanarkand

What am I doing, anyway?

I didn't feel like tacking this onto the other blog post.

I miss composing. I miss it a lot. There's nothing stopping me doing it, but I'm just remembering how much I miss it... we can forget sometimes about our original dreams and stuff, and become numb to them without knowing, but I have been messing with some of my old MIDI compositions and that reminds me. And then I heard this guy, John, play at the Palk basement show last night. He played a little on guitar and a little on piano, and it was all good, but his piano stuff was so influenced and inspired by harmonies and tonalities that you don't find in conventional music anymore, stuff from the music degree I worked so hard to earn, and it was like, man. WHAT THE CRAP AM I DOING ANYWAY!??!?!?!

My friend Alex has a shirt. He wore it sometimes back when we were both in North Carolina studying music and trying to beat Stephen at games of Pounce. It it black with huge white letters. It says "QUIT WORK MAKE MUSIC." He has been a self-employed music instructor and film composer for years now. Those big white letters haunt me sometimes.

As I was looking up his website just now, I noticed he has this collab up and it's in some kind of competition and frankly, it rocks, so give it a listen...

Anyway, give John's stuff a listen (especially "Paraphrase of a Dream"), and I'll link you to a couple of my refurbished MIDIs which I've been reminiscing over: Mystery and RAVE. I have literally hundreds of little thoughts like these two and they've never been out in the real world before. Jed's videogame was the first thing to ever do that, to get this stuff of mine out.

I need a better sequencing program - Garageband doesn't freaking cut it, like, at all - and I need to seriously go back and practice my classical stuff...

New things, new old things.

I've played an open mic nearly every week so far this year.

I don't know if that's what I'm supposed to be doing, but that's what I've done.

We went out Wednesday to Aqua * Sol's open mic. Aqua * Sol is a sweet venue - it's right on the C&D canal, next to the Summit North Marina. Perhaps an odd location and a little bit tucked away, but that just makes it something of a hidden treasure. The open mic was well-run and we made some new acquaintances... the guy who runs it also will make a recording of your performance and if it turns out, you can buy it from him. That's kinda snazzy. Since there were four of us, we asked if he could just do one CD of all of us. Haven't heard back from him about it yet but I got my fingers crossed. Stefan did a really sweet improv and the thing about improv is, if there's no recording, it exists one time and one time only, generally....

It's nice to try something new every once in awhile. Stranger, though, to have people with me when I'm trying something new. I guess most folks don't even like to do new things unless they can drag someone along with them... I like getting out of my comfort zone, though, and I find that if I try something new and I don't like it, at least I didn't make anyone else suffer through it with me. If I do like it, I can drag people back the second time.

But nooooooooooo, turns out I have friends who also like trying new things and stuff like that. Weird!

I like this story, so I'm going to tell it: we split from Aqua * Sol, but we didn't get far before we found somebody broken down at the 896/71 intersection, which is a pretty major intersection and not a good one to be broken down at... so we pulled over, Shane and I jumped out, and asked if we could help. Turns out we couldn't, but the guy was really appreciative of our offering. As we stood there, Stefan and Kayley drove up and asked if we needed help. At this point, the guy was overwhelmed and said loudly, "You people are awful young to be so nice!" (or something to that effect, of course) We were instructed to notify our parents that they had done well.

Anyways, that was that. Last night was an awesome basement show at the Palk house and I didn't play and I enjoyed the snot out of myself. Some really fantastic musicians came from pretty far away just to have a chance to play a few songs. I think that's what music does to people. It drives you to strange places to play for complete strangers and usually it works out pretty good, or if it doesn't, it's somethin' to tell the grandkids.

What music's doing to me... I feel new songs welling up. I haven't been obedient to that and sat down and wrote them out, but maybe that is what I'll do this weekend. Sequester myself and write music. If somebody could bring me a meal at some point that would be great since I'm pretty sure I'll forget to eat.

