ack!

I am going to try to get more in touch with “The Austin Thing.”

That is what I call it. Randall talks about things that are going on all the time, as though I would just know them.

I do not, because I am a hermit. I am Out of The Loop. I do not think he realizes how much I rely on him for connectivity. I’m sure he would be fine with it though. He’s good like that. He likes to be helpful. I suppose this is why he is a good engineer. At his best, I think he is a scary engineer. This is why I need to be home-centric now. He’s probably the reason I got things done in SongFu, a couple of those close times. He’s EERILY talented.

I’m going to write about song contests though, and the “internet” thing (as I’ve also been calling it); soon, soon! Because I think that I’ve been doing the right thing with myself all along.

I don’t really know what “New Model Musician” means. Not totally. Not entirely. I could look it up in the dictionary or on the web. There’s already a label with the name, and DFTBA (the label whose forums are hosting the transplants from Too Much Awesome, the web community which my Song Fu co-competitors Mike Lombardo
(he’s got a CD out, folks… Kevin wants you to know … this …)

BY THE WAY. SAMMY MAKES THESE VIDEOS.

and Jeff MacDougall (by the way, nice slogan! ..) founded on ning (ack!) – they absorbed the TMA community after ning went kinda “corporate.” There’s different facets to that story, but it’s nice that the people continue.

I really am glad of the Spintown blog, because right now, that’s the contest that is piquing my interest. For a while I was doing Nur Ein (I made it into 4 (which really means 5 because of Round Zero (which I blew on so don’t listen without listening to the rest of me!) rounds before I got sick … That doesn’t mean that I won’t do Songfight ever, which is where they were forum-ing about nur ein.

I have lots of ideas, of course.

For now I will finish my list. You know … at the other place. And then do some other stuff. Yeah.

contests and cutting

There’s a new contest. You’ll hear more about this because I’m really excited.

There’s been some talk lately, in my life. I was thinking about stopping contests. Like maybe they weren’t good for me. I went through this a while ago, with piano practicing.

I practice a lot. A LOT of superfluous piano. I do a LOT of “superfluous” things that don’t really “do me any good.” I do a lot of “time wasting” things. And I kind of cast about, adrift.

This has been about a year of that.

And yet, I’ve had more growth and more happiness in the last year or so that I ever would have believed possible.

I’ve also been more ALONE than I would have believed possible – even in community.

And by alone, I don’t mean lonely. I mean alone as in, get it together, girl. I mean alone as in pushed to the front of the stage out of costume. Naked, sometimes. Totally in the wrong kind of show. I’m not that sort of performer.

And I do need to get it together. Make some hard realizations.

Late Night Listage

1. My husband said “you should just use your Song Fu photo for Nur Ein.” I just went with it. I don’t know… whatever monkey. I’m thinking it’s a good idea. I’m also thinking it’s silly to worry too much about that crap. I went through a LOT of photos of me looking for that and ended up going for the one that I used before. I’ll probably delete some of the superfluous photos that I don’t need to save space.
2. Things turn on a dime, and I’m pretty sick of it.
3. I need to just get through the next couple of weeks. Cleanly and cool-y.
4. I’m ready to start spending more time on stuff, in general. I mean on the music. There’s been a lot of rush-job.
5. I am feeling kind of hollowed out inside, lately. A little sad. I think I miss Song Fu. When it was going on, I think I was more excited about stuff. I have to find something that does that for me in the same way- because it’s not going to be there for me and I can’t rely on it to ever be restarted. I’m hoping that I get into Nur Ein like that, but at this point I’m just reactionarily, writing songs …
6. At some point, some day … I’m going to figure out a way to get my point across. But not this day I think. Not this month, probably not this year or even this decade. Maybe not this life. Maybe I am just tootoo weird. Maybe I just can’t find my way out of my head. Maybe I’m not good at sharing.

Maybe I’m defective and not fixable.
6. Ack.

veryveryalone-stuff.

I am about to clean my house and cut a song. I will be doing both these things at the same time. It is like a cathartic thing. The song needs to be done by tomorrow. I am hoping to have things substantially nice around here by the time we go out of town. We’re going to a major cigar event and I’d like to have my other blog out of obscurity and up and running, as well as the twittering I never really do from my cigar-related place. That’s a part of my life I haven’t been able to relax into, and it feeds a social part of me that I’ve really been ignoring. The going to Ruta Maya/Habana House part and writing a review. I used to multi-task a lot better than this. I used to not be so bogged down in work that I couldn’t really follow through on and finish.

