#musiceveryday 118 – and on
and on. improvised fingers on guitar.
and on. improvised fingers on guitar.
It has been a while. Well. That’s ok… right?
So, let’s not worry about how many days missed. Who even cares what the rules might be. I want to get back to the core of this thing as it has evolved:
Music Everyday shall maybe be improvised things… things that come about out of the day. The whole idea for me was/is/shall be that I find joy in making music every day….
and… AND! if it so happens that I share that online… well, great. But I am restating here that this is such a selfish project. It’s for me. Yeah. Oh yeah. Well, kind of. It’s for you. It’s for music, not meant to be a single hand clapping. So.
Here’s the latest.
live from the corral
I am a music intern
no fanfare! why? i got busy to post. like a tardy homework here is my assignment. 100 days. a few behind. F-
Here’s a super rough “song”… I don’t know if it’s that, so much as an idea and letting the lyrics fall out of its pockets to see if there’s anything worth picking up.
I don’t have a name for this one, it’s just a short thought on piano
I posted the early version of this with beats, I thought the cello part was nice enough to share on its own.
this song is a bit more, er, aggressive. here are some tamped punkish chamber cellos.
two cellos playing a pretty line, hard panned left and right gives it that floaty feeling
I’ve been making music everyday! But not specifically for my music everyday project. But with that spirit in mind I’m going to post excerpts from what I’ve been working on for the last few days…
Here’s an outtake of guitar, the rest of the song was too long. It’s funny when I realize what I was listening to a lot when recording… in this case I think I must have definitely been on a Gillian Welch / Dave Rawlings kick.
tried to rhyme ishtar and guitar and didn’t sing.
I was almost going to “cheat” and post an old recording. But the whole idea is, for me, to find some joy in playing music everyday. Sharing it makes it more likely that that happens, in theory and practice. So I sat and played guitar. It’s not profound maybe, or show how rad I can shred. It’s just making music.
cello. then beats. then cello, and more beats!
big things.
I need to get a good mandolin or fix this ancient one or maybe put strings on it for the first time ever (probably maybe has not had new strings in 40 years) because it’s tuned the same way as a cello (fifths) so I can read sheet music and play along without hating everything. I like this Bach movement the best. From the suites, number 3.
now we are all caught up. trust issues, all resolved.
gets lit
just after
where we live, inside, but outside
where floating.
all these cellos chasing after each other.
and here we have a cello falling through a forcefield.
I had fallen behind. I had Bruce Springsteen shows to go to and a show to play in San Diego and Spring to hike for and just life. So I decided to catch up and recorded the 8 missing tracks in the past two days. All cello based instrumentals. Enjoy!
I want to be cinematic. All my cinematic attempts lately veer so hard towards the melancholic. I blame cello.
In honor of The Boss being in town this week I played through as many songs off this album I could pull off. This one gets me every time.
I want to make a new album where I can sing and it’s just one cello part (no overdubs) so that when I play it live it’s something that is as real as the recording.
Recording today, my favorite chord of all time, A6
yay for A6
#musiceveryday 70
Here is enlightenment, you can pay with your time.
#musiceveryday 69
This is one where I’m glad that the four track still works. I don’t know when I did this song, but it was very, very long ago. And it was when I’d use a handheld audio recorder to double up the vocals somewhat randomly.
This morning the most tremendous thunder I think I’ve heard in LA… woke me up and admittedly I was kind of grumpy like “what is that rumbling sound argh” and then I’m so glad I got up in the early dawn and saw this wall of hail approach and flashes so close I decided being on the roof maybe not the optimal place to witness.
Also this is another solo cello improvised thingy.
Playing cello and that’s all, seeing where it leads…
Recording in a living room while a party outside. This song. The one about one night camping in the woods in North Carolina.
#MusicEveryday 63
Playing cello and trying to pull something out of being erh… not the most inspired I’ve ever been. This ended up sort of being like a walk up and down hill which is what I did this morning so there you have it.
#musiceveryday 59 – I’ve never played this song on guitar… UNTIL NOW
For this edition of Music Everyday for some reason I took two junk guitars and tuned them to the same-ish note (whichever note would hold, they’re not renowned for their intonation) and pushed their backs together while I played, hoping to create a nice drone-y sound from the back guitar. Not too much drone action but made the crummy top guitar very warm and resonant. I might have my million dollar idea: lashing together guitars for a warmer tone. I mean, it’s not like I composed a masterpiece with this setup or anything. But it’s fun to try new things.
