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.

Music in the clouds

Deer in the front yard as the snow falls.  The site keeps me from
wanting to spoil the scene by making any sound.

Winter has set it's muffling blanket upon my world here.  It is ooooh soooo easy to give into the comfort of a comforter and sit with a chai tea that I custom blend with each cup, stare out the window of the house, or into the window of the wood stove and let the sound of the clock on the wall tick by between sessions of playing.
Playing, that is all it seems to be these days.  Not much impetus to write, or produce the new album. Fortunately for me, and that is how I see it, there is no pressure to do so, other than what I put upon myself.
In a funny coincidence I had though to make a post about song lyrics, posing the question "what lyrics have impressed you most, a line or two, or an entire song that just "resonated" with you?"  The coincidence part of this is that right now a lyric that I think resonates most for me comes from a singer songwriter that I also just heard in a podcast I just subscribed to.  The artist is Gregory Alan Isakov, the song is "The Stable Song" and the pod cast is "The Working Songwriter" hosted by Joe Pug, available on SoundCloud.
I've also just uploaded my first track on SoundCloud today!
So, the lyric.  Maybe it's Gregory's voice, which can be haunting and soothing, but is always inviting.  Maybe it is the self deprecating nature of the song.  The lyric is,

"I've been crazy, couldn't you tell,
I threw stones at the stars,
but the whole sky fell"

I just can't think of a more beautiful, sad, simple, and human sentiment expressed any better in any other song.  I am sure that there have been others that hit me this way, but I haven't been able to remember any.

I'm loving the hibernation of the winter, and feel inclined not to show my self til springtime, but life is not always so obliging to my hermit like ways.

Song writing, for me is like

Song writing for me is like looking out in the woods and seeing a shape in the bushes.  I can tell something, someone, is there, maybe a fox, or a dog, or a coyote, or a deer, but I have to look harder, be patient, in order to discover what, who it is.
If I see the flick of a tail I might realize it's a deer, or a dog.  I look a bit more and determine the color of it's coat, and then the general size.  And so it goes until I have a confident idea of who it is I am discovering.
Then, I need to spend some more time finding out the particulars of this particular being.  If I say I know it's a dog, or even a dog with a black and brown and white coat, about 50 pounds, with a long tail, I still don't know the disposition of this particular dog.  That take time and more observation, listening for a growl, or whine, or wiper, or friendly bark.
And so it goes.  This is how songs get written for me.  So far.  It can take a little time to become well acquainted with a new song.  Patience is always a virtue, as well as a willingness to listen, and look, and discover.

https://richardamaldonado.bandcamp.com

"Summer Sessions 2018, Liner Notes, part two"

"Summer Sessions 2018, Liner Notes, part two"

The songs in this collection were all written in the last 3 or 4 years, but most of them were written this last year.  I think that after they were first written they evolved with a bit of influence from performing them weekly at local farmer's markets.

track #

4. The Last Reef
     In the old days of sail the crew would climb up the mast of the tall ships, via the rigging, and adjust the size of a sail using "reefs".  The work was hard, and dangerous.  When the wind got so strong that any sail up was too much you'd sail under "bare poles" but that usually meant a loss of maneuverability, and being at the mercy of the sea. 

5. Missing Parts
     It's hard for us to know the stories of those people who are out in the world sleeping rough, or homeless, and how they got were they are.

6. Around Town
      Some of us are broken by love, and instead of trying to dull our experience of heart ache, accept and actively face it.

available at BANDCAMP.COM

"Summer Sessions 2018, Liner Notes, part Three" coming soon.

I've joined the 21st century

Now Available on Bandcamp!

 

https://richardamaldonado.bandcamp.com/releases

All 15 songs available, as the album, or as individual tracks!

Video clip!