It’s all about lists, I think. And mine has gotten away from me too fast, and too big. I want to do everything, and in order to do that, you need a lot of help. I am not a big enough person to tackle all of that in the right order; to know how to do it. So I need to stick to my original plan, and remember why I do the things I do in the first place. Luckily I am a pack rat, and I remember exactly where I put the last bookmark. It’s like I imagine a sewing or knitting mistake to be. Unravelling something. I don’t really know, but it seems both tedious and rewarding at the same go. It’s conducive to getting me back into being happy alone and oblivious.

Any interest I got from people (small though it was) really shocked the hell out of me. It’s shocked me both online and locally with people who become my friends. I don’t do compliments well, although I crave them as I crave love and attention (even though I fear it and need my solitude). If I could shield myself from all people somehow (AND still get the exposure needed to grow a profitable music career that would sustain me and my family + allow me to practice and create + be desirable as a collaborator); if I could be veryAlone and not get lonely … if I could pick and choose my times and not alienate …

well, that would be selfish, wouldn’t it? Yes. Selfish. But I am a selfish creature. I love the humans but I do not play well with them and I like my cave and I sit in it and I want to be veryvery alone. But it’s LONELY there. So I am always Not Okay. Unless I am at the piano. Then I do not think of anything. Everything dissipates. And my attention is caught again if something is shined at me (usually a discussion of something I love. like a piano. or something related to this thing I love).

I think about this online endeavour and my goals for it. I never do anything without thought for how it fits into what I do musically. I’ve always been goal oriented, I used to be this way about writing, now it’s wrapped up into the both things. But online is awkward for me. I met my husband online, yes, so I’m not incredulous about it.

But it is so much easier to be whoever you want (or not) online. It’s made it easier for me to hide myself away. I can really focus on being the queen-bee of vague. I did it in Song Fu rather well. Song Fu is really a personal story of what I went through physically as a woman, dealing with songwriting challenges and personal feelings about coming out of one mental transition into another. Moving from one group of persons to another. Hopes and dreams and fears and feelings. I put it all on the line. And now it’s time for me to make another “album” of sorts where I start revealing other things. Or maybe mixing the things I reveal with a more streamlined, professional approach into the working process.

We’ll see how that goes. I already know that it sounds very … different in my head and I have already started bringing in characters who are not me to supplement my experiences in the songs. So if you start hearing far-fetched things in my music … now you will know – why.

And at this point, after the rain-stormy horrible-but-wonderful mistakes I made in this me-scented-charade…. why wouldn’t I?

Twitter / drama / TMA / Crash

So I just got on to Twitter, and I noticed that we should get our T-shirts for Fu now … which makes it look like to me that it’s all getting retired. And I realize that it’s true that all my trying, and being positive, and loving SongFu, and being better – even up to the point where

{megaphone}

A @@#(U#$ FUCp9@#($#@$ HOUSEWIFE won round three… which I suppose is fairly forgettable if you like,

doesn’t really matter.

Nothing I can say will change anything. Actually I was going to post this nice blog below, when some bs started today that I was unhappy with.

I’ve known Uber-folk. I’ve listened to us debate the definition of uber-folk, misunderstand the application of the meaning of uberfolk, stick to our guns of offense over the concept of uberfolk … whatever. Well, I’ve been scoffed at by uber-folk. I’ve known people who know people who know uber folk. I have stories about uber folk. Charming stories. If I twisted a little bit to the left a couple times or wore a different sweater or dated another guy or chose another reverb or whatever the hell, perhaps I’d be uber enough to be turning everyone down due to an egregious schedule. It would be valid. I had a teenager once. If I still were in that sitch, I wouldn’t have had time for any fu … so I can imagine that it would be difficult to do any kind of quality participation in a contest with no compensation with a busy season.

Fame and a good working showbiz thing … It’s a combo of sweat and luck. But luck and timing are in there. And the thing about luck and timing is that you have to be there. And you have to be smart and you have to get into the right place.

I’m not being smart anymore. It’s throwing off my game. I’ve hung my hat on other pegs and I don’t have the control I used to over things. And it’s dumb. Lately, I can look at several decisions I’ve made squarely in the face and say “well, that’s just plain dumb!”

###below is my post. I declined to post it after being told it was “one-sentence-y.” I don’t know what that means, and now … I don’t care, so I’m posting it anyway.