?#?musiceveryday? 32: an idea that I should remember
Here’s a raw song idea from a while ago. I’d like to turn this into something someday soon, it keeps hanging out.
*Also I want to explain what I’m sharing here since I haven’t really yet: raw, unedited music that I make shared everyday for the sake of sharing. Not for the sake of being cool or furthering my career or whatever, not to impress, just for it’s own sake on my end. So this ideally will be me each day picking up an instrument or singing something new and fresh and having the um, gusto to share it regardless of whether I am super duper confident in it. That’s the big challenge right there. I just want to find the joy in making music this year a lot more than I have when I’ve been overly concerned with what people think. You know? So take it as you like it, and thanks if you’ve read this far lol. And also thank you sincerely for taking a moment of your time to listen to this music.
Didn’t have time to record/create something new for the e’ry day project. But I did rehearse with Bear Club for our show on Friday at El Cid. Cello eye view!
Here’s my everyday creation for today. It turned out a bit weirder than I expected. It’s another from the cello in a church. Cheers.
Day 4: Just a simple idea in one ear, sounds of the city in the other
I should record / share some music every day. Even if it’s rough and just because. Here, let’s start. #makemusiceveryday
I just felt like putting this up tonight.
It’s a fine Summer night. Is it the end of Summer? That’s what I hear. Me and Cinco are tending to the empty home while the rest of the pack is off at FYF Fest. Slowdive is playing. Hmm. I wish I was there. It was sold out.
I’ve mostly finished up on a big buffet of music I’m going to serve up in the near future. I’m happy with the work done and mostly the feeling of the songs.
Los Angeles for me: still and ever just past my fingertips somehow. It’s there, I push at it, brush it aside like curtains. But I have yet to pass through.
It’s a good city after all, and there are just so many surfaces you could attach your mirrors to here. Everyone is beautiful and larger than life, even if just in their own minds.
There aren’t country lanes, nature revery is rare, and the general balance leans one way and then the next, undecided. It’s menacing and inviting at once.
Blah blah poetic yada yada. Meaning: I’m here, making music in my dear studio with my dear cellos and my dear thoughts and I’m not on that damn stage at this damn point in this damn city.
That’s my check in.
Hope this version of this song fits with your time and place.
You. My friend. Are the first. In the world. To ever. See this video.
Because you, my friend, are subscribed to the podcast.
High fives, to you!
Wanted to give y’all a video-free version of the cover song I posted on youtube a few days ago.
This song has been around with me for a long long time. I probably wrote it more than ten years ago. Unlike some songs from that era it has aged well, ie. I’m not embarrassed by it.
I don’t know how it never ended up on an album or fully produced. It’s a perfect example of a thing that works well in a room with people and flat/not quite alive on album…
I’d tell you what it’s about but doesn’t that always ruin a song? I will tell you there is a lot of church related imagery in there. Clearly growing up Catholic and an altar boy invaded my subconscious and probably will give me songs by the bucketful forever. Because? Because church is the imperfect institution, the fallible middleman? Because church is metaphor for society? Church can be metaphor for any thing in our lives be it music or art or love or nature? Because because because. Whatever it is to you.
Without further ado!
E’ry so often I put ye old iTunes on shuffle and here something perfectly podcast worthy. Here’s an older live on-air performance from KDVS live in studio A. So much reverb! I believe I requested that. I can never have too much reverb.
Got that image from here, you can get a print of it even.
I’m a big fan of interludes and in between moments. I’m a fan of the album vs. the single, and I think these snippets create a glue to hold the other songs together. It’s a fine line and you can kill the momentum of an album pretty easily… But I can’t help myself.
It’s also a way for me to include snippets of musical ideas that maybe don’t ever make it into a song, and the why bother there is that for me albums are more about a certain period of time being captured, rather than a bunch of songs. And those little snippets tend to coincide pretty well with the feeling of the rest of the music.
ANYWAYS.
This one is called “Forge” and it’s a throwback to my ukelele addiction I suffered through last year. I listen to a lot of EDM and somehow someday I want to marry the pulse of that music’s kick drum to an acoustic instrument. For fun and amusement. For justice and glory. And stuff.
And thus concludes our magical journey through the soundtrack to “You Follow”… thanks for following.