Here come the pretzels

In case you aren't a Simpsons fan, let me give you a little window into my madness... the quality's a bit off, but this clip illustrates where I get the phrase "here come the pretzels..."

Essentially, it means... life about to get crazy.

I just got back from three days of training at Camp Arrowhead in Lewes, DE. Work training. Camp training. We have one more week before camps start, and then it's two months of camps. I've got a very positive outlook on those two months, but it will be a non-stop barrage of pretzels, much like in the Simpsons clip to which I linked you.

But I did get a chance to play a few nature tunes for the other interpreters (that's heritage interpretation to you), and that was good. I managed to get a copy of my demo into the hands of an AWESOME guest speaker from Arkansas State Parks, who just saw a horseshoe crab for the first time this week. (It's a good memento for someone who's just seen a horseshoe crab for the first time.)

I don't know when I'll update again. June's going to be a month of refocusing. And/or slow insanity and lots of Mike's Hard Lemonade. Either way, I'm looking forward to it.

So this is cool - I'm on a podcast?

Remember that set I said I kinda accidentally played last Thursday at Mojo Main?

Apparently you can listen to it here: GraffitiRadio.com

Normally I really don't enjoy listening to myself, but I'm a minute or two into the first song and... it just sounds like I'm having a great time. Yeah, I'm making mistakes because it's Michael's guitar and I don't normally play steel string and I couldn't adjust the strap because it was too difficult and unfortunately all my guitar-playing friends are giants compared to me and I was getting over a cold so my vox mess up but... FUN!!!

The setlist is comprised of:
5 Stages of Infatuation,
The Horseshoe Crab Song,
"the war song" (no good title),
Automatic Toilet Song,
and Half-Decent (with Shane on drums)
...and COFFAY!

Anyway, the reason you can listen to this recording is because Graffiti Radio set up the show and was broadcasting it live. So I guess when you can do that sort of thing, it makes sense to record what you're broadcasting and put it up as a podcast. Huge big shoutout to Graffiti Radio for letting me go on - you folks are completely awesome!!! And thanks to Michael for being the ninja go-between-suggestion-guy.

If you've got a couple seconds, also listen to the other sets - folks did a great job that night!

Whoosh!

The last four days were a whirlwind. In fact, life from this point on until late August is going to be a complete cyclone.


(from toothpastefordinner.com)

A damselfly just landed next to me! So pretty. I'm outside enjoying my porch. It would be a much nicer porch if I had a couple beers and some friends over. Instead, I'm blogging and eating chocolate. Whatever.

Anyway, enough about domesticity. Back to the adventure! Because, as we all know, there is no adventure in domesticity. Which is something that has rather been affecting me in not a good way. Twice in the last week, I've had to truncate adventures due to my nice domestic lifestyle of having a job and a house to take care of.

RARGH

But anyway. I truly am grateful for what I have. Which is chocolate. And a blog.

OKAY, musics!

Thursday, I grabbed a five-song set at Mojo Main, rather accidentally, by which I mean, I didn't mean to. By which I mean, I showed up to hear the Paper Janes and Battleshy Youths and all of a sudden I'm onstage killing time until Glen shows up to drum for the Janes. Thanks to Michael for sneaking that in, all ninja-like, and for letting me borrer his guitar.

Friday, I show back up at Mojo to much suspicion. "Weren't you here last night??" "Yeah, I stayed overnight and ate something I found on the floor for breakfast." Anyway, that was fun. I like matinees at Mojo Main. This time, there were even some people there! Afterward, I got to scootch down Main Street to hear the Paper Janes play in the dark at Central Perk. ^^ Seriously, more shows should be played during power outages, just sayin'.

