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.

    

Festival Season!!! NOT!

So, ya, back when I played with "Santana", at "Woodstock",.....NOT!!!

Lately I've been recording instrumentals because the noise in the world, all the things people say just seem to be a bit to much and I don't feel like adding to it.  It's been fun and kind of revelatory.  

The first project was an EP, sort of, I called "Projections and Reflections".  On hindsight I think I would have rather called it "The Riverglide Project", an eponymous title for the "band" identity for these instrumental projects.

I also put out a single "July Experience" and have a few more tracks ready to release.  May get them up today.

For a couple of weeks I've been listening to Pat Methany's new album "From this Place" while cooking dinner.  Really great work. The drumming (Antonio Sanchez) just kills me.

https://www.patmetheny.com/news/full_display.cfm?id=134

With the world the way it is right now, Festivals are not happening.  One of my new pieces "Ballers Last March", is something I imagine being played at a festival.  If you are into bands like Massive Attack, and have seen some of the footage from the MELT festival in Germany, you'd get what I am thinking about.  

I'd need a band that might consist of 1-lead guitar, 2-rhythm guitar, 3-bass, 4-synth, 5-drums, and maybe another percussionist.  It's a long way from playing and singing folk like songs with an acoustic guitar.  Gotta dream big, right?  It was fun to create anyway.

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.

Seasons change

THE warm season has gone away and the Boat Shop Music Studio has moved out of it's larger, colder studio, and up into the more intimate Attic space.  The uninsulated "shop" has a wood stove, but it just keeps it from being bitter in there, and it is not a tight stove, so it's a bit smokey, which isn't so good for the voice and singing.

The Attic, is really cozy.  The wood floors and ceilings, and eastern exposure for early morning light make it a great place for recording with just me and a guitar.  It wouldn't really be appropriate for much more than that unless everybody was very laid back, literally because of the low ceiling, but that isn't really a concern.

Just yesterday morning I made my first recording of a new song, "Trespass", up in the Attic.  This song will probably be song number 11 for the new album "Garden of Love".

THE other seasonal change is that the 2019 Farmer's Market performing season is over for me now.  It was a long and very rewarding run, playing every week from the spring of 2018 thru the winter and all summer into the first week of November of this year.

The market manager, Pam, gave me a gift I can never thank her enough for, by giving me a regular spot to play my music, and develop my ability to perform these songs.  She has been a true patron, angel, and friend.

It will be a bit different, not having a weekly "gig" now, but in truth, it is welcomed.  Now I can focus on the writing and recording in a way that I couldn't manage to when I knew I had to be in form for public performing.  Even after the year and a half of steady gigs, I still got keyed up as the market days approached.  That kept me from really focusing in on the writing and recording.

As verification of the new found psychological freedom, I just wrote that new song yesterday.  It was a "two day song", the first to have the inspiration and dig it out of my brain and shape it with the guitar and pencil, and the second day to learn it, start recording it, and then to see, and hear, the wholeness of it.  I love those ones, they are so instantly gratifying, and I have learned not to question how fast or fluidly they come to me.  During that period of writing, I don't stop thinking about the song.  I am haunted by the musical idea, super ear worm.  I can't seem to get out of the mind of the character of the song.  This is a very focused time and it is hard to stay in it with other things to think about.  I really happy I have arranged my life in a way that allows me times like this.

The end of the market season didn't mean the end of the performing season for me.  Yesterday I was invited to play for a "Arts and Cafe" event at the Central Presbyterian Church in Haverstraw.  Nancy, a jewelry artist, who I know from the markets, asked me to come and play as the evenings entertainment.  A chance to hang out with "Pastor Katie", who is always a good time, and play for such a friendly and appreciative crowd, I could not pass up.

Thanks to "Pastor Katie" of the Haverstraw Central Presbyterian church,
 for having mein her place.
 Thanks to Nancy Jagelka, jeweler extraordinaire,
 for introducing me to these good people.

