a songwriter’s blog

 

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I’m a little behind on my posting this week because I’ve been slightly distracted with…my brand new MACBOOK!  I’m loving it so far.  Let me introduce you. 

And yes, this is the first post made on my beloved Mac, though the song was not composed on it.  That will hopefully be next time.This little song clip would be a great intro for a movie.  Want to use it in yours?  Let me know! 

 

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I’m generally not a storyteller in my songs.  Maybe it’s because I’m not a verbal processor (haha…it seems like I’ve discussed this point lately with many of you who are probably reading this).  Maybe it’s because I don’t pay enough attention to lyrics as a listener.  In any case, I don’t tell stories.  And for this, I express my thanks to all of you who have faithfully listened to my music in spite of the fact that the words have potentially bored you out of your minds.

However, this song is an anomaly for me.  I explain the background of the song in the audio, so I won’t ramble on too much here.  But, in short, it’s based on a story a good friend of mine told me about one of her pals who lives in the Middle East.  It’s meant to convey the distress the girl felt as a result of gender relations in her culture.

 

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I can’t multitask, and neither can my computer.

I decided to spend some of my “Dream Weekend” recording a piano/vocals song. Tonight I wrapped up a first stab at the vocals.

As I was waiting for the computer to finish loading the vocals track, I decided to play a few bars on my keyboard. Well, little did I know, I had confused my poor computer.

Suddenly I started hearing faint, eerie echoes emanating from my computer speakers. As they began to increase in volume and quantity, I became increasingly weirded out.

Finally I realized that somehow the computer had confused the two inputs it was trying to process (the audio track, and my doodling on the keyboard) and combined the two into this creepy chorus. I was able to duplicate the chaos and record it for your listening pleasure.

If you listen carefully to the whole thing, you’ll start to make out a phrase from the song. It’s especially clear at the very end. Kind of freaky that the computer managed to self-select that lyric!

 

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Hello there…here’s a little smidgen of piano we shall call “Hopes & Hesitations.” Bon appetit.

 

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Agree or disagree?

“Time heals all wounds.”

What do you think?

 

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An oboe sings a mournful melody with a near-human voice. A full string orchestra replies with the same melody, but in a distraught, tearful tone.

It’s like letting a hard reality sink in and then asking, Why?

 

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Here’s a verse and a chorus of an unfinished song called “Let’s Work This Out Tonight”.  It sings the story of bitterness with which we are all far too intimately familiar.  Listen to it, and then go read Romans 12.  I’ve been reading that passage for the past few days.  It will definitely convict you of your bitterness, among other things.

On a lighter note, I am actually slightly bitter tonight, as I accidentally broke one of the super cool wine glasses that Jamison gave me for Christmas!  Alas.  I shall recover.

 

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If you know me well, you know that I’m a Florida girl at heart. So I was beyond ecstatic this morning to wake up and find that the day was actually living up to the predictions of the *ever-reliable* weather.com: 65 degrees and sunny. I bolted out of church and headed up to Caesar’s Head with Brannon. While the trails are always beautiful in their own right, they were uniquely wonderful today, decorated with remnant ice stalactites from the recent cold weather. Yeah, that’s supposed to be an “ice monster” that I’m making with my hands and the ice in the background.

Appropriately enough, this orchestral piece has the ominous tone of a “Jaws” or a “Jurassic Park”. We shall call it “The Ice Monster.”

 

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Here’s a short piano creation that I’d envision using in a moment of climax in a film. Ultimately I’ll probably translate the motif into a full orchestra setting, and extend the piece beyond the mere 30 seconds that it currently occupies.

 

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Well, it’s a new year, and with it comes a new WordPress site! While you may not see me playing out much these days, the composing wheels are still turning rapidly. So I want to start sharing some of my new material with you here. Lately I’ve been experimenting in all kinds of genres, from my typical acoustic/folk/rock tunes to orchestral film motifs. I hope to give you a glimpse into the full spectrum.

To kick things off, here’s a rough cut of a song I wrote a couple of years ago that hasn’t made it on an album yet. It’s called “Break a Little Ice.” Enjoy!