"The Days Fly Away..."

So here we are on a slightly chilly Monday morning...here I thought that it was only going to get hotter and hotter. The loft collects all of the heat in the house; luckily we built in an exhaust fan behind a kick-ass trap door. Haven't needed to use that the past couple of days, what with this cold spell.

Not too cold to stop putting our garden in. Yesterday we planted a couple extra tomatoes we got from a friend, to supplement those we already had in, and also put in a bunch of seeds - squash, beans, zucchini, melons. Also a hundred or so onions from a 'set' we purchased. I've got a few more melons and such to put in the ground today. Oh, we also got another blueberry and another raspberry, and, it turns out that a blackberry plant and a grape plant we put in last year survived when we had written them off. Bonus!

So I've been playing a lot of music, naturally, and I've got three or so new songs in the works. Not a lot of lyrics yet. I'm not sure what I want to write about. I forgot to mention on my post on songwriting the other day that sometimes the easiest lyrics flow when you write about some subject or thing or place or object, and do it objectively. Or you try to be objective, and just write a song about, oh I dunno...cars? Trains? Mountains? Those kinds of songs are much easier than "I have this feeling I can't name and I want to somehow express it." Also it is painfully easy to write songs about girls, hence why people come up to me after Genre Zero shows to say "I haven't heard anyone playing a bunch of love songs in a while". Some of my songs in that vein are pretty good, but, yeah...I want to write about something else. I haven't had a significant love interest in, gosh, years? I can still think of random girls I've met and imagine something to sing about...but, yeah...I think broader horizons would be better.

So have a happy Monday, blogosphere. I've got a bunch of stuff to do.

The Shadow of a Whisper

So I think I have it now -  a way to tie all of this together into a nice little package - the ideas of overcoming selfishness, finding true humility and generosity, knowing what such lofty ideals sound like, and how to communicate them in the language of muic.  

Unlike the song "Distance Fades" from yesterday, this understanding has not come to me intact. It is like the shadow of a whisper...barely there, if it even exists. Like all of the right words are out there somewhere, but I didn't hear them. Like God whispered the answer, but I just saw the slight change in the light as the fading air molecules floated away. I've stumbled onto some of the evidence, but I need to find the proof.

So I am going to meditate on all of this, listen closely so perhaps I may hear the echo as it bounces back from the faraway places I don't quite understand. I do understand this much - I have been a kind of monster these last few months, frightening everyone around me, pushing some of them away completely. Instead of feeling The Force flowing around me, allowing it to direct me where I needed to go, I tried to force things to flow the way I wanted. This past weekend I spent hours outside singing at the top of my lungs, as if I could just be loud enough, that would make everything clear, as if one could force people to understand when they don't want to listen. That is the dark side twisting things, selfishness distorting honest love and compassion, until the real message is lost, drowned out by blaring frustration and cloaked in obscuring fear.

But there is hope! I can feel the Anima Æternus...it is within reach.

Singing and Songwriting

 

The above is a song I wrote a few years back titled "Call Waiting". I think it is pretty good, I've gotten compliments throughout the years because of it, and that all makes me feel like I might have some modest success musically. If I could get to a place where I didn't mind the prospect of financial insecurity, where I could say 'to hell with my credit rating!" because I wasn't trying to get a job that demands rigorous economic discipline, I would dive headlong into the starving artist lifestyle and do my best to just rock out all the time. Actually, who am I kidding...I tend to fill the overwhelming majority of my time playing one instrument or another, probably to the detriment of other areas in my life. So I think maybe I'll stop making excuses and instead redouble my efforts with the band, Genre Zero, and also take a little more of a 'what am I doing today to move my musical aspirations further down the line?' approach - as opposed to just jamming out for hours at a time.