THEY had a cozy stage set up, tables for people to sit and eat and drink and listen or chat, and lots of art to shop.  It ended up being a paying gig though I had didn't expect it.  Food and drink as well.  The really great thing was that it wasn't outdoors in the cold, like the markets all have been lately.  Lovely.

In truth, that was probably the best gig I've done from a certain perspective.  Though the markets are very safe, friendly, and appreciative, the musicians playing there are certainly just decoration, and it is rare that people stay to enjoy the music.  It happens, certainly, I've had people hang out and listen to multiple songs, and then go shopping, and then return to listen some more, but the overriding feeling is that the people are there to shop and then get on with their day.  We music performers are a bonus.

At the "Art Cafe" last night there was a bit more of a feeling that people came for community and were more interested in being in the space.  Some people were actually making crafts/art, and some were enjoying the drinks and snacks and most seemed to be listening and enjoying the music.  I got to do a bit more interacting with people thru the music.  Being up on the stage, which was minimally but thoughtfully decorated, gave me a real sense of purpose and place that felt good, felt right.

It was a step maybe, toward the kind of performance I'd like to do with this music.  This music is storytelling, and poem and the words have weight that wants a listener, not just somebody to tap their feet to the rhythm, though there was that last night, and even some dancing.  So from that perspective, it might have been the closest I've gotten to being able to present my music the way I'd like to, outside of recordings.  But recordings are the self indulgent part of this music thing for me.

I have ideas of an "Acoustic Cafe" type of show, showcase, that I'd like to see happen at some of the local establishments.  There are some great venues around, but the singer-songwriter, folk, and acoustic genre aren't the focus, as far as I can tell.  Maybe it will happen someday.

For now, it's the colder season and the time is "write" to record, and get these albums done.  I hope to play out again someday, but for now I'm good with hibernating for a while.
Peace.

Totally spaced out the fact that last week I got to be a stagehand/sound tech again.  It was an great time for a big birthday celebration at a local place in Nyack, "Prohibition River."  Their upstairs space is quite lovely.  Would be a great place for the "Acoustic Cafe".  I was just helping out the talented artist Bill Batson, with his lovely woman Marisol's, 50th celebration.  Great party and such a treat for me to do my thing again.  I almost miss the biz.

WTF, Taylor Swift? Really?

Before today, I had never listened to a Taylor Swift song.  Well that's not exactly true because I have listened to Ryan Adams covering "Bad Blood", and I loved it, learned it and played it.  But, I had never heard Taylor's version, at least not all the way thru.  I started to listen to it, to learn where what Ryan had done had come from, but didn't bother to listen the her version of it all the way thru.  The style just didn't work for me, and the bad part of that is that it kept me from being able to hear that Taylor can write a song.
Today I listened to an NPR Tiny Desk concert that featured Taylor Swift.  It was good, she was good. In 25 minutes I came to know quite a bit more about her, and to gain some real respect for her.
https://www.npr.org

NPR Tiny Desk concerts, produced by Bob Bollen

I am not going to become a fan of the music she puts out, it's just not to my tastes.  But that doesn't mean that I can't appreciate her songwriting, her craftsmanship, her tenacity and commitment.  Her songs could be presented in different formats, or genre, the first that comes to mind is country music, but that may be because country and pop have been coming closer together for a while now and in some instances are hardly different at all.  She seems as though she is really a singer-songwriter slathered with lights, dancers, and over production.
During her set she mentioned a TED talk given by author Elizabeth Gilbert, that inspired her.  So, I listened to it.  Also really great.
https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_success_failure_and_the_drive_to_keep_creating#t-1784

TED talks, author Elizabeth Gilbert

I post all this because it is all about songwriting, being an artist, creativity, where it comes from and where it goes, what it does for us as creators.

CHEERS!

Morning Sessions, Vol. #1

I'm thinking that I will try and start posting some recordings of songs here, one at a time.  I will include lyrics and a few thoughts about the song.  I hope you enjoy them.
These will keep in the philosophy of BSMS, and be low fidelity, friendly and accessible recordings.