Saturday, down to the Dupont Nature Center for Peace, Love, and Horseshoe Crabs 2011. Shane was gracious enough to accompany me on the djembe. (He also helped to put a dent in the buffet table, which I think was much appreciated since they had WAY TOO MUCH!.) I missed the daytime portion of the festivities, but I had an awesome time singin' and playin' and carryin' on at the silent auction/dinner/benefit portion. The assistant superintendent of Lums Pond drafted a team of backup singers & dancers for the Horseshoe Crab song. ^^

Sunday, I actually didn't play anywhere, believe it or not.

Monday was Mojo Main's open mic, again, the best open mic in Newark, DE... I busted out a few songs that I don't ordinarily play. In fact, one I've hardly played at all since I wrote it for FAWM 2010.

And Tuesday was a lovely Palk Basement Show, where Michael and I played a pretty-good rendition of "Peter." I love that song. I really do. I honestly didn't practice at all before we went up. I should consider doing that sometimes. Unfortunately, I had to miss the last band 'cause I was basically a hot mess between feeling miserable in the stomach region, and therefore not having eaten, and then all the other life that was happening and me feeling bad and guilty for things, and I just felt like it would be a better idea for me to go home at that point.


So that's what I've been doing. This is actually my last week of teaching lessons for a month... work is promising to get really rough in the next month, and I'm just taking a little breather so I can focus and do things like... sleep. I do like teaching guitar. I only like teaching under certain circumstances... I've never been enamored with public schools. The idea of bringing homework to grade is so repulsive to me. I'd probably be the best teacher ever, actually.

Work is going just fine. I JUST got the summer concert series ALL booked up as of this week, so I'll start promoting that soon.

I gotta give a shoutout to the community of folks I've got around me right now. There are just a lot of musicians around me with really good spirits. I really am looking forward to seeing what is going to come out of this, 'cause I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.

Tetris on Dulcimer

Here's me messing with the mountain dulcimer, playing the Tetris A Theme. I don't think you're supposed to hold the instrument that way, but I wanted to have fun, goshdarnit!

The dulcimer is actually a really beautiful instrument and I enjoy experimenting with it to see what it can do.

---

Last night was Mojo Main with Shane. Here's a video of his performance, which went over really really well:



You can hear someone at the very end yelling "400 BABIES," which I loved. So. Much.

My own set was fantastic! We killed "Half-Decent." I think it was about 76% decent, in fact!!

---

What can you be looking for in the near future from me? Hmm. Mostly I'm expecting to be real busy with work, and to be trying to recuperate from whatever illness is currently inhabiting my trachea, so, I don't know. You'll get a post about Peace, Love, and Horseshoe Crabs, for sure, and then it's hard to say. Sorry in advance for falling off the radar for a little while!

Little updates...

-Got a microphone, finally! Haven't even had time to get it out of the box and set it up for the first time, but... it's here. Not something I ever would have imagined myself doing, intentionally purchasing equipment for the purpose of amplifying my own voice...

-Spoke at an environmental journalism class at UD today. Always, always, always wonderful to share about why I'm doing what I'm doing (even if I don't know exactly what I'm doing). Played a couple of my nature tunes for the group with Shane, which I think makes him the first person ever to rehearse and perform my own original tunes alongside me. Thanks, Shane!

-Been doing worship here and there, which still feels kinda new to me. The plan is to set up my own binder of worship tunes... tho really, I'll end up pretty much memorizing them all since they're all of 3-5 chords each... there's only 1-2 worship tunes I have ever had to look up in order to play correctly... (sounds like I'm bragging, but I'm allowed to do that since it is A) one of God's gifts to me and B) something I've spent years and plenty of my parents' money developing)

-Peace, Love, and Horseshoe Crabs coming up Saturday, May 21!

-I'm taking June off from teaching guitar. My job goes bananas in June and I'd like to focus. I've had so many inquiries from potential students in just the last month... which is wonderful! But summer is, unfortunately, the busy time at work, and I'm learning a little bit these days about the wonders of getting sleep and spending time at home just weeding the garden...

This is why I love Palk basement shows.