I tend to get compliments on my songwriting specifically, although more and more people seem to be impressed by my guitar playing and even (gasp!) my singing - gone, hopefully, are the days when I would get ran out of parties because of my shaky, overreaching voice. So about songwriting - what is that all about? Well, I can describe some of the mechanics that work for me:

Writing a straightforward pop song isn't that technical, although it can certainly take a lot of mental, emotional, and even spiritual work. I say spiritual because a lot of my best stuff seems to just come to me from the æther, although rarely all at once, so I have to practice being in touch with the great flow of life to keep my finger on the muse's pulse. This way I can be working on a song and when the missing pieces come to me, I'll be ready, and have a place to put them. I say it isn't that technical because most of the songs that I write, and many hugely famous hit songs through the ages, are just a few simple chords. Probably 40% of all 'popular' (i.e. not 'classical') music is constructed with 3 or 4 chords repeated in the same pattern, let's say Pattern V for verse, with another 3 or 4 chords or the same verse chords in a different order as the Chorus (Pattern C). Am I making sense? Most songs on the radio are essentially just some variation of:

Verse

Chorus

Verse

Chorus

Even some of the more complicated songs will just have a few additions to this, maybe a Verse 1 and 2 part that are different progressions, and maybe a completely different Bridge section. Even a pretty busy song that I learned recently - "Your Song" by Elton John - is really just five different chord patterns:

Intro                         

V-1, V-2, V-3, V-4

Verse                         

V-1, V-2, V-3, V-4

V-1, V-2, V-3, V-4

Chorus                      

C-1, C-1, V-2, V-4

Verse                         

V-1, V-2, V-3, V-4

V-1, V-2, V-3, V-4

Chorus                      

C-1, C-1, V-2, V-4

Outro                       

V-2, V-4

Each individual pattern is made up of four chords, and most of this song is the four verse patterns, a total of 16 chords played for one measure each. This is similar to the construction of a "16-Bar Blues" song, although it would probably be the same pattern three times and then a different pattern known as the 'turnaround'. This 'turnaround pattern' resolves the song, and can lead into the chorus, another verse, or end the song. You'll notice in "Your Song" that the same chord pattern ends each verse, ends the chorus, and ends the song. The V-3 pattern, also present both verse and chorus, is a really pretty breakdown consisting of B-minor variations ([Bm] [Bm/A] [Bm/Ab] [G]) wherein the chorus Elton sings "...I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind, that I put down in words...".

So a pop song is music and lyrics. The music part, as shown, is relatively simple. The words can be more difficult, and finding the appropriate pairing of words to music can be more difficult still. Usually, I'll have the music pretty much down, and then either try to get words worked out, or maybe just hum or sing some nonsense to work out a vocal melody. I have been blessed enough, a handful of times, to come up with it all straight away. There is one song of mine, "Distance Fades", that arrived in my head one morning in Iraq. I knew the whole song at that moment - all of the lyrics, and exactly how the music should sound. Not the chord progressions, I couldn't necessarily just name the notes, but the complete idea. My parents shipped me a guitar which arrived a month or so later, and I immediately played this whole song:

The Loft, continued

Well, I am still feeling fairly uninspired with regards to what exactly to put up here. I feel like my post yesterday got away from me, becoming more of a self-indulgent pity-party than the sharing of wisdom. Of course, that was what the post was about, in a way, so perhaps that is fitting. Now, let us speak of the awesomeness of the loft. Here is the view looking into the bathroom:

 We made that cool sink cabinet from an old piece of furniture; most of the drawers still work and everything. Pretty cool! Here is the main part of the loft:

 It is pretty small, but there is a nice bedroom area, shown above, and then an office / hang out spot at the other end. I have a nice table from my apartment days that is set up in the sitting area of the loft, which is where this cool railing is:

In this picture you can see how the downstairs ceiling has been vaulted up to the loft. It is pretty nifty. There is still a lot of work to do, although it is mainly in that downstairs dining room; the loft is essentially finished, maybe like 97%. We'll be getting on that downstairs work (hopefully) in these next few days. It isn't like I have school to go to or anything! Speaking of which...I need to find some things to get into and occupy my time. Especially a job.

Also, some good inspiration and motivation. Maybe for tomorrow?