HERE ‘TIS
well. i knew this day would come.

what would my two cents be?

it doesn’t matter. the thoughts don’t really matter. really it just is what it is.

i’m sad. i hate this. how do i make it stop?

I’ve started talking more about my life in a desperate effort to be known. It gets addictive. I feel I have an online family. I don’t know. In a way it’s been nice. Somewhat nicer than being “outside.” Nice for a person like me who has my particular issues and failings and challenges.

But I’ve come to understand that I really rely on everything to function in the associations that I’ve built up around me here. I’ve become all too attached to things. When pointed out that it’s like a game and it doesn’t really matter; I think that yes … it does. these are real people in real life thinking and feeling real things …

I’ve completely lost perspective and am deeply upset over the goings on of people I’ve never met. People I have to hold back the flow of over-sharing myself with because it’s inappropriate. And they don’t really see my retreat from the intensity of emotion they provoke. They don’t see the crash. They don’t see my over-involvement. They don’t SEE me “laughing out loud.”

They don’t see how they can make me weep and cuss and cry and some times need. But yes … weep and cry lotsandlots.

And I need to work. I’ve become accustomed to a certain amount of work over the years. A certain type of work. busydenneedstobebusy. pianodenneedstomakepianos. That’s the geeky part of me. I do piano geeky things.

I’m definitely a square peg. And as I read arguments by other people about other people defended in the words of people on subjects that have less-and-less to do with what I am all about over time (and those who know me, know this!) … I am sad because of the massive amounts of love I have. But I want to slip down into the warm hole I am originally from and go back to my softwetcrazysillyplace where I just write and the more people who come, the better it gets. The simple fact is that. Where if I do well in something score-wise … it’s a nice surprise. Where if I could have done something crazy like my friend says:

HE SAYS: “Oh, wow … SECOND PLACE??? … we’ve gotta get you the votes to beat that Lombardo guy!” (no one even knows ‘that Lombardo guy.’ He’s a young piano gigger from New York and I am a hermit-housewife who plays provocative and weird little impressionistic little songs and occasionally an overly folksy little twangly guitar with clinks in all the wrong places. and some drum).

[Giggle] “That’d be awesome!” I SAY THIS WHILE DRINKING MORE BELGIAN ALE … although I hesitate to say whether or not it’s really Belgian. Or to try to spell it. It starts with “M,” it’s what the menu says, and it’s my second favorite beer (the first being Traquair House Ale ). [swig]

Of course I don’t win. Of course. because I never win. I never have and I never will. I am okay with this. I’m not someone who leaps to public notice. I have one second place medal from a martial arts tournament I had no business making second place in, just like I had no business making third in this contest. Really, I know that. These are some of my most obscure songs ever. All of them are either partially, totally, or completely inspired by or are about fellow Fu contestants – that are then used for me to work out deeply personal stuff I’ve been letting simmer for years&years. Several Fu-ers and TMAer’s are members of what I joke about as “my 12.”

1. I am wildly inappropriate.
2. I find the ridiculous fascinating.
3. I am overjoyed at cute and wonderful things.
4. I am truly appalled that there is a last place in Fu, because I LOVE Spencer Sokol to death and I went to bandcamp today and downloaded his stuff. Later I may make a link (this does not mean he is on the 12, just because I put him in a list. This does also not mean that he is not on the 12. The first rule of the 12 is that we do not talk about the 12. Anyway, he has a lovely haircut, which reminds me of someone who is on the 12 … and a clever and attractive wife).
5. I sometimes say things that are WILDLY inappropriate. Perhaps I have mentioned this before.
6. I have wanted to leave TMA about 3 times for various reasons, but there are about 3 people on there that have nothing to do with the leaving-reasons who I stay for. I know they would be crushed if I left. I won’t disappoint them.

Maybe that’s why I can’t just … crash. It’s responsibility. Maybe that is what happens when you start to achieve celebrity of any kind. Even a tiny amount of fans. My friend Dave thinks of fans in that way – where the word is from “fanatic.” I think of them as people who like your stuff. Fans can be friends. Maybe that’s where I’m missing the boat.