The good shepherd (a biblical interlude)

Lately I feel like I've got no forward motion. Like a sailboat on a still and windless sea. Realistically, I actually have PLENTY to be doing - three performances in the next month or so - nothing fancy, but a gig's a gig. I try to do this regularly, but especially in the harder times, all I want to do is press in to the Lord and be in His presence. And He usually shows me what to do. So lately, I've been reading a whole ton in the Bible. Now... look. I know some of the stuff I'm going to say could be old hat, but it's new to me and I revel in it.

For awhile I was reading in John, and of course there's verses 11-12 in chapter 10 that go like this:

I am the good shepherd, and the good shepherd gives up his life for his sheep. Hired workers are not like the shepherd. They don't own the sheep, and when they see a wolf coming, they run off and leave the sheep. Then the wolf attacks and scatters the flock.

Thing about these verses is they mostly tell you, "Jesus loves you as one of his own, and is not going to leave you if something bad happens." Which is GREAT! But I was reading in 1 Samuel (I'm addicted to it right now), and I found this image of David's shepherding prowess which I really liked, and which (I suppose?) gives an image of what shepherding was like back then (before border collies and things). It's Chapter 17 verses 34-35, and David is trying to explain to Saul that he is, in fact, qualified to go after Goliath:

But David told him (Saul): Your Majesty, I take care of my father's sheep. And when one of them is dragged off by a lion or a bear, I go after it and beat the wild animal until it lets the sheep go. If the wild animal turns and attacks me, I grab it by the throat and kill it.

Yeah, you might get snatched up by a lion, but guess what? Jesus is coming for you. Relentlessly, singlemindedly, and fervently. And he's going to beat the crap out of the lion what snatched you away from his Father's flock. WITH HIS BARE HANDS.

Booyah. Take that, Bear Grylls.

This post is relevant to my music? Yep. I just couldn't be a crazy music lady without God and His relentless lion-destroying love for me, and I never was a crazy music lady until He convinced me to start making use of the gifts He gave me. It's a good reminder... that I'm not doing this music thing for myself, really. I'm doing it to give glory to what God has done in me. Not something I want to lose focus of.

Storytelling and Facebook Pacts

I've made a pact with Shane to use facebook just for one hour during this week. If one of us goes over the limit, they have to buy the other a milkshake. This is actually REALLY helping me, so let's hope it keeps working. 'Cause, really - that's ten minutes a day for six days, or 20 minutes on 3 days. Honestly, that's enough.

This is important for the musics to happen because if I'm on facebook, I'm not practicing. When I divert time from facebook, it usually goes into practice.

---

No huge music updates. I set some new goals for the summer. The one I'm most excited about is the storytelling thing. I've secretly wanted to be a storyteller for years. Technically, I did prepare and tell stories around a campfire at Halloween last year, so I suppose I can technically say that I am, but I haven't made any more moves on any more stories since. But, man - that was so awesome. I had a small but wonderful audience and they thoroughly enjoyed the stories. I picked stories that were not too scary, but mostly spooky and funny.

I've been told you need a niche to survive as a storyteller - a focus. I was discouraged by this for awhile, but the answer should have been completely obvious - I'd be nature-focused. Duh. So I actually put a "Wild Tales & Tunes Campfire" on the schedule for a Saturday evening in August for Lums Pond. If all goes well, I think it'll serve as a nice launching point for incorporating more storytelling into what I do. If it flops, it flops.

Obviously, I don't actually think it will flop - otherwise, I wouldn't have planned it - but you can't know these things unless you try. I just think it would be incredibly lame to arrive at the end of my life and find myself thinking about all the stuff I didn't do because I just didn't try. I don't want to wonder how it could have turned out.

Mary Oliver says it best in this excerpt from "When Death Comes":

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Goals and Priorities and Focus

Ever have so many things to do that the enormity of things weighed on you and prevented you from doing them?