Lazy Inspiration

I am feeling a little lazy and uninspired when it comes to writing up a post today. I thought of several topics I could post on, but alas, I don't really feel prepared to do them the justice I feel they deserve. I think it is better to wait and have some pictures and things. Perhaps later in the week I will get to doing those posts: the garden, the finished (mostly) loft, and some bits on menswear.

For today, I want to share some inspiring ideas that I've collected recently:

"Aspire to embody honesty and humility without  guilt or shame"

I hold honesty in high regards. I've often said the truth is never wrong; it may be uncomfortable, even offensive, but if it is really the truth, it is not false or bad. Still, I all too frequently withhold the truth out of fear of some potential backlash. While I tend to think of myself as quite humble, more often than not the truth of my self image is based more on fear of rejection and shame - my humility isn't really genuine, because I am not feeling confident and valuable but not arrogant, I am simply diminishing myself and wallowing in self pity. Not so hot. Speaking of humility:

"Humility is not thinking of yourself as less than others; humility is thinking of yourself less"

So being humble doesn't mean that I have to feel bad about myself, carrying around guilt and shame and regret. That kind of poor self esteem actually makes things worse, as I might try desperately to demonstrate to everyone how I am so much less than they, how they needn't worry about me and my feelings. This is actually really dishonest behavior, coming from a self-serving motive. The 'truth' in those kinds of situations is that I feel bad about myself and look for others to prop me up.

A healthier perspective, I think, would be to have confidence and faith in myself and then, armed with a quiet and sure conviction of my qualities, act from a place of selflessness. With this true humility, it becomes easier to act with true honesty, because if you really are humble and you are aspiring to be fully honest, you don't need to fear the truth.

So let's all go forth and seek the truth without jealousy, shame, or hubris, and without apology...because the truth is never wrong!

Final Finals

As I shuffle around this morning, I am preparing to head up to Westminster College as an undergraduate student for the final time, to take my final final exams. It is pretty surreal. Attending college has been the defining element of my life for the past five years, my primary endeavor after being discharged from the Marine Corps. It has also been quite the struggle, especially these past three years at Westminster. Not because the classes were particularly difficult, although some were, but because other things going on in my life clouded my mind. While performing a repetitive task with which one has some level of skill can still be carried out with some success, even while distracted and unfocused, it is much more involved learning new things in such a state.

I made it!

Still, like I said on my "Last Day of Class" post, I am now entering a new and perhaps even more demanding phase of life: that of the working (hopefully) professional. It is till pretty bleak out there:

These stats seem to suggest that I have only a 74% chance of finding any job, and less than 1/2 of finding a job that actually requires and will utilize my degree. Pretty scary. There is a sunny side, though. This next chart shows that college grads have a lower unemployment rate and greater earnings potential, even if they are a gloomy lot:

Now to push the worries of jobs, salaries, and negative economic outlooks out of my mind and focus on acing these final finals!

Genre Zero

Late last summer, I started trying to put together a group of musicians to play one or two shows. My original idea was to find many different players of different instruments, who could play overlapping and intertwining melodies over some of my acoustic folk-type songs and some newer pieces I had written on the piano. I contacted an Alumnus of my college who I knew played drums, on the off chance that he might be willing to play with my temporary collection of random instruments.

What happened instead was that said drummer got on board completely, as did a fellow songwriter from the neighborhood, and a violinist (although I think she prefers 'fiddler'), and we instead developed a rocking sound that is most frequently described as "punk". I am so thankful to my band members for continuing to rock it out with me; music is what keeps me sane.

You can check out a recording of our first bar gig on SoundCloud. It is pretty decent, especially considering that we didn't intend to record, it just happened that the sound engineer at the bar records everyone that she runs sound for. Also, I am bad about getting pictures. This is the only one I have, from our first show at Peoples' Market, from a part of our set where it was just me and the fiddler:

We should be playing a local eatery, "Sun and Moon Cafe", sometime in the next month or so. Until then...rock on!