It's done!

    I have divided up the Summer Sessions 2018, recordings.  For some reason I feel better now.  This is only on the Bandcamp site.  I haven't even looked Soundcloud.  I probably won't bother.

    Even when I first published the album I had a feeling like it was maybe just a bit too much.  Now this seems like a proper "bite size" apportioning.

    I realize that this is really important to nobody but me, but then that's what this has always been about.

There are still about 40 CD copies or the original album out there.  I kind of like that.

    I think that this process has allowed me to be a bit more selective about the line up of the fort coming albums.  I have already made some cuts to "Garden of Love" and I am pretty sure I will lose one track from "Heart at Sea".

    Now, to just get on with those albums.

    

 

Volume 1 & 2 ?

I was just listening to the iTunes playlists of the albums that I have so far.  It made me think that “Summer Sessions, 2018” really should have been a two volume project.

I think I remember hearing Joe Pug say in his podcast, “The Working Songwriter”, that when performing new music 45 minutes is about all people can really hear before being overwhelmed or zoning out.  After a certain point people seem to have a hard time taking in and enjoying the new material.

In light of the trends away from albums and more towards people making and selling individual tracks of music, I think this idea of a limited capacity to enjoy new music, at any one exposure, must be true.

If you were presented with a new piece of music that was two and a half minutes long you’d probably be much more inclined to listen to the entire piece, than if you were presented with and hours worth of new music on an album.

Given this probability, I think that 10 songs, or about 30 minutes of new music on an album, is about the most of what one might consider putting out, if an album format is going to be considered. Maybe albums have just become obsolete.

An interesting feature of the current state of tech and media is that I suppose I could easily reissue my first album as a 2 volume set, and with very little effort. It does seem to becoming more and more of an adventure in creative anachronisms.

So, what would the the changes in that album result in, as it is divided into 2 volumes.  Will all the original tracks make the cut?  Will the order of the tracks be the same, but just cut in half?

    The first edit I think I would like to make is taking out the 2 tracks that are now a part of the later album “Heart at Sea”.  That would take the set list down to 13 songs and remove about (4:57 + 3:20) = 8:17 in time, making the total time about 48:43. 

    Now, to cut it into two volumes.

It used to be that albums were the standard of publishing in the music industry.  Albums were curated, the play back order and length of play, the artwork and layout were all considered.  

    I think about a painter, or photographer having a gallery showing.  The pieces shown are specifically chosen. The arrangement of the gallery where they will be presented will be considered.  The curator of the show will decide which piece will be at the entrance to the show, and seen first, and then next.  An album is for the singer-songwriter, what a gallery showing is to the graphic artist.

At first glance I think these 13 tracks could just be cut after track 7 and then having the second volume just continues as it exists.  But I quickly decided to swap the track order just a little.

Summer Sessions, Volume 1

1. Sleepy Head

2. You and Me

3. Take, a climber's song

4. Missing Parts

5. Around Town

6. Dreaming of Yesterday

7.  Second hand heart

Summer Sessions, Volume 2

1. Going My Way

2. Sweet Retribution

3. MoonFlower Waltz

4. Another Season

5. The Moments

6. Casting Shadows, song for Gretel

    After looking into it it seems that with little effort I could actually do this, at least at Bandcamp.  I may just do it.  It is kind of a organizational itch that I may have to scratch.

 December 2022, an EP

In December I stumbled into a creative moment.

I was tuning a guitar that had been in it's case for a while, but I was to lazy to go find a tuner, so I tuned it by ear.  I don't have perfect pitch, that's a whole story unto itself.  It turns out that I tuned the whole guitar a half step down.  This led me to hearing the relationship of the strings in an entirely different way and that led me to a new musical idea.  That idea became the guitar part for "Ducks and Drakes", a new song.

    For 2 weeks in December, as I was marking the seasonal events, Solstice, Christmas, New Year's, and so on, I created four new songs.  I hope to publish them as an EP titled, "December 2022".  Quite a catchy title, I know, but sometimes you just got to go with the obvious and simplest.

    2 tracks were made public already but I will package them with the other 2 and put it out on Bandcamp and Soundcloud as part of the EP.  They all go together.

    There is a musical theme, thru all the pieces.  There is also a thematic connection.  I often make demo recordings of my songs and then arrange them in a playlist on iTunes so that I can listen to and evaluate them, and figure out where they should fall in an album order.  Now I realize that people don't buy albums anymore, but I grew up in an era when the creation of an album was a real considered process.  Artists choose which of their works they want to display when they have a showing and then they arrange the gallery, to curate what the viewer experiences and in what order.  In these days of commodities and consumption that has mostly been left behind.  Well screw that.  I have no delusions of any popular or financial facets of my work.  It's art, it's music, it's an offering, it's a smile for me, and maybe, just maybe, for some other soul.

    So far the EP seems to want to shape up like this,

track#                title

    1.         Letting Go of Dreaming

    2.         Return, D&D, a solstice song

    3.         Festivus Stroll

    4.         Ducks & Drakes (instrumental)

    

    This EP now goes on the list of albums, written, demo recorded, but not yet published.  This is now the third.  I have yet to do the final recordings and publishing of "Heart at Sea" and "Garden of Love", but like "December 2022" they are complete and I listen to them on my playlist.  Maybe I have a thing about completion, I don't know.

    

The new market banner!  Now who is that fella with the guitar?  I wonder? 

    I received my weekly email newsletter from the Nyack Farmer's Market this week and was pleasantly surprised to see the new banner, with a shot of 'yours truly' playing and singing at the market.  What a warm fuzzy feeling it was.

    It feels like ages since that last time I played at the market.  I guess it's been about 4 months.  I do miss it a bit.

    I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to play at that market.  I have heard of other artists having bars, or coffee houses or clubs, with open mic nights or some such regular event that they took part in early on.  These places often became where performing, was discovered, developed and informed.  These places were safe places as well, places one could be oneself or what ever version of themselves they wanted to present.  I suppose the Nyack market has been that kind of place for me.

    Farmers markets are kind of funny places to perform at in a way.  People don't come there to hear music, or very few people do.  The "audience" is there to do something else and the job of the performer is to add some ambience.  It is very different than an open mic at a bar or cafe, where people sit and face you and actively listen.  Most people playing at farmers markets are playing well established music, traditional tunes or covers, these both can established a desired mood, partly because they are familiar and partly because of the selection of music being generally upbeat.

    I took a chance and played only my own original material, and not all of it was sunshine and daisies.  I remember one day when a woman, maybe in her 60's came up and dropped a bill in the guitar case, smiled and then said, "that wasn't really a happy song was it?"  as if to say that she is listening.  I got the impression that like a sweet older woman, she'd appreciate happy songs more but that she would allow it.  She did after all give me a smile and a tip.

    I daydream about the coming Spring and Summer and the possibility of singing some of the new songs at the market, if they will have me back.