Prioritizing, I can do. Goal-setting, I'm good at. But usually, as you're heading through those priorities and goals, they shift. It's like walking on sand. (I just went to the beach ^^) Really, though, it is. Pick a direction and take a step, and you slide. You put in X about of effort and get X-2 reward.

I had a set of goals for January through May. Now it's April, and how did I do?

Goal 1: 1 gig per month. Met, and exceeded, actually. I know it seems silly that I wrote specifically just one gig, but you have to put numbers on these things so that you can tangibly measure how you did.

Goal 2: Develop songwriting community through FAWM and Castle Open Mic. Met, mostly, as far as I can tell, tho we haven't had as many open mics as I thought. (The Castle Open Mic is a small group of friends which meets solely for the purpose of playing music or otherwise performing for each other. Originally it was a true open mic, but this is what it is now.) We actually had outstanding success with FAWM. 12 performers at the Newark Arts Alliance = win.

Goal 3: Complete FAWM. Met. Got a ton of new song material and I like a lot of it.

Goal 4: Maintain 3-5 students. Met, definitely - which is really more of a prayer answered than a goal met - the only sure advertising that seems to work for me is word of mouth, and that's honestly how I prefer it.

Goal 5: Practice 1 hour/day. Failed (miserably).

Goal 6: Participate in Schola Cantorum (UD Community Choir). Failed, mostly because I felt intensely that I would be too busy to actually receive nourishment from participating (if that makes sense).

Goal 7: Run Easter Choir at the Barn (church). Failed. There was some interest, but not enough to where I felt comfortable preparing them for a performance at Easter. Aside from this, I have realized that my work with the parks gets intense in the springtime, and it might be prudent of me to accept my limits and say that Christmas is the only time I can feasibly run a choir. I would be happy to mentor or accept folks as co-leaders of a choir, but if it's just me - I can't do much more than that.

So... okay. I guess I didn't suck as badly as I thought I did. Even the goals I "failed," I learned something about limits. Plus, I think I'm adopting the "shoot for the moon" mentality ("Shoot for the moon; even if you miss, you'll land among the stars") - planning too much and dropping some stuff instead of not planning enough.

But failing to practice at least 7 hours a week is disgraceful. I really am ashamed of that. Honestly - in college, it was 2-3 hours a day. I know it's incredibly bad form to admit it publicly, buuuuut... I think I need to say it. I think, actually, more of what I need is I need to communicate with my comrades-in-arms and get them to hold me accountable.

Also, I did some stuff that wasn't part of my goals. I've played 12 open mics so far this year. Not one of my top priorities. Not even a goal. An open mic doesn't count as a gig for me. It might count under "community building," though. But the intent is not to try to make stuff fit into the categories I've chosen - there should be a focus overarching everything I do. Should I have devoted time to performance experience, exposure, and community development when I really needed to just focus on practicing?

Well, possibly it was all right for then. Right now, though, I'm feeling a shift in focus. It's time to look at the next 3-4 months and set some new goals and priorities.

Now, how to make priority-setting a priority...

I have not been this ill in years. The body naturally rejects what's not good for it, and mine made it clear last night that there was a very not-good thing in my system. Around 2 AM I finally began to feel well enough to get up off the bathroom floor and go to bed.

This physical ailment is the cap on a long week of discouragement and hard thoughts about life in general, including music. And I don't think it's a bad thing - it's a call to look at what I'm doing, define my direction better, prune back the spots that are growing rampant - it's just a hard place to be by yourself.

First campfire of the season!

Hallelujah!!

Campfire!!

(Photo by Laura Madara)

Last year, I had the pleasure of performing at 3-4 campfire programs with Delaware State Parks. This was not by any coincidence, since I am also employed by DSP. Now, among many other things, I am technically the booking agent for an entire park. Granted, we have all of maybe five performances a year, but... still. It counts.

Anywho, I booked myself for a campfire program. Actually, I guess I didn't book myself. Since I'm an employee, I can't get paid anything other than my hourly rate, so when I play, I'm technically playing as an employee of DSP and not as a crazy music lady.