But maybe it IS when you get just ONE little fan who enjoys your work, your company. Maybe you become a person with “fans” when you have a child, even. Maybe your kid is looking up at you and idol-izing you and loving you and you have to continue walking the earth. Or when you have people around you that are looking up to you and you mentor them in some way. Or your spouse or lover or brother or sister or best friend or whatever thinks you hang the moon … you have to stop being an asshole, or being an asshole to defend whatever-the-bucket from assholes … or stop the chain-of-assholishness, or leave the original perceived asshole behavior, or just let the fact that we live in an asshole culture … just let that all go.

… maybe we have to stop trying to determine which came first, the asshole or the … well … you know. Sorry to be so blunt about it. But you walk away from the stench after a while and go to the garden with your child, your wife, your lover, your collection of lovers (one can only dream!), your online harem, your children, your kittehs, your band, your collaborators, your butchers, your bakers, your candlestick makers, your whoevers …

I don’t know

I don’t make any sense. I just want to be okay. I just want things to stop being so

schmeary.
######

That was it. The blog entry. I felt better after writing it. But I didn’t post it. I posted little short blogs instead and felt impotent. I even talked to Spencer online about his general awesomeness.

Since then, I have pulled out of TMA, and I’m sorry to people for that. But I don’t think that I am strong enough to hang around when things are constantly changing and people are so inconsistent, mean to one another, and wish-wash about how things will be conducted and with who. And when people change their minds, they are grilled and filleted. That’s not right. This is art. We are artists. We don’t need to be so rough with one another. We need to be more gentle. More polite. It hurts me to see ugliness. So I will try to find yet another place where it’s less ugly. I haven’t found one yet. Maybe the whole world is awful.

Maybe that’s why I live in a cave.

But what’s the point of TMA if there’s no Song Fu? I’m a Song Fu contestant. And I felt something was coming over the horizon. Without Song Fu we’re just all going to wait for our assignments for the new project that’s been discussed. I have some April projects coming up and I should start booking more gigs locally. I haven’t been doing that because, frankly, I was excited about what was happening online with Song Fu.

I’m sorry that I was not only not famous enough for one set, but for ANYONE to take enough notice of. I tried. I really tried. I will take my silliness and go elsewhere. I just wanted some artistry and peace. It was helping me get on track after I had to quit for reasons I won’t get into. Personal reasons, and health reasons, and professional reasons, and finally family reasons that I would think other humans would really connect with.

I guess I am not very inspiring in that regard though.

Oh well. As they say in auditions everywhere in “the biz…”

NEXT!

Keys and Lies

This is a blog about my SongFu shadow entry. It’s going to be very stream of consciousness, as I go …

THE STORY
One of the things about this story is that it’s DIFFERENT from the original Bluebeard song! This is because it is a different wife. The first wife I envisioned for my king I had to make up. This is because Joe made me very, very nervous.

Joe isn’t just older than me agewise, he’s fuller and richer sounding than me. He has a more sophisticated sounding accent to me (to my ears). When he records himself, he often does this “man on the march with a very large army” thing with chorus-type effect and it makes him seem very present. Whereas I sound often very young and thin. I often wrinkle around the pitch and I haven’t quite come into the bottom-out of my range. I can feel it coming, but it hasn’t arrived yet. I think we work in a duet sitch because our vibratos just happen to match up. It’s odd because our voices do not. The only way I resolved this problem was to make a character piece till I learn the puzzle around our vocal chemistry better.

The basic thing is that he’s a remote cold ruler of a country and my first wife is a young and easily impressionable childlike slip of a girl that is completely overcome by this man. He teaches her EVERYTHING about love and she is lost in him. But yeah, curiosity kills the cat. She finds the key and all the women are hanging on the hooks.

It makes me want to finish it, in a trilogy. How did he become a serial killer? Hmmm. I swear I’m not a psychopath! Maybe I want an album of feminist fairy tale songs.

The story didn’t feel over. I wanted this king dead. And the real story is about the wife that is saved. I don’t like that. I want the girl to save herself. So I change the story. I want her to poison him. I think poison is very romantic. Maybe she has a cool ring that she keeps poison in. Maybe it’s the ring that the previous wife (who was her friend, after all!) didn’t have the good sense not to use at the first awkward breakfast after that stupid business trip to the orient where he went to get the textiles or whatever it is he does overseas …)

There’s an argument happening in a development happening between this husband and wife leading up to the line “what will you kill me for / I’ll kill you for – curiosity” The characters are not in sync. The facade of the marriage is starting to fall apart. It’s all based on sex and mourning for a mutual love. The wife was too fascinated with the intense love story of the original Bluebeard marriage (“I watched you love her” – from the first stanza), and Bluebeard was kinda (sorry!) sexing his troubles away with her. This new wife is very sensual … but not “the one.”

