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.

the YouTubes

I totally forgot I’ve been on the YouTubes lately. I’m even on other people’s blogs (thanks Travis at Spintown!) and not mine

Here’s an original

And a Nanci Griffith Cover

And some blooper takes of the Nanci cover.

So yeah … there we are … and I have NO idea why the videos go out of sync, so SEARCH ME!!

I’m having a BAD night. My head is spinning. I’m out of control.

I’m in a nightmare place and I feel like I have demons in my skull. I usually don’t blog at these times. I usually go it alone. Or, rather, I talk to one of the 4-5 people I have. Sometimes my husband. He’s one. Then I have about 3-4 people I go down a list. They’re there for good reasons. I picked them out for specific reasons. They have their roles. I talk to these people about how/why it’s all falling apart for me. They listen. Or tell me what to do, sometimes. It’s not an ACTIVE telling me what to do. Or maybe, sometimes it is.

I don’t know. These things fluctuate.

Today there is so much about this that is physical. It’s all been physical, so much leading up to this point. My body has not been cooperating with me. I don’t want to slow it down. I know I need to though. I wanted to stay up and make videos. I’m not going to. I’m going to force myself to go to sleep. Maybe. It’s still up in the air.

I need to figure out a way to take more CONSISTENT care of myself while still reaping the benefits of the good things that are happening to me right now. There are such positives to what is happening to me right now.

I wish I could figure out a way to explain that I SO want what is happening to me right now – want to keep it, want to embrace it, want to find a way to WORK with it and figure out how to fit it into my schedule and routine … but that I need to tweak things so that it works with my body a little better. I wish I could just turn the whole thing a little to the right or left so that it all gelled a little bit better. That way, it all would be like it was tailor made for me. Maybe like an exercise routine or something that I picked out. Or a diet that wasn’t a diet. Like something that is hard, yes, but very welcome and worth the difficulties and growing pains.

I guess life is not a buffet of our choosing.

It’s a shame, because I’ve been pretty accomadating thus far toward this process. I feel that it should accomodate me!

Nur Ein!

These are the lyrics to my Nur Ein song for Round Three, which features Alyssa Day who I know from DFTBA / TMA (tma is moving to the DFTBA forum-thingys). Nur Ein has it’s home on the Song Fight Forums

’97

Is it done / just a dream
Under moon, stars or sun
Could you be anything?
Could I be anyone … anything

You don’t know anything
I guard my dreams silently …
You don’t know what I’m going through
And I guard them jealously
You don’t know
What I’m going through

(You don’t know why …….. I try …. and why … I lie……)
And I can’t tell you why … I try / And why I lie

*Thirteen years
A long time to fall
in ’97
When you’re heaven bound
And you look around ….
At the long way down ….
All around
a long way down
*Sometimes I look around
You’re not there on the ground
And it’s so far to fall
so far down
so far down

*You don’t know anything
I guard my dreams silently
jealously …
Is it done
Could you be anyone?

Sanity. Because somebody has to do it.

1. I am considering a return to sanity. I was thinking about just letting it all go, and drooling on myself. But I’m not going to.
2. I’m going to spend the next hour doing something I want to do.
3. Then I’m going to do some list making.
4. I will then FINISH a project. This will be finished tonight.
5. I will then FINISH writing a song.
6. I will probably figure out what to do about that song at that point. I will implement that plan tomorrow.

Tomorrow, I’m going to deal with Nur Ein and what will maybe be loose ends of my project. I hope, no. I hope it will be done when I’m done. A decisive finish that is good and clean and acceptable. I can hear it in my head. I hope it is awesome. God, I hope it is awesome.

After that, I have some rehearsals to prepare for. I can’t afford to suck on these Monday rehearsals. I also have to forward a song that I co-wrote this week to the guy I co-wrote it with. I have to get those tracks down for that so that we can have a decent demo for it. I have to learn 6 songs for one rehearsal and I don’t know how many for the other one. But I know they have at least 13 on the set-list. I also need to nail down my set list for Tuesday, and figure out if I’m going to cast.

I feel like in all of this I’ve completely forgotten that I have a solo thing that *I* wanted to do. Eventually, I’d like to book some shows.

I feel like I’m making a list now. I feel like I need a vacation. Or a nap …..

I don’t even want to talk about the state my house is in!

Stranded

This is my LAST MINUTE Nur Ein entry. The challenge was ‘Whispering,’ which I did … plus I mentioned whispering as well. The title was Stranded. I wrote it about being left at a space station by some jerk.

*sheesh*

It’s at the Nur Ein, website and I’m DJ Ranger Den.

STRANDED

Slide over here
you look like not going anywhere for a while
It’s an understatement that it’s cold in space
Besides your smile reminds me of the way
he used to smile
at me

You know I stare at the stars to pass the time
I try to hitch rides
Maybe work my way back to earth to
divert the attention from the situation of mine
I bide my time, station-side
well I need a little distraction
From this heartbreak, plan my revenge games
let me whisper a little irony in your ear

CH

I’m stranded / you left me stranded
All alone at the edge of space and disaster
you severed the wormhole that tied us together
put so many lightyears between you and me and forever
Now I’m stranded … I’m stranded in time
… and space
and time

Remember I didn’t even wanna come here
I like the earth on my feet, I like the breeze whispering
I like the water rushing under me
It’s out here that I feel like I’m drowning
In a sea of uncertainty
and I’m not where I want to be

Remember that night, when you lied
were you just passing through while I planning our lives
what’s the hell’s the matter with you?