Even though I still am, and will always be, a crazy music lady.

Anyway, I love my park and I love campfire programs! There's one thing you need to understand about me... I've been to summer camp. Overnight summer camp. Since the first grade 'till about fifth grade. And at summer camp, you sing. You sing ridiculous songs, sentimental songs, funny songs, songs with participation or callback lines, walking songs, grace songs, morning songs, night songs, time to go to bed songs, counselors trying to entertain the kids when there's an unexpected delay songs...

And if you've been to a summer camp where there are songs, you know what I'm talking about. It just seeps into you. There are songs we learn as children that we can never escape. If you have little sweet songs embedded into you from childhood that always make you feel happy and nostalgic, you're incredibly blessed. You get to hang onto those songs for your entire life and they will always take you back to summer camp.

Yes, it absolutely takes guts to get up in front of people by yourself and sing songs. Even more guts to make them all stand up and sing and motion along to "Princess Pat." But as I told the audience last night... I think people really do want to be silly. They do want to have fun. And outwardly we all assume that no one else wants to do it. But secretly, everyone does want to stand up and do the silly motions and sing "Princess Pat."

Also, when I'm doing a campfire, I guess I'm just more aware that people are there because they love the outdoors. They're not drinking. They didn't just stumble in on some other motive. They're not there for any other reason than knowing that the outdoors and music go together like fine wines and certain cheeses.

Plus, I've always secretly wanted to be a storyteller. Campfires are a great way to start to sneak into that. :)


Photo by Cathy Tibbitt Joulwan


We also took a little night hike after the campfire, and it was beautiful. If a little muddy.


Photo by Cathy Tibbitt Joulwan

Mojo Main's first Tuesday acoustic matinee

So... I guess I was the groundbreaking act for Mojo Main's acoustic matinees on Tuesdays. A few folks got to hear it, too! Honestly, I'm not being snide... I need more experience in front of a mic. I know it. So I was very happy with how it turned out - really low-pressure for me, I gave a performance I was pleased with, and I had a real bonafide gig. And it started on time. :)

The acoustic matinee idea seems like a great fit for the place. No cover, an hour set for folks to do pretty much whatever they want, and people eating dinner. Win.

Games & Gigs

Real quick, because I should definitely be in bed...

Wednesday, 3/30: Played at Mojo 13, along with the Paper Janes. Luckily a small audience of our friends amassed, thanks to no help from me, goodness gracious... I'm bad at this. How did I ever get to be a performer who didn't like her own performances enough to invite people to see them? Lord help me.

Saturday, 4/2: Played at the Barn's talent show, dressed like I was in the circus, had a ton of fun. I had the chance to play a couple of my family-oriented nature tunes. (They're not exactly suited for a bar crowd, so I'll take whatever opportunity I get.)

Monday, 4/4: David Bessent's videogame, MAwCiMs: Arena, came out on Kongregate. I had the privilege of writing the music for this awesome game.

Also, I played Mojo Main's open mic. Stefan Wolfe came along for the ride, showcasing his mad skillz at total improv. I covered "Dynamite" by Taio Cruz and had the whole place clappin'.

Tuesday, 4/5: I'm playing Mojo Main's very first acoustic matinee. Website says it starts at 7, booking agent says I play at 6, I say I'd better be done by 8 'cause I have other stuff to attend to! (Stupid of me to schedule something on kinship night without a contingency plan for kinship itself, which is hosted in my house. I made the broad assumption that the show would in fact occur at the time that the booking agent said it would. Right now, I doubt significantly that my assumption is correct, but God is good and He'll see me through this little snafu.)

A'course, my buddies The Paper Janes and Battleshy Youths will be playin' at the University of Delaware at the same time, and I would have liked to go see them, but such is life.

Saturday, 4/9: I'm playing Lums Pond State Park's Family Camping Weeekend. Assuming it doesn't get cancelled because of rain or something like that. Because right now, the forecast is rain for a week, no lie.