This is because Bluebeard has a problem with women. But he screwed up because he fell in love with the one from FuSixRound 2 and now he’s acting out. He really should stop killing his women. Perhaps he needs a ‘shrink.

In the blues part, it’s pretty certain that they do have a bit of a thing for each other. They certainly are addicted to propriety, an ideal of marriage, sex, the mourning of an idealized love that they both witnessed (and he experienced!) in the previous marriage (the ‘Something Very Horrible’ one). They need the One More Night. But this girl has her head on a bit straighter and she’s got follow through. She rises to the challenge and remembers that he can drink himself a bit and that she’s just got to suck it up past her fascination with this man. What’s her lie? Maybe that it’s okay. Who knows.

They both know it’s not okay. The whole situation is easy. It’s like a duel.

I have a little scene in my mind about the “ties that bind.” Like he imprisons her and then lets her out for one more night. This tracks with the Bluebeard story where she begs for ten more minutes. Mine becomes one more night. This is admittedly why I drag out section two a bit. I’m trying to stretch it out like you try not to say goodbye.

But onto the next section. The compositional ideas are, once again for me, not coming across in the recording … yet!

The Recording
1. I haven’t had a guy vocal in my songs since … before …. I’m experimenting with a themed thing. I have access to a lot of tools I’ve never had before as well.
3. This song is not finished. I’m not happy with it yet.
4. I think the engineering is very “tentative.” I think that this is because I am at a very tentative point in my life. I’m both confident and unsure.
5. I am also taking more risks and trying to bring together all the “things that I wanted to be when I grew up” into one cohesive style. It’s hard to amalgamate everything.
6. Joe has this opinion about the first Bluebeard tune. He said other people have shared this opinion, and I have since had that confirmed. It’s that my vocals are buried back in the mix and should be louder. This got into my head on this recording. I think I over-compensated. As a result, my vocals are too loud.
7. Joe’s vocal is not loud enough. His reverb is not right yet. I need it to come up and I need to spend time finding the right reverb for him. This is still in discussion. I fear I will never find the right effect for him; although I have gotten pretty good at editing his position and his wave when need be. I did it REALLY well in Bluebeard. Although … he hardly needed a thing because the man can lay down a track …
8. I want another instrument in here. Or three. I ran out of time, simply that. Also, I really wanted a real drumset. SXSW intervened. Maybe I’ll get my wish sometime.
9. The vocals are also out of sync a bit, in my opinion.
10. It was hard to line up the track to the instrumentals. Usually it is not hard to do this. Cubase has been acting up. The computer fully crashed twice during this and I actually lost a lot of data once!

I think I was having “marital problems” with the song! Just like they were.

Sometimes things don’t come quite as easily. However, I like the concept a lot and I think this has a lot of potential. It feels right. More mature. It’s worth a work-on. So I’m gonna keep at it. Which feels weird to say, because I can’t play it live or anything.

Anyway, the listening party is soon and Joe is casting so I’m off. I have to admit that I’m a bit nervous about this one, so will post this blog now.

Thanks for listening.

veryvery harrowing

I’ve had an INTENSE week.

I live inside my head. That means that objects seen from the OUTSIDE of my head are often LARGER than they appear (if I see an innuendo lain on that, I will scream – you know who y’all are! Yes, there are more than one of you. I keep some icky company ).

I am am ducking my head off from online JUST a little bit for a while. it’s gonna be temporary. I’ll hang a bit at the listening party tonight for final Fu, simply because I want to. But, after that – I think that after this week I’m going to need a good amount of time to just actually WORK on the music part of things in an isolated fashion. This week really kind of got to me. It reminded me of other weeks in other places with other conflicts and other feelings that … well…

They hurt. And I have that kind of brain where I need to just sit someplace and feed myself brain food until I feel better. Because I’ve always been in this game for the same reasons. And I can’t afford to get sidetracked. When you’re in this thing you have to put your eyes on the finish line and if you start thinking about things like pecking order or hierarchy and paying attention to that stuff you will fail. And it’s gotten me before. I can’t let it get me again. It’s a head game and I can’t be around it until I’ve redisciplined myself out of a SXSW-mindset. At least enough not to listen to how much more impressed-with-than-me I should be by famous people.

