Thursday Night Off
Thursday night, I was packing up my gear, preparing to go out to play. I would have to wrap up in a bunch of shirts and sweatshirts and my heaviest jacket, so that I at least would feel no discomfort, as I headed for the Lilly Pad.
It could start raining; pouring even, as soon as I was no more than a block away from home...or the rain could hold off long enough for me to get in a set of music and make 33 dollars.
As I was shouldering my backpack, I heard the "ting ping ting" of rain hitting my window. I looked out and it was raining cats and dogs. The puddles, evidence of earlier rainfall were now jumping and sizzling like fat in a fry pan.
So, I set about "housecleaning" stuff off of my hard drive. Mostly these were versions of myself playing along and trying to invent something, to chance upon some chord progression that would stick in my head and become part of my repertoire, but maybe only after listening back to it the next day, or the next, or last night, when I condensed the things down to those things that I had forgotten that I had "written" and saved them as small audio files, maybe after making the catchy parts repeat a few times. This is turning some 1 gigabyte Audacity projects into ones that are one fortieth the size, or smaller.
It is time to separate the wheat from the chaff and release some "finished" music, rather than trying to write it all over again with each performance of it.
But, with digital technology, my next release will have vocals sung by me outdoors nearby the University Medical Center, at Jacob's house, and at my apartment.
OK, This Just In (The Primordial Papaya jam at top)
Since Jacob was sitting right across from me, as I typed the above, I asked him to give me a copy of one of the songs off of the 14 song CD that is already "in the can" and so, I give you the overture to The Papaya Song, which is not the actual papaya song that we intend to record after planning the arrangement a little more.
The lesson I learned is that I should always be trying to sing my best, even when just goofing off into the microphone, because Jacob might take that little snippet and make "a whole song" out of it.
I am dreading going out to play tonight. It is fear of someone being already on my spot, fear of not making any money at the spot, fear of not playing as well as I think I can -and all the usual fears that have often preceded my best money nights; almost as if butterflies in the stomach are a sign that I am actually ready to play, even though it feels like pedaling home five hours from now with almost a hundred bucks in my pocket would be like going to the moon and returning safely...
Thursday night, I was packing up my gear, preparing to go out to play. I would have to wrap up in a bunch of shirts and sweatshirts and my heaviest jacket, so that I at least would feel no discomfort, as I headed for the Lilly Pad.
It could start raining; pouring even, as soon as I was no more than a block away from home...or the rain could hold off long enough for me to get in a set of music and make 33 dollars.
As I was shouldering my backpack, I heard the "ting ping ting" of rain hitting my window. I looked out and it was raining cats and dogs. The puddles, evidence of earlier rainfall were now jumping and sizzling like fat in a fry pan.
So, I set about "housecleaning" stuff off of my hard drive. Mostly these were versions of myself playing along and trying to invent something, to chance upon some chord progression that would stick in my head and become part of my repertoire, but maybe only after listening back to it the next day, or the next, or last night, when I condensed the things down to those things that I had forgotten that I had "written" and saved them as small audio files, maybe after making the catchy parts repeat a few times. This is turning some 1 gigabyte Audacity projects into ones that are one fortieth the size, or smaller.
It is time to separate the wheat from the chaff and release some "finished" music, rather than trying to write it all over again with each performance of it.
But, with digital technology, my next release will have vocals sung by me outdoors nearby the University Medical Center, at Jacob's house, and at my apartment.
OK, This Just In (The Primordial Papaya jam at top)
Since Jacob was sitting right across from me, as I typed the above, I asked him to give me a copy of one of the songs off of the 14 song CD that is already "in the can" and so, I give you the overture to The Papaya Song, which is not the actual papaya song that we intend to record after planning the arrangement a little more.
The lesson I learned is that I should always be trying to sing my best, even when just goofing off into the microphone, because Jacob might take that little snippet and make "a whole song" out of it.
I am dreading going out to play tonight. It is fear of someone being already on my spot, fear of not making any money at the spot, fear of not playing as well as I think I can -and all the usual fears that have often preceded my best money nights; almost as if butterflies in the stomach are a sign that I am actually ready to play, even though it feels like pedaling home five hours from now with almost a hundred bucks in my pocket would be like going to the moon and returning safely...
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