That plus my music students equals a very very busy two weeks. The honest confession: along with job stress, I'm starting to feel a little worn out. (Have I mentioned I haven't even done my taxes yet?) I'm working hard, playing hard, not sleeping, and not having a lot of feelings of success right now. I used to have said feelings a lot, it's just recently they seem to have up and vanished. It'll get better. I know. God is good. Even when (especially when) you just start to feel "blah."

Deleting my facebook: AHHHH

I am all kinds of tempted to get my facebook back.

"But I won't be able to talk to that nice guy I talked to a few days ago..."
"But I won't be able to organize get-togethers with my friends..."
"But I was admin for my kinship group and our open-mic group..."

Truthfully, yes, I use facebook for a lot of stuff. I'm surprised at how many things I use it for.

Unfortunately, I'm an addict. Very much an addict. I'd estimate that I spent 2-3 hours a day on facebook, all told. I do have a few other forms of social media, but none are so addicting as facebook. Typically, I'll check my profile, check my wall, then check some of my friends' music pages, maybe post a link or two, then do it all over again to see if anything changed in the last few seconds.

Basically, I'm doing a whole lot of nothing. I think I realized this after the Rebecca Black video came out. It was everywhere. Positively everywhere. And then there were remixes. And then somebody made a "Hitler's response." And I realized that the sum total of my time on facebook amounts to mental junk food. With an occasional apple or carrot to try to throw karma off a little.

I don't have time or energy for junk food. I've been busy writing music for Jed's videogame, teaching lessons, and, last night, playing a for-real gig for the first time up here in Delaware. I'm trying to think about recording, launching a website, commissioning music videos from my sister, developing better materials for my students, entering a songwriting competition... did I mention that my regular job is bumping up to 40 hours a week next week? To be honest, it hasn't even occurred to me that it means I'll have more cash -- all it's meant so far is "HOLY CARP HOW AM I GOING TO DO EVERYTHING!?"

So you see, there's no room for distraction. And on my own, I never would've chosen to turn from that distraction. My inspiration comes from the Bible. Because, yeah, I'm called to do this music mess. I know it. So engaging in distraction from this is, to me, sin. And it pretty explicitly says in several places to turn from sin. I'm thinking of the more graphic depiction where it actually says "if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off." (Man, I love the Bible... I love the rawness of it sometimes. Read that mess, there's nothing boring about it. Except for maybe Leviticus. Even my student Bible says it's the most boring book in the Bible.)

So, rawr, cutt'n my right hand off here. And I'm having temptations to try to reattach it, but for the most part I know that it's only temptation, God's got me, He'll move me however He needs me to move and He don't need no facebook to do it.

To be honest -- I don't know if I expect this to be forever -- at first I was sort of like, let's just see how long I can last without it. But I'm starting to feel more relaxed and focused, and I'm honestly quite enjoying that feeling...

Good for what ails ya

My FAWM hoodie arrived in the mail today. ^^



I got to feelin' pretty silly 'bout the whole thing.


We had a jam/open mic/hangout tonight. It's refreshing to the spirit to just play whatever songs, however many, no matter if you mess up, and to be encouraged and accepted and to laugh a lot while doing it.

The story behind the song: "Small Town Places"

I've been residing in Delaware a year and a half now. Yesterday, for the first time, I realized that I actually live here. Y'see, there's this thing called Rita's 'round these parts, and they give away free water ice on the first day of spring (which was yesterday). Despite growing up in what is essentially the rural Pennsylvanian suburbs of Newark, I never knew this 'till last year.

Not only did I enjoy free Rita's yesterday - every two seconds, it seemed like I was running into someone else I knew. People from church. People from work. People from meeting other people. Most of which I've only met within the last year.