After all, I have a hard drive full of the most interesting drivel on the planet that, if I’d been in the right bathroom with the right agent at the right time – maybe I’d be geekeratti too and I would be having the Humility Conversation with myself right now; taking a break from TMA because I needed to stop being an asshole and complaining about non-organic hotel shampoos or some stupid Hippy-ass Austinite not telling me the appropriate directions to “So-Co.”

why?

1. I am veryvery tired. I fell asleep on the couch.
2. I am veryvery tired of the internet. I can’t control things on the internet
3. I am veryvery unprepared for my show tomorrow
4. I am veryveryvery much more paranoid now than I have ever been.
5. I go from heights of joy and happiness and peace and a feeling of safety to knowing that I am not safe at all and that I definitely counted the chickens before they were hatched.

Nothing is secure and I can’t count on anything. I have to watch myself at all times. I’m tired and sleepy and achy and scared. I don’t have a set-list. This is the main problem. The frickkin set list.

I’d been in the chat last evening and then I practiced piano for a while. It was a wonderful chat, we were all funny and I’d been back and forth with some people about some neat stuff. My practice, after that, started to NOT suck, which was distinct from this morning. I started actually learning to play my tunes and do it intuitively, not needing parts or plans. And I started loosening up on the fingerings for the fugue. The left hand of the polonaise was even starting to trickle in. I smiled a lot. Things were starting to go in.

I went to pick up Mike when he called back, I’d apologized for leaving my phone downstairs and off during upstairs computer time chatting/doing pianos. I’m planning three new recordings so I’m making another piano and actually trying for a wurly-vibe-xylo-thing hybrid. While we came home I told him some about what had happened that evening. I said:

“I’m free.”

I smiled.

He knew EXACTLY what I was talking about. Because we had both been trapped. A lot. For YEARS. The one I was talking about was professional. It was personal. It was a looking over my shoulder. It was a haunting. And for some reason I just relaxed the last muscles of it tonight. It was like a letting go. I felt the last bonds of the old attachment to 2006 and its horrors leave me.

I could write about it.

I want to feel safe in this. I know I let go because I felt safe. It’s a bit like the votes in the contest? Were they really mine? The incessant need I felt between rounds 2 and 3 to prove they were my own shiny votes. The long week of stressing and perfectionism and how damn competitive I get about all that just with myself. I kept asking this … maybe it’s a male/female thing. Maybe the male/female thing exists inside of me. Maybe this is all just some kind of mental exercise of some sort. I know I raked it in at the end.

How much piano do I really need to play tomorrow? Why didn’t Mike like my idea? Why didn’t I ask about my setlist idea yesterday? Did I chicken out about it because Mike made a face in the afternoon when I talked about it, so I didn’t ask any of my colleagues, even in PMs?

Why am I super afraid?

And why, at ANY second now, I am right on the edge of just RUNNING away from it all to the next thing as if I was NEVER there?

more me

1. I practiced. I’ve been kind of practicing to practice.
2. I flirted. With my computer. I haven’t done that in a while. I looked at it and I’ve been neglectful. I’ve mostly been paying attention to the internet and not really to all my nested folders and my lists, and all my little tiny corners where I keep things.
3. I thought briefly about just quitting and doing it all for me. How bad would that be?
4. I wondered why I do this? This music thing.
5. I started thinking about making my duet into a solo, simply because it is going to be SO emotional to write. I’m trusting the process and its safety less and less. I am remembering. I am listening to old recordings and remembering just *why* they were never released.
6. I’m having fun with the concept of collaborating, but am starting to resent a cloud over my head that I have felt before – where I feel like I have to learn and play covers or die. I don’t mind doing my friend’s material, but other people’s material in excess starts to feel … like another situation that didn’t work and was awful.
7. I’m casting about and wasting time because I’m, once again, not really committed to a course of action. I am at that point where I need to remember that I can trust myself and my old plan, because it was dependent on an old plan of just me doing the things I JUST needed to do.
8. All the talk online gets into my head and makes it mushy. All the constant updating gets addictive and is hard to wean from. You start to wonder things. Many of those sentences begin with the words, “why,” “why not” and “why won’t” and end with “me.”
9. I’m getting pretty frustrated with things online, actually. I don’t think I’m getting my point across here. I don’t think I have really made my impression really stick in people’s minds. I’m going to have to regroup somehow, and think about this a bit more.
10. I know who voted for me, and why I won. I’m proud of myself and grateful to them.

