authoring destruction

Well, contributing to the Feelings Melange of present, much of which is related to my attachment to music and the variety of really excellent musical experiences I've had in the last week, I've just learned that vocalist Annette Olzon has just parted ways with Nightwish, just days after my good fortune of seeing them, and her, in concert for the second time.

I felt my heart break a little, you guys. You don't even know. I've loved this band for a solid decade, now, having first fallen for Tarja's voice and their sound over all and was very anxious the year they split with her (around the same time that Liv Kristine left Theatre of Tragedy). Annette is a dynamite performer and, in my opinion, a really stellar vocal talent though she's not a classical singer. She also had a really warm personality on stage and, from the end of things that I saw as a fan, seemed to fit into a really good thing with them. I deeply enjoy the two albums they did with her, and I hope they find someone who works well for what they need.

And now, I'm going to go curl up in a corner and sulk somewhere and do some fucking homework.

The recordings from The Quire's winter concert finally went online at some point in recent history, and I've downloaded them tonight. It was a nice concert, we did a lot of good music and I really enjoyed it. I also, like Cabaret, sang a solo, and got really worked up about it beforehand, and et cetera.

I'm not tremendously impressed, hearing the recording. It's not terrible, I've had worse, but I sound nervous. My voice should be clearer and steadier than this - shit, my voice is clearer and steadier than this. I really miss being in voice lessons. I need to start practicing more. I need to start recording my practice sessions and listening to them, and working on the many and varied flaws in my technique. I need to read more and do some more theory and...

Don't mind me, just some existential angst specifically in my musician-self. I'm sure it was better live, where people could not only hear but see me being frozen and awkward on the stage! :D

So. MJ, a good friend and co-owner of one of the major recording studios in town, and I did some music earlier in the year. The folk festival, and we were thinking about recording some songs we put together for that. A week or so ago, she said she wanted me to come in and record an album... something serious, something I can do whatever with, demos or... anything really. It'd be fitting it in between her and her husband's other work, which is fine with me (and fitting it in between mine). The trouble is, I'm not sure what I'd do. I haven't written any music... that's not on the table right now and I don't have time to dive into that just now in a way that will be productive to anything I can actually produce. I sing a lot of folk music though, and that's probably what I'd end up doing. Modest guitar, MJ plays piano and sings also. So, I need to start really looking for an array of songs so that I have some choice for what I'm doing.

So. Does anyone have any ideas for songs that I should look up and learn? More traditional stuff is best... basically, songs in public domain that I can record without worrying about licensing. I can do research learning leg work myself... but if you know where I can get ahold of the lyrics/music/guitar chords/whatever (or have a file you can send me <3) that's awesome too.

Thanks!

Just set up Simplify Media. My username is crows. Anyone else on it?

Wow, I was at the studio for a long, long time! Good practice, good therapy... I love MJ. She's a generation ahead of me but otherwise a person of a very similar disposition... she went through a lot of the same things I'm going through when she was my age, reacted to some of them the same way. So it's really nice to know about her path, about the journeys she went through, and it's comforting to know she succeeded and has become this extremely self-actualized, talented, successful woman with a wonderful marriage, career, great kids, and an incredible sense of herself and her own strengths (and weaknesses). Today, driving home, I felt the first glimmer in a long time of the smile that reminds me... that some part of me, deep down underneath all the other bullshit, is looking forward to falling in love again. Now, again, this is an up day. I will lose that, more than likely, underneath the aforementioned bullshit. But it was nice to know that it is there. That I saw the flash of it is a good sign. I am moving forward, and damn anyone who thinks otherwise. All sorts of things are going forward for me.

Speaking of which, we got a lot of very good music done tonight. We worked on the two original pieces we had from last time - Three Fishers, and Thomas and Nancy - with some arrangement stuff, and picked out two more songs (Raglan Road and Lovely on the Water) which we ran through a couple of times so she could learn the melody and I could learn the chords. My guitar is incredibly clumsy still but one of the effects of being treated seriously by a serious professional musician is that I take on the incredible ability to take myself seriously as well, and that makes all the difference. I can do this. I do have the foundation of skill necessary to put this all together. I'm really excited.