It was really weird, coming back. If you asked me at 19 where I'd be when I grew up, I'da told you, "anywhere except there." It's not that I hated the place, there was just nothing to draw me back. Nothing, anyway, that overpowered the draw of wanderlust and the smell of adventure. As far as I was concerned, I'd seen everything to be seen.

College was adventure. Not knowing my way was adventure. Alaska and DC were an adventure. And developing a relationship with God, I finally found out, was the best adventure of all. Ironically, though, God called me back here. To go to a church that is two miles from where I grew up. God is funny like that. Whenever an area of pride gets broken down in me, I just laugh. It's absurd to be proud of anything in the face of a God that made everything.

During FAWM this year, I sat in the Eagle Diner on Elkton Road one night, having arrived early for want of a place to sit, drink coffee, and write. With a blank page before me, I began to stare blankly around the place, waiting for something to spill over from my mind into the notebook. As it turns out, there are these pencil sketches that adorn the walls of the Eagle. I've been going to this place nearly every Thursday for a year now, and though the sketches are for sale, not a one of them has ever sold. Probably because they're of random locations in a tiny little town, and to be honest, they're nobody's masterpiece.

But the poorly-rendered locations caught and snagged on a corner of my prickly little heart, and I realized that those places actually mean something to me. What's more, I wasn't as irritated about it as I thought I'd be - irritated at being stuck in a dinky little town with nothing to offer, when I could be wandering and boldly executing my life as I saw fit out in God-knows-where.

Instead, I'm here, and I'm happy, because there is an adventure to be lived here. Many adventures. With many people. Who are wonderful. And with God, who is also wonderful.





The Eagle Diner, according to recent reports, is slated to close on Monday, March 28th. Granted, it's been rumored to have been closing for the entire last year, but I think this is for reals. And I actually care about it, which is strange and wonderful in its own right. We had our FAWM Meet and Greet at the Eagle Diner. I met so many awesome people there. I honestly remember the first time I was invited to hang with folks there, which was a blessing in a painful time. Had so many late-night conversations, the kind that are deep and surprise you with how they sneak up on you. Got yelled at for being too loud. And I wrote this song there.


"Small Town Places" (click to listen)

Everything inside was screaming "run while you can";
you listened to the whisper whose small refrain was "stay."
There's never been a town where you imagined settling down;
"anywhere but here" is the prayer that you'd pray.

And now the small town places are hangin' on the wall,
places made of wherewithal and spit.
They're the landmarks on your tour of insanity du jour;
offered up the bullet and you bit.

You're a voice without a vision, firing cannons in the dark,
blindly aiming by the only light you see.
As cities throw their detritus of beams into the sky,
the country moon is watchin' all horizons bleed.

And now the small town places are hangin' on the wall,
sketches never bought or sold.
They're the X's on the map of your adventure and a half,
a tale that's not worth telling 'till it's told.

(interlude)

And now the small town places are passin' as you go,
familiar streets and old decrepit stores.
Occupying the real estate on the wall of things you can't escape,
and you don't think you mind it anymore.

You don't think you mind it anymore.

No, you don't really mind it anymore.

The Buzz - Open Mic

This was the scene at the Arden open mic last night. That's the list of performers. As you may discern from the photo, it was rather a confusing night. Unfortunately, Aaron and Todd didn't end up playing 'cause they have families and stuff like that to go home to, and the night was getting later and later. I have stuff to go home to, but a fish is probably not going to jump on my bed to wake me up at 7 AM. Anyway, it was great to hang out and play some tunes.

You have to play these things by ear... you can pick out your three songs hours beforehand, then get up on the stage and change your mind completely just based on the people before you and how you want to direct the energy of the audience. Or at least, I think you should do that, if you hope to capture their attention. If you don't care about that, then play whatever the heck you want. I wanted to play "Crowns," but it's slow and thoughtful and everyone before me seemed to have mellowed out the room. And frankly, I couldn't stand it. So instead of showcasing any guitar skill, I chose just to play three more upbeat and funny songs, which worked well.