"Sleepy Head", is a song I wrote about my son, as well as my dog, and my wife.  It is a reflection of those moments when I would catch one of them, still in bed, deeply sleeping, dreaming, deeply breathing.  They seemed so comfortable and secure and I felt so glad to watch over them.  So, I guess you could say it is a love song.

"Sleepy Head"

SLEEPY HEAD

Get up in the Morning Before sunrise

I like to watch the light as it brightens up the sky

Maple syrup in my coffee but I don't take cream

like to drink it slowly as I watch the morning scene

I sit and listen for that first bird to sing

waiting on the squirrels to do their morning squirrel thing

everybody's eager to start the new day

finding food, f-i-nd-ing lo-ve finding their own way

(chorus)

Your still sleeping warm inside your bed

your still dreaming pillow on your head

hiding from the light hiding from the day

you'd never leave your bed if you could have your way

My little sleepy head,  My little sleepy head

I stand by your bed long after sunrise

just to watch you breathing before you open up your eyes

I wonder if your dreams they take you far away

maybe in your dreams it's the middle of your day

What will you remember after you rise

if I told you what I'm thinking, whispered that I loved you

would you open up your eyes

Your still sleeping warm inside your bed

your still dreaming pillow on your head

hiding from the light hiding from the day

you'd never leave your bed if you could have your way

My little sleepy head,  My little sleepy head

Gone Til Spring

"Gone Til Spring" the title of a song I wrote last Fall about the end of the sailing season.  I had just gotten a new sailing rig on a small boat and was struggling with getting comfortable with sailing a small light boat, after years of really preferring a heavier full keeled boat. I like the song because it can easily be perceived as the end of some time with a person and missing them.

I've sent this song out as part of a set of "Seasonal-Musical greeting cards."  It's number 3 of 4 songs that folks will receive.  They are all Demos, which is to say, rough cuts, but in the spirit of fun and celebration, I've sent them out this way, blemishes and all, just like a family would sound singing Christmas carols.

The other significance of the song is that the Boat shop studio is closed up til Spring.  It being a music studio converted from a boat shop, converted from a garage, it can get a bit cold out there, even with the wood stove, which is not tight and singing and breathing smokey air is another challenge my singing does not really need.

The Winter sun will now only get stronger as the days grow longer.

I have released the single of "Return, A Solstice Song" on Bandcamp.  It's a demo version, but I thought with it being the Winter Solstice,  why not.  I want to develop the song a little more, but I'm glad to have celebrated the Solstice with the song as it is.

I haven't been keeping at the blog because I wanted to take a break, have a bit of a cloister as the Winter set in.  I will probably be back at it in the new year.

Seasons Greetings

https://richardamaldonado.bandcamp.com

Winter 2018 songs can be heard at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w0KX3g8q6E

"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!

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

Recording session

Today the studio had a guest doing a recording session.  It was good fun and a chance to be just an engineer, or tech person/producer, and not the one at the "sharp end of the mic"

the homely mic set up.  looks ugly, silly, but works well.

The take away is that the BSMS is a comfortable place to make music, and record it, which I already understood to be true for me, but now it's affirmed by another person.

Again the most impressive thing for me is the amount of technology that is available to most of us, and how affordable it is.  The microphone and a set of headphones are, literally, the only thing is this set up that had an out of pocket expense.  The computer was a gift/reclaimed from another persons upgrading their system, and graciously offering it to our household.  The software came with the computer, thanks APPLE/Mac.

I recently got two great chairs/stools, wood and leather, from the side of the road.  They are comfortable, not bad looking and great for music sessions.

I haven't tried recording the drum set that I found being thrown in a neighbors trash, but I'm about ready to try adding a percussion track to some of my other pieces.  Looking forward to figuring out the best way to record a drum kit with the equipment I have already.

The next big expenditure for the studio is going to be a splitter, or Y adapter for a mini stereo connection so the artist recording can listen, as well as the engineer.  I just found a 5 way splitter for
$12 at BestBuy.  Have to check with accounting to see if we can get it. 😉

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.