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I feel a special connection with the Gulf of Mexico, particularly that stretch of shore along Florida’s panhandle. My grandparents had a house on the beach in Panama City, so my summers growing up were filled with white sand and blue-green waters, as well as all the adventures of my mischievous father and his brothers and clan.
Teenaged and college summers were spent predominately in Destin-Ft. Walton with an eye toward drinking and bikinis rather than the natural magic of the place, but by my settled-in adult years that sweet body of water had whispered the memories and promises back into my ear, planting the rhythm of its undulating waves firmly alongside my heartbeat.
The recent oil disaster there was heartbreaking and infuriating, and hard to fathom from my vantage point here on the Jersey Shore. A client of mine asked if I’d be willing to write a song about the Gulf for a project he had in mind. Naturally I jumped at the chance, and the resulting song demanded that it become the next Marble Tea single. And so it has (details below).
For this month’s free download, I thought it would be fun to put my original “memory” recording of this song up, so that – if you’re interested – you could have a peek into part of my writing process. I often do this quick type of recording into my phone, nearly always listing the chords used, as a way to remind myself of any ideas that come along. You’ll hear that I hadn’t finished the song by this point, and that it’s much faster than it ultimately ended up being. You will probably also realize that you won’t be asking me to play at your next garden party anytime soon. Fair enough.
If you’d like to get the single version of this song, you can listen to it and download it via the widget below. If you want to download it, you have two choices: 1) you can pay whatever you want for it (Appreciated! I like to eat!); or, B) you can get it for FREE by entering 0.00 when it asks for money, and then supplying your email address for my mailing list (Also appreciated! I like to let you know when more free songs are available!).
Petri Dish
Here’s an old recording I found lying around on my hard drive. I was hesitant to put it up here because, even though I like the song very much, the vocals really bother me and my intentions to re-do them never fully materialized (and probably never will). But then I realized that’s kind of like the time Jonathan Richman said he didn’t like one of his recordings because it sounded like he had a cold when he sang it (he always sounds like he has a cold!)…questionable vocals have never stopped me from posting a song before, so why start now right? (more…)
Stanley Francis Baconstrip had just finished reading the sentence, “The discoveries of modern science have no doubt given their own verdict of opposing alternatives – of either the Buddha or the bomb, for instance – and it is up to each of us to decide which path to follow [1],” when the old tea kettle began its gurgling, pre-whistle throat clearing.
“Better get to it before it screams and wakes the missus,” he said to no one including himself, being the only one at the early morning kitchen table. “Don’t want to send any sirens into her dreams.” (more…)
…the [musical] score, the requiring that many parts be played in a particular togetherness, is not an accurate representation of how things are. These [composers] now compose parts but not scores, and the parts may be combined in any unthought ways. This means that each performance of such a piece of music is unique….The parallel in art is the sculpture with moving parts, the mobile. ~ John Cage
There’s an experiment I’ve been wanting to try for some time, but have only just now found a means for presenting. It may not be the most original idea in the book, but it was fun creating and then playing with.
The basic idea is to have several small pieces of audio, of varying lengths and sounds, play randomly and loop indefinitely to see what types of atmospheres evolve as the pieces interact with each other over time, producing not only something unintended and spontaneous, but hopefully something interesting and engaging as well. The listener becomes active in the musical arrangement by their choice of sounds to include (hopefully all of them), and when they choose to start them…and if they choose to turn some of them off (though here again, the interesting things happen as all the sounds evolve and writhe together over time). (more…)
I’ve recently become disappointed that none of the biographies I read devote any significant amount of time to the dream lives of their subjects. Considering we spend approximately 1/3 of our lives asleep, and much of that dreaming, that adds up to a considerable chunk of time. Granted, most dreams are forgotten by morning, and many of them appear to be little more than re-hashed if not twisted fodder from our waking hours, but I’d like to suggest that in order to get a true and complete picture of a person – a picture that allows us to really understand one another – peeking behind the curtain for an examination of the dreaming life is essential.
Dreams have inspired scientists and philosophers, artists and engineers, saints and politicians, probably even you and me at some point. They’ve been documented as providing lucid blueprints for some of our greatest discoveries. They’ve shone a light on our fears and anxieties, and uncovered feelings we never knew we had (and perhaps even created a few that we didn’t have). They’re a curious part of our existence, a unique playing ground for our imaginations and emotions…and possibly entire other parts of the Universe of which we’re unaware. They’re just too damn weird and common to be written off as insignificant, and like it or not, they are a large part of who you are.
So please, potentially famous readers. Keep a dream journal and maybe, when your story is told and sold in whatever may pass as a bookstore in the future, we’ll be blessed with a more complete picture of who you really were.
This month’s song is another random frequency experiment, but it felt like dreaming to me. (Up at the top, above the video.)
