Hark The Herald Angels Sing

It's Christmas time...

Hark The Herald Angels Sing

Phineas and Ferb Theme

This is such a fun song to sing. I performed it a few weeks ago for my daughters' 2nd and kindergarten classes and the kids new almost all the words. No surprise there. It's a tough one to pull off solo acoustically, but I still enjoy it.

Phineas and Ferb Theme

The Beatles--Octopus's Garden

I always play Octopus's Garden when I perform for my daughters' classes. I play it just like this. Since the song is so involved with orchestration, I like to play some of the other instrument sounds with my lips. The kids have a blast with it and so do I.

Octopus's Garden

Neil Diamond's Cracklin' Rosie

Oh, this tune is so fun to sing. It's groovy, quiet, loud and is in dire need of a schweet guitar solo. My wife and father in law danced to this at our wedding.

Cracklin' Rosie

Everybody Knows This is Nowhere

I used to do this Neil Young song as a cover back when I performed solo acoustic. It was always a favorite of mine. I like the swampy sounds of the lead, the easy flow of the melody and the simplicity of the lyrics.

Everybody Knows This is Nowhere

You Could Have Had Me

"You Could Have Had Me" is a song I wrote and recorded a demo of during lunch a few months ago. I plan on rerecording it with drums and bass with some other musicians in what will be my first long-distance home recording session. It will be interesting to see how it will go.

This version was recorded with my Boss BR600 digital 8 track with the on-board microphones.

Listen to the song by clicking here.

I'm Yours

I recorded this one a while ago. I was practicing it for a live performance and messed up in a few spots, but it was still fun.

Jason Mraz's I'm Yours

Be Still

The following link will take you to Youtube.

Be Still

I don't know who wrote this song, but I sure didn't. I'm sure it's a mix of traditional lyrics. If you know who is responsible for writing it, please let me know. This makes me feel all good inside when I sing it.

A New Start/A New Idea

Well, my one-a-day project was a complete failure. I made two drawings in the entire month of October and only posted 1. I'll eventually get around to posting the second one. I'll admit, I wasn't too driven.

So, I've decided to change my idea and do something that makes more sense to me. For those of you who know me well, you'll agree. I am now going to do database administration. I'm not talking about programming here.

I love to listen to music, I love play musical instruments and I love to sing. There are so many songs out there that I absolutely love and never get to play them live because when you play for money, most of the time you are catering to your audience. Nobody wants to hear the extra tracks to the Unforgettable Fire single at a bar, ya know? So, what I intend to do (to help my creative outlet) is to record (either video or just audio) songs I love to sing and share them with you. Some songs may be popular, some may be unknown and some may be originals. I don't plan on maintaining any kind of regularity, but I can assure you it will be often. I'm not trying to get one-a-day out there anymore. I don't want this to become an obligation of any kind.

So, with that said, I'll post a few that I've already done and hope if you enjoy them, you'll share them with others. Feel free to comment.

Day One/Drawing One-Buddha

Wow, I almost missed day one. I'm pretty lame. Maybe I can't pull this off. I did get it in though. So, here's drawing number 1: buddha. It's not an original representation. Rather than coming up with my own idea of what I think the great buddha should look like, I searched the Internet for ideas. I won't always use other people's work to mimic.

Unfortunately, I had to start, stop, start, stop, continue, finish while doing this one. I usually prefer to start-finish. There's something very Zen about drawing. I find it to be very meditative.

This isn't really an exercise in becoming a better artist (although I do hope that it does make me into one), it's really an exercise in establishing good habits of using the brain.

I'm not sure if I'm happy with buddha. I mean, I like buddha, but I'm not sure if I am happy with this drawing. The scanner didn't do the shading justice and I didn't have the right tools. I used a #2 pencil rather than my drawing pencils, my finger for shading and a piece of printer paper rather than my sketchbook. It'll be interesting to see if drawings do come out better with better tools. Somehow, I really doubt it. Great artists can make masterpieces with crappy crayons. I've seen it done.

Getting Ready

OK...technically it's day one for me, but since I am at 1:45am and at the end of my September 30th work shift, I will hold off on drawing number 1 until the sun rises over the Atlantic.

I've never done anything like this before. I have to keep regimented about it and am looking forward to both the challenge and to the output.

How Time Changes Everything

I've been thinking of the different one-a-day projects I want to take on (and some of them simultaneously), but I don't know how I seriously am going to be able to pull off any of them when I can't seem to do the small things at home on a regular basis. Having my days off and working nights was supposed to lead to me practicing piano every day, but in the last week I've only practiced 3 times. I guess I should keep in mind that's 3 more times than prior, right?

I have to say, it is quite strange to wake up at 9:30 or 10 o'clock in the morning every day when I've been used to getting up at 4 or 5:45 for over 9 years. Last night I worked until 3am and naturally woke up at 10 today. I think my body only requires 7 hours of sleep. It's been pretty consistent since I've taken on these new hours.

Over the next few days, I am going to be putting together a list of "projects" that I can take on. If you have any suggestions, please throw them my way. I think it is coffee time now.

Early Thoughts

The other day I was thinking about things I could do to learn more about specific topics. My friend, Ron, is trying to learn a new song on his guitar each day of this month. I am not sure if he's been able to keep that up. I remember reading about somebody who tried to write a song every day for a year while he traveled around the U.S. That is quite an arduous task.

There are so many things that I want to learn about and so many things that I want to get better at so I started to think about Ron's idea and latch on to it in some form. What I am intending on doing (and I have no idea how this is going to go) is to pick a different thing each month that I will do every day. For example, for my first month (October) I am going to attempt to draw a new picture every day of the month. I will scan it for your pleasure or critique. I'm hoping in the end that it will force me into becoming a slightly better drawer. In November, I am actually considering writing a new song each day. I would record it and upload it as well.

Along the way, I might include other tasks that are less time consuming like: a word, a Bible verse, or some other interesting fact about fish, sports or whatnot. We'll see how this goes.