more about me and my process than you care to know

1. I think in 140 character or less segments. This is a Problem. I think that I have become attention seeking and desperate. I don’t know if this is because of the music business, chat rooms, or both. I suspect a little bit of both.
2. I have stopped completing songs with me in mind. I think that I USED to complete songs with “me” in mind because I used to keep myself in kind of a forced isolation mode. While this was not exactly healthy, I did control the stimuli around me. I could think and I could write. Things weren’t good last year, and they were better in 2005 production-wise.
3. I think that maybe my husband being home all the time is affecting me somehow. I’m not sure how. I think that maybe it is making me NEED to be around people ALL THE TIME. Even on the internet. When he leaves, I don’t let out a huge sigh of relief and start running to the piano. I run to look to see what someone else has posted. I think this is because I know that I’m not going to get a 6 hour block of time to work. I don’t think that this is anyone’s fault. It is what it is. So I’m trying to do the type of work that one does in these short bursts. The practice-practice can come later I suppose.
4. It’s going to be a little hard for me when he goes back, because I’m going to have to go right back into being the person that I used to be who is more focused. There will be less of me … around … all the time. I’ll be sitting at my instrument for 5-7 hours at a time. I’ll be sitting on my computer, and it will be disconnected because I’ll maniacally be in the folders shifting the lyrics back and forth. Because I have hours of time to just be thinking in clips and poetry. I won’t be going on YouTube and getting ideas. I won’t be immersing myself.
5. I’ll probably stop listening to other people’s music for a while, which I’ve gotten some raised eyebrows for. But I know that I’ve actually just isolated and wiped everything off my iPhone, and put maybe less than 100 tracks on there from time to time (I have less than 100 tracks on there now). I don’t really like music in a traditional way. I don’t feel like I have that luxury. I think about music in form, I think about it in flows and feelings. It has to make me feel a certain way. I will pick out a simply AWFUL song which I hate because the first eight bars of groove makes me feel ABSOLUTELY turned on. Then I will just rewind it over and over and OVER again to that and only that.
6. I’ve become obsessed with covers and gigging, which I didn’t use-d to be (bad grammarandIdon’tcare).
7. I like the way I talk, and write lyrics. I doubt I’m going to be changing this.
8. I had a strange moment in the studio. I went in to help with pianos and … [EDIT] …I was going in for tech reasons, because I have cool pianos. I’ve “rendered” (that’s what I call it – I think you actually say “modelling”) a bunch of pianos with pianoteq; and I thought they were really great. I use them in my work. I also made some synths and some little wurlys. Some little cute organs and some other things. I practiced a solo for one of the songs, because I thought – {edit, “maybe I’ll be called upon to do something on amother song on this record; and”} … it will be {edit “something“} with an instrument like this. But I went in [EDIT-OUT]

The {edit: “person who ended up playing the piano on the track that WAS worked on that day is a different sort of player to me. I wouldn’t have fit into that song, had I been called upon to play it. So it’s good that they had another player. But it does make me realize how much I really don’t get the vibe sometimes, of other people’s music. How differently I interpret things.”}

I am not really a masterful fit anywhere, but with my own music. This happened in the TMA as well. Well, it happened in a specific project in the TMA, and I had to kind of negotiate around that. Typically, I thought it would end in disaster, but it just ended in an interesting relationship that is strange to say the least. I’m full of strange relationships. The other collaboration I did is more confusing, because I fit into it so seamlessly that I’m still thinking about it and it bothers me a LOT. I didn’t play an instrument on this one.

I write in this blog because no one is really paying attention anymore. I can read the signs of when people get too busy and kind of tell. I got a lot of votes this time in the Song Fu, but this is a good time for me to keep flying under the radar. At least, I hope so, because I think I’m getting to that point where I’m starting to slip and to lose myself.

Plus, and this is a big worry – I don’t know how many (really), of my votes were “shiny votes of the other sort” and not really votes I would have gotten with a song of my own complete effort. I’m rather nervous about the next round. Maybe I made too much of a good decision. I’ve never been so grateful for the support of Austinites, and never been so SURPRISED at them crawling out of the woodwork at the last minute.

Now, I suppose that I will have to do a quick video – going against everything I believe – explaining a silly thing I say. I’m part of a community whether I like it or not. I can’t really explain this weird little family that we have. It’s pretty intense to say the least. I don’t really know my role in it either. I guess I worry too much about stuff. :S