For no real reason, here is a clip from inside the studio on this rainy morning

The song is the first track on "Summer Sessions 2018",  "You & Me"

Summer Sessions 2018, Liner Notes, part one

The songs in this collection were all written in the last 3 or 4 years, but most of them were written this last year.  I think that after they were first written they evolved with a bit of influence from performing them weekly at local farmer's markets.

track #
1. You and Me
    This was really the first song I ever wrote, or at least the first song I began to write.  I remember that when I started it, and even when it was basically finished, I had it in mind that it should be song and played by somebody else, because at the time, I had not yet learned to play or sing in any way that was acceptable to me.  There was a local singer/player who really impressed me, John Moroski, and I had always imagined that he and a girl he had performed with a few times would sing the song. That's not happened and in the mean time, I just started playing it.  The song is a reflection of my life with my wife.

2.  Sleepy Head
     This song happened, as a few of them have, in a moment of realization one morning standing outside and greeting the day.  I often think about my son, when he was just a little guy, and of my dog/friend as she lay on her dog bed, and of my wife, and how I have gotten such joy from just watching them sleep.

3.  Take, a climbers song
     I rock climbed, the mother of my son climbed, and my son started climbing a bit because the woman he was seeing climbed.  When I was climbing, the lead climber, if he started to loose his grip on things, would shout down to the guy on the other end of the rope "Take".  It was a quick way to say take up all the slack in the rope and stop me from falling.  It seemed a good metaphor for a relationship and since my son now had both a climbing partner and a lover, well there you are.  I wrote this song for him, for them.  They married in 2018.



Well this is a start.  I'll get back to this with "Summer Sessions 2018, Liner Notes, part two"

Music style

I just heard back from a family member who took a listen to "Summer Session 2018".  "Folksy" was the descriptive used about the music.  I can agree with that.  The funny thing is that I would not have forecast that this is the music I might someday make.

reclaimed chairs and drum kit

For me, the creative process is really an structured kind of improvisation.  The entire genre of music called jazz embraces this kind of work.  But I didn't create jazz.

What has been coming to the page, thru my fingers, and thru my voice is a bit, "other" for me.  By that I mean that what I end up with isn't what I might set out to do, if I worked that way.  In truth, I don't work that way.  I have a compass point, a direction, but like any path thru the woods, or over the sea, a look back at the course reveals many moments traveling in any direction but the one I might have set out upon.  Because of this I don't always reach any final destination, but I always end up somewhere I want to be, but had no knowledge of before I set out.  I wouldn't change that method of travel, or method of discovery, or creation because it allows for something much greater than I my mind can imagine and allows me to be enriched by the experience, real time.  A bit deep for such simple music, I know.

The art that comes out is deeper than my conscious mind can fathom.  That is what makes making art such an adventure.  It is also what makes life an adventure too if one can allow oneself to be live a bit of a free form jazz version of life.  Really great jazz has some common elements, most of which I aspire to posses in my creation someday, and they are always, virtuosity thru practice and discipline, coupled with sensitivity and openness to feel and be in the present moment, and fearless freedom and acceptance of ones identity.  I think this is true, and the more I look into the artists that inspire me, the more this belief is affirmed.

Yes the music on this album is "Folksy", sure, why not, it's just a word to describe something that is best left unlabeled, and instead just experienced.  Call it what ever you want.

PEACE

Music as a mindful meditation

In the year 2018 it is amazing how much music is available to us, which means that it is incredible how much music is being made, and then recorded.  DATA, DATA,DATA!! It's everywhere.  I suppose that in a way, it is consciousness.  Being, is the biological process of digesting and evaluating data, using our brain.  Anyway, that is really for a different blog isn't it?

My reason for recording music was, in the beginning, just for personal documentation and analysis.  After a while I got a bit satisfied with my music, and then got happy about my music.  That's when the recordings had a purpose outside of being for my own personal use.

