Destination San Miguel (from 2/27/19)

Headed to DFW to link up with Cody and Maureen for a visit to the destination of their marriage celebration.

Toward a live streaming concert

Better This Way- part of a trial video I made today of a short set of my songs testing sound and camera settings for a future streaming live concert series I'm planning. Lining up other musicians to perform with me isn't feasible at present, so my plan is 1) to record back-up tracks of my songs (guitars, bass, and, percussion) and 2) to play along with them, a technique I call "self-karaoke." Beyond writing the songs, creating each of those tracks is a matter of many hours of playing the various parts, choosing percussion loops from a sound library, and mixing all of them on my MacBook until at last they satisfy my ears. Playing guitar and singing live with the tracks is fun but it's tricky getting the sound clear and balanced: for that, I'm trying out a number of different methods of playing the tracks through speakers in my studio. To that, add setting up all my gear, operating the video camera (currently my Android phone), and coordinating the entire process single-handedly in hopes of ending up with a video good enough to share with my friends. Finally, there's getting through my own songs without hitting the wrong chord while singing somewhat in tune. When I can do all of that consistently, I'll be ready for a streaming live concert! Stay tuned...

Vote suppressed in South Carolina (a dream)

This morning just before I woke up  I was dreaming Mary Lou and I were voting in a primary election. The vote was taking place while we were traveling through South Carolina at what seemed like a rest stop off the Interstate, which was confusing to me. I thought we should have been registered in Georgia.  Mary Lou, who seemed to know what was going on, apparently having voted, told me it was my turn, disappearing from the scene while I attempted to vote. I didn't know the drill but I was directed to a shelf with a row of machines that looked like old CRT terminals.

Someone told me to use machine C, the 3rd one in the row. It had a tiny keyboard and screen upon which a series of simple math questions appeared for me to answer.  I tried to comply but the keyboard was slow and my efforts to type produced incorrect figures, e.g., when I typed the answer to 1+12 =, 123 appeared. The question would disappear or change while I was trying to correct my answer. The maddening situation might have been something contrived for the old TV show Candid Camera. After I made several futile efforts to type the answers, a male technician stepped over ostensibly to assist me. The man made some comments about the situation but offered no useful help. I became thoroughly frustrated with the machine and the voting process and announced I was not going to waste any more time on it.  I walked out in a huff and began to look for the way back to the highway. Directly across from the polling place was a large, open athletic field with only a few scattered people.  I crossed the field to what appeared to be a rustic campus that might have been a well-kept summer camp set in some scenic hills. I thought about my girls being too old for camp as I admired the pleasant scene of the camp administrative building, several bunkhouses distributed along the camp road and the tall hills.

Midnight on Neptune

Yesterday, after I reached a satisfactory stopping point working on Fantasy Cycles, I pulled out another old set of chords bearing the whimsical title of "Midnight on Neptune, a name I free-associated back when I created the recording on... September 6, 2016, according to the file info. I would forget these seeds of songs if I didn't record them when the ideas come to me. Recall that one of my best recent songs, Inspiration, started with an Android video I made when I woke up in the wee small hours one morning and started playing around on my blue Stratocaster unplugged.

As I found it, the pretty chord changes of Midnight on Neptune were realized via a relaxed folk-rock throwback drum loop, bass guitar, and three guitar tracks going for a bell-like sound texture reminiscent of the Byrds. It was in need of considerable work to flesh out the concept.

I decided to write lyrics stemming from the title.  The first line that came to me was

It's midnight on Neptune and we're here all alone.

This would be the chorus, the musical theme the song begins and ends with. Words came quickly and I finished the rough set of lyrics within a few hours that included doing some quick research on the planet Neptune. "Dark, cold and whipped by supersonic winds, ice giant Neptune is the eighth and most distant planet in our solar system."

The story, told only in impressionistic hints of conversation, centers on two space travelers who have made the first visit by earth people to this remote planet. The voyage was long and dangerous and Neptune, as they knew, is an inhospitable world, four times larger than earth and 80 times further from the sun. It's very cold with an atmosphere toxic to humans. Although they are extraordinary people chosen for their intelligence, abilities, and physical as well as psychological resilience, the visitors from earth feel disoriented and disconnected from the human community as they question the meaning and value of their astounding accomplishment, arriving alive on the outermost planet of our solar system.

I don't have an adequate demo at present- besides considering some changes to the structure, I plan to redo the guitar parts and see if I can record a passable vocal before considering sharing it with anyone or performing it.

Surgery for a detached retina

Debra Dugan asked me on Facebook how nervous I was about last Tuesday's retinal surgery.  I told her, "The idea is scarier than the experience. A lady wearing a patch over one eye was on the elevator with me when I checking in. This meant she had surgery yesterday and was coming for the first post-op visit. I said to her, "You're me tomorrow." She said, "That was the most relaxed I've ever been!"

Before the surgery, they sedate you and block the pain so you don't go to sleep and move around. So, I could hear the conversation between the surgeon, NA, and a guy who seemed to be a surgical gear salesman. The worst part was lying on my back and not being able to shift my position.

Fantasy Cycles: A new song is born

I'm recovering from surgery on Tuesday for a detached retina and I seem to be doing well. So, I wrote some lyrics to the "Kate Bush" chords that had been sitting around for a while, as often happens. Typically, I make the musical framework by playing around with chords and beats and developing things that sound good to my ears. At that point, I usually write melodies and lyrics by waiting for a lightning bolt to strike me. Sometimes it all just comes to me like a special delivery from the Muse and at other times it's a torturous process or, worse, nothing happens at all. Yesterday, I had an idea to conduct a creative experiment going ar it a bit differently. I had recorded a spontaneous humming melody in one take by jamming with myself. It came out nicely (other than being a little flat in spots) and I decided to write lyrics to match the hummed melody exactly, meaning I would have to write lines with one syllable to match each note I'd hummed. Additionally, I decided I would write whatever came into my mind without worrying about how artistic the words were or if they even made sense. Once I got started it emerged as a song about kids riding bicycles. I found the result amusing. Perhaps this gives you a glimpse of how my songwriting happens. I get to go back to normal posture tomorrow although I will stay away from serious exercise until getting permission from the surgeon.

More OMG

Tonight is my hosting night. I've put more preparation into this one than in recent times except for the one Beau helped me with that didn't go so well. This should be better although I woke up at 3am with congestion and pain in my left sinuses. I sprayed salt water and it alleviated the congestion. Now it's my right side sinuses. Hopefully it won't progress today to the point of interfering with my singing. We shall see. Larry Bradford is playing percussion with me. We rehearsed a long set on Wednesday and are going over the songs again this afternoon. Balance and not overpowering my vocal is the ticket.