A Nano-career as a professional musician, singer-songwriter.

 Which is smaller micro or nano?
A nanometer (nm) is 1,000 times smaller than a micrometer. It is equal to 1/1,000,000,000th or one-billionth of a meter. When things are this small, you can't see them with your eyes, or a light microscope.

(you may have to use your heart)

From this moment in time, considering the larger realities of the world, I find myself inclined to think about my so called career in music and performance in the past tense.  It's not that I wouldn't like to continue on the path I began, but that path really doesn't seem visible to me.

"Geared up with hiking boots, a back pack, a walking stick I come to the edge of the land. I look out, look left, then right and see only sand and sea.  I left the forest a year ago now, or almost, and haven't seen a tree or any other thing that might be used as a boat or raft.  I can't continue on the heading I have chosen.  A way forward is invisible to me. Way out over the water are dark clouds and lightning that make even the ridiculous idea of trying to swim toward my goal, unthinkable."

 Maybe it was a small career in music, very small, micro, no even smaller, a nano career in music.  You might think that thinking of my "career" in music in the past tense would be painful, but I tell you it is definitely not, in fact, maybe it's better this way.

I a very short time, I feel that I have accomplished a lot, or at least that I have done what I set out to do and so much more than I dared imagine possible from me.

I set out to learn about music, not to master an instrument, but to become versed and skilled enough to enjoy expressing myself with it, and to create music, the music that I felt was inside of me.

That is a pretty vague requirement.  It could have been learning to play "Twinkle, Twinkle little Star".  It also could have been playing and creating something that would resonate around the globe and over time.  I did not require that my experiment with music be affirmed by anybody else other than myself.

I have enthusiastically appreciated music for as long as I can remember.  I have been in awe of those who created and performed it.  It has accompanied me even when I was alone and far from a radio or recording.  When I could not hear a human caused bit of music I listened to the music of the earth and universe as it spun, and hummed along, or let it lull me to sleep.

Why my Nano-career satisfies me.

First,

    For a few years I was payed to play for people, and during that time I have never publicly played a song that I hadn't created myself.  I was asked to play my songs for others.

Second,

I made an album and a few people bought it, but only a few.  I made that album because a couple of people asked me for it.

Third,

I have had the privilege of affecting people in a direct and positive way.  I have watched people who were in a hurry, slow down for a moment and listen to my song.  I have been told by people that I have changed them, with my song, from a dark mood to a happy one.  I have made children want to connect with me, but really, I believe, with live music.

    My career may have been very small, on a nano scale, and been short, a few years, and reached only a small number of ears, but it accomplished all it was suppose to and more.  I have gained so much from this short, small adventure.  I have gained things that I did not know were there to be sought.  What more can somebody ask for.

In truth, I will go on.  I have many songs that have not been released to the public, and I have ideas for songs that I have not yet created.  I have curiosity and enthusiasm for playing more, and often and taking music down avenues new to me.

I listen to my own music, not all the time, but often.  I eat the food I make and it makes me happy.  I sail the boats I built and enjoy them.  I live in the house that I have worked with my own hands and tools and it gives me great comfort.  Why should I not enjoy the music I make, not just in the making of it but also listening to it?

I have heard some actors say that they never watch themselves on screen.  If it's true, I find that sad.  If they can't find some joy in watching their own work then why should we?  Learning to accept my shortcomings, as well as my strengths, being happy with who I am is something that performing music has taught me, and that is a lesson I can use all my life.  I've learned, not to take it all so seriously, laugh at myself, not just with myself.  It' OK.

I want to thank all of those people who have taken a moment and listened, especially those who had a kind word or smile or a thumbs up, or even a coin tossed into my case.  You gave me something I never dreamed would be for me.  I hope that the songs were an equitable exchange for you.  I definitely think I got the better deal of it. 💗☮️🎵

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.

Snow, Cold, and, Gray, S.C.a.G.

IT seems almost too cold for it to be snowing here, but, it is snowing.  As the wood stove struggles to keep the house warm, the Boat Shop Music Studio is more just a cold boat shop than music studio.  No work going on out there, though I'd love to be able to be working there now.
I have been thinking about doing a real conversion of the space into to a dedicated studio, and quit with this hedging.  I'd insulate the walls then finish them inside and loose one of the big garage doors, changing into a solid wall, and making the other into glass opening doors, both for light and for getting larger things in and out.
The winter is such a good time for daydreaming and planning such things.

I am still listening to Joe Pugs podcast, The Working Songwriter
 https://soundcloud.com/twspodcast
and still get very moved with each podcast I listen to as I hear the ideas and experiences of these songwriter/performers that have "made it" and understand completely what they are talking about, and have even had similar experiences myself, of course, on my small scale.
I highly recommend this podcast to any writers or artist especially those who are younger or new to there chosen form of expression.

Available at Soundcloud.com

I've been listening to the demo tracks I have of "Garden of Love", the album.  I've been trying to determine the song order for the album.  I have even been trying to confirm that these songs should all be on this album.  I haven't felt up to sitting down to do more recording and trying to get tracks that seem good enough for release.  The recording process can seem a bit daunting, and a bit lacking in fun.  It seems that every time that red, record button gets pushed, the take I do has some kind of problem.  All the really good ones come when I'm not recording.  Some people thrive under pressure, and I have been one of those kinds of people but in other areas of my life.

As I listen to the demo tracks I have for the album, I sometimes feel like a few of the tracks are good enough.  I try not to be precious about the recordings.  Technically, I'd like them to sound good enough so that nobody questions the recording method.  But as far as the songs go, and my performing of them, I kind of feel like "this is it, this is what you get, no frills, just a song".  I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing.  This is probably why a producer is such a valuable entity in the process as an outside, or objective manager of the project.  Oh well.

Played my first Winter Farmer's Market this past week.  It was nice to get the first out of the way.  I still get nervous about the new setting, silly really.  I am glad to be back and playing out.

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.

Still writing here beside the River.

The muse is still hovering
I finished another song last week and gotten to perform it twice so far.  Even had Ian Moore play along on his fiddle.  That was awesome, as it always is when Ian joins in.

I also have begun a new song, or song project.  It is very different to be in a project that I don't really feel has an end in sight.  This project feels like an unending song that will have verses, multiple chorus, maybe chapters.  Maybe I was very influenced by the large album pieces of the 1960's and 70's, "Quadrophenia", "Sgt. Peppers", "Tommy", "The Wall".  They each got completed of course but They were epic works.  Maybe they had some two minute fifty hits in them but I think that the composers may have gone at them as larger works.

I find it comforting to have an ongoing story/song to be able to come back to anytime.  This particular work seems outside of what the "muse" is particularly interested in throw at me these days, but that in itself is also a bit comforting too.  Sometimes it is good to have something to work on if I am not feeling particularly inspired, but that is also an available canvas should something drop down from the clouds into my brain.

So, the songwriter, me, got interviewed on a literary podcast and the session was just released today for Patreon subscribers.  River River Writers Circle has a pod cast called "Littoral".  I had a lovely time during the interview and am very grateful for their interest and the sensitive manner of the people who hosted me.  Check, check, check it out, and become a subscriber/supporter of the arts and artists.

The Poet and the Songwriter,
A. Anupama of River River and host of the Littoral Podcast
 with me at the Nyack Farmers Market
(Photo A. Anupama/Ian Moore)

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. 😉