You know I’ve waited for you … for many triple moons
You don’t even remember what that means, do you?
I wish you could see how it’s been
here at the end of the universe waiting at some restaurant
staring at a check that’s never ever gonna get picked up
while you blast off,
by yourself … with who-knows-what
into oblivion!

CH …
While I’m stranded

Nur Ein

I have made it into Nur Ein. It’s put on by the people over at Song Fight. I’m listening to it right now. The first few songs are already better than mine right now. This doesn’t bode well! The songs are all here

I’ve heard nothing but good production so far. It’s pretty good. I’m really not up to par for this one. I’m glad it’s the first (zero) round because my song is NOT good enough. I’m going to have to bring it next round. I believe that since there are not enough people, I’m going to get through and we all do the One Round.

Admittedly, I think my lyrics were good (or at least indicative of my style), but my delivery and playing and engineering lacked this round. It was basically a glorified improv. Good ideas, but not really real tight. But this contest … I’m COMPLETELY STOKED.

It’s funny, because Spintown (who is awesome) has issue with my lyrics but usually likes things I don’t like so much! I’ll have to keep that in mind when I get to my Travis-oriented things that are on my list of things to do.

I have a rap name too for myself. I picked it out! I’m DJ Ranger Den. The Den thing is sort of my nod to Joe. It’s his name for me. He had a crazy week. So Joe, you can have props in my nickname. There you go!

[ADDENDUM!]

Here are the lyrics to the tune

‘TIME TO PANIC‘

Could there be possibilities
seeded from dualities
sick needs
from lines I read between

You’re not convinced, I see
lick fingers one two three four five
quick tricky fight to stay alive
spin destiny real tightly

CH
Wrath and sloth and pride and greed
and lust and envy, gluttony
Up down, in out / and sideways, manic
tie me up and there’s no time
to panic

baptisms in infamy
won’t make this broken mirror lucky
so lead me up the stairway
to your eight nine then eleven twelve thirteen

i fall dangerously and need
your deadly sins all over me
be the one who’s down below
the angel of the 66th row

add three, I don’t care
make it make-believe I’m still there
practice underwater breathing
wear your heart upon my sleeve

CH/BR
crunch time, time to cut the wire
chaos suicide it’s blastoff time
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
ground zero blast off time
no panic time the games not mine
five four three two one and now
ground zero / you’re down below

CH

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?

Dear Internet (but not really)

1. I have a gig. Today this isn’t a good thing. Missing it isn’t an option.
2. I’m starving. But eating isn’t really an option either for the same reason that missing the gig isn’t an option. Or rather, eating will cause the missing of the gig. Which is unfortunate. I’ll do what I can.
3. Writing and checking in with writing all day has calmed me down. I know that I’m disconnecting, because I’m not even all that worried about the ning thing. Not even enough to post a link to the letter. Not really even enough to post links to anything.
4. I have no feelings for anything about anyone today. I am feeling really cold and unaffected and clinical.
5. Why did I title the post this? Oh yeah.

I have a lot of work to do right now. I counted up the projects. There are 32 active projects. That’s just stupid. They are not all marked “urgent.” Many of them are just mine … just things I am doing. So many of them are different things for people, one person doesn’t really know about the other, different aspects of my life, blah-blah-blah.

I think there are really just 12 things that HAVE to get done. Maybe 7 that need doing by this weekend’s end. Oh wait … no eight. That’s not too horrible. That’s 8 music things. Not eight life things. I still have to function and be a Productive Wife and Member of a Family and Human Being in a Community of Folks Who Give a Rat’s Ass.

(by the way, Mike does not put these ideas in my head. he is very nice. i am a goober.)

[aside. my iPhone just totally FREAKED OUT on me. it's sync-ing with my brain!]

But I will have to get stuff done, is what I’m saying. And if I feel like I’ve got the loose ends I have to say something. So I’m writing a letter to “myself” which is up here now so that I can say, “enough already” … if you’re distracted Mz. D, it’s Enigma Variations time. You’re grounded from the internet. There is too much stimuli. Because what if there’s a hostile takeover or something. An asparagus shortage. An alien landing and they don’t care about us but they have only come here to steal our mayonnaise. Gah! That would be a tragedy!

(why would the aliens need mayo? couldn’t they make it themselves?)

This is less a blog right now than a chronicle of my slow-slip into insanity! I really wanted this to be A Professional Thing. I am A Professional.

Hah. Not So Much. But my songs are hardly professional either, are they. And all the while I do this, I’m working in the back of my skull.

I suppose I should take the good with the bad and just let it happen as it does and do what I need to do to care for myself. Whatever is distracting.

Whatever.

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.