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.

    

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.

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!

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

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

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. 😉

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.