I firstly shared them with my brother, and closest friend, just as a way of keeping up with each other and what was going on in our lives.  Then it started to be a thing unto itself.  Making a recording that I was able to enjoy was a throwback to my younger days when I would make mixed tapes, or even before that when I would collect albums.  the difference now was that I didn't really have to record a song to enjoy it, I could just play it.  But I enjoy the tech side of being able to make a record.

When I was young, have the technology to make a decent recording was not a common thing.  One could transfer data that was already recorded if you had a tape to tape cassettes deck.  But not many had the equipment needed to make new recordings of any quality.

With todays technology almost everybody has enough recording equipment in the palm of their hand, almost constantly, to make airable quality recordings, by todays standards and by the standards of yesteryear too.

I'm old enough to really be thrilled by the possibilities that are available to me now with the current, and very common technologies.  Making an "album", or the individual tracks that make up an album, is a  process of creation of it's own that I kind of enjoy.

Holding up a cell phone and hitting record is one thing, but balancing the inputs of the different elements of a song, and then choosing the right kind of mastering effects for a particular recording, is a bit of a puzzle that I find engaging.  It used to be that only the engineers with access to million dollar studios got to play with this kinds of toys, but now with little more than the standard software of a common computer or tablet or even smartphone, anybody can play.

Like most things these days, many have the power but not so many have the wisdom, or artistic adeptness to use that power well.  I like the idea of developing these skills.  It's a bit like the playing of an instrument, the more technique I can acquire, and practice, the more potential for really good recordings.

I had a friend who was really good at making mixed tapes.  It was a whole thing just to sit down with ones music collection and sort thru, trying to imagine a playlist, and then a song order that worked best for a particular theme, or intended recipient of the mix.  It was fun, and a bit of a way of putting oneself into a process creative.  I think that today, using the algorithms that one can sign up for to make choices for you, removes a bit of the fun and participation that was required when I was younger.  We were one step more participants rather than consumers.

Producing a record is fun.  It is fun for me, and I know that the guys who do this on a professional level, record company level, also have fun doing it.  Creating is fun, and it seems as though a large bit of us are kind of missing that point in our consumer society.  It may be that all the uptake of social media has something to do with the fact that creating is fun.  Each persons representation on social media is a chance to "create" in an almost constant stream.  The problem is that it seems to be less like bringing forth something from ones mind, and moe like evacuating ones brain.  With the increase in the amount of data out there has to come the increase of boring, derivative noise.

Not everyone will like my art, my music, but then again, why should they?  It is personal, and in order for another to appreciate what is personal to me, I must first be known and important to them,  or, at least, I must being saying things that are common thoughts to many, and in a way that is easily understood by others.  So I don't really expect my creations to connect.  But then again, that isn't why I create.  Like I stated, it is an act of mindfulness, and act of meditation, a bit of yoga, or tai chi, a practice that does not try to separate the mind from the physical world that it exists in, but rather celebrates and nurtures the phenomenon.

It's meditation, yoga, tai chi and poetry
My Guild D150 guitar, pulled from a trash pile and restored to usefulness.  It's
the subject of my song "Second Hand Heart."  photo: Luis Bruno.

Beta Version, Summer Session 2018

Original album "artwork"
Only a few of those got released into the wild.

CD's as a medium are kind of fun.  If I was a wealthy man I might do what Jack White (White Stripes, Third Man Records,...) has done and just start pressing vinyl.  How cool would that be?  But then, how cool is Jack White.
   The CD is a medium that is actually accessible to me and though it is digital, it still has a tangible presence, and needs to be treated with a little bit of care.  It's an actual thing, and I like that.
   I recently came across a composer who was avoiding the whole physical recording aspect and was going to sell his music solely thru digital downloads.  I get it, it requires much less resource, such as money or material to make the item.  But there is something about having the little disc in my hand that makes me really happy.
   I happen to find the blank CD's that are stamped to look like little vinyl records.  I love 'em.  Only wish they left more room on the label for personalizing.
   The creation of an "album" is a whole different thing than the creation of a song, or piece of music, but it is a bit of fun as well.