For anyone in Anchorage that's interested (expect this information to turn up later as well, particularly given that I'm not sure WHERE it's happening) we'll be performing our 15 minute set (possibly longer, MJ says, if they have cancellations... it's known to happen, so we'll be preparing a couple of other pieces as well... and if nothing else slap them all down in the studio when her husband has some offtime to oversee the recording process) on January 18th at 7 45 wherever the main Folk Festival stuff is happening. Surprisingly, I don't suck substantially more at guitar if I am singing in addition. I still suck, mind you, but the singing doesn't make it unbelievably worse, and doesn't suffer too too much itself for the guitar-failing that accompanies. Always nice to find out that something isn't as bad as you think it is :)

Let's see if we can be something like organized about this:

Writes:
Athlacarta: will be/is a multimedia project that a dear and talented friend may be working on with me.

Persephone: Started today; short fiction based generally on the myth of Persephone and Hades.

The Black Swan: Longer fiction concerning time-travel and ghosts.

Amber Poe: I'm back at this. There's a bunch in the journal of this story but not all of it's tagged; I'll try to do that.

[This isn't it, I'm just very tired and those are most salient on my mind at the moment].

Sews:

I bought more than 30 yards of assorted material in New York.

Pants designed by a friend; denim, there will be a version for boys and for girls.

Coat for a friend of mine; black with details in something something.

Vogue pants for me in pinstripe material from New York. Pray I can find all of the pattern pieces.

Long gown with contrast/lacing panel like I did on the skirt I finished in black and silver brocade.

'Asian style' tunic in black and white silky. Half finished.

Pictures:

Assorted media for Athlacarta; I have a sketch of Cassie that I may expand on.

Ink painting of the overcast skyline I flew in to on returning to LA earlier. (It screamed distopia!)

Sings:

Se Florindo E Fedele, out of the 24.

Anyone know where I can find good African sheet music, that they would recommend?

Other:

Work. I may be picking up some work with TDMonthly writing/editing. I'm extremely hopeful and am going to do my best to sniff out other opportunities like this.

Publication opportunities for fiction, probably in magazines and the like. Nothing late-model is ready yet for public consumption but I'll be more motivated to edit and refine once I have a tangible target in-hand.

Instruments... this still baffles me. I bought a bowed psaltery a week and a half ago. The collection continues to grow...

My voice teacher had a house warming party for her new apartment tonight. A wide variety of people were there, mostly related in one way or another to musical professions and, I suspect, Judaism (she's Jewish). It was lovely! A magnificent and colorful vegetarian potluck dinner was served by all, to which I brought two very successful (previously experimental) deserts (spicy applesauce bread with walnuts and cranberries, fresh pumpkin pie). Four of five or six members of the Afro-Cuban fusion band she's part of (Yeh Dede, you can look them up on MySpace) were present, and performed several songs while everyone else clapped, claved, tambourined, and shakered. Here were the recipes I cooked... I would encourage anyone who likes a little light baking to try them, they came together well!

* 1 medium sugar pumpkin (cook, de-skin, puree, use 2 cups)
* 1 recipe pastry for a 9 inch single crust pie (I used pre-made graham cracker crust)
* Ginger, Cinnamon, Clove, Nutmeg to taste (I might have also had allspice?)
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 4 eggs, lightly beaten
* 1 cup honey, warmed slightly (I used organic raw honey... so delicious!)
* 1/2 cup milk
* 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

(400, about an hour)

And the bread:

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I used wheat! Yay wheat!)
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup shortening
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
Above spices, to taste
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup toasted chopped walnuts
1/2 cup dried cranberries

(350, supposed to be a half hour but mine took longer)


PS: I've had Sonata Arctica's 'Caleb' stuck in my head all day.

Something ironic that happened today:

As I was standing at the bus stop on my way to work this morning, plugged in as always when I am out and about and alone to my Ipod, a nicely dressed woman approached me with a small attache open in her hands and asked me if I was looking for something to read on the bus. I politely declined and she didn't press; but a glance down to what she had in her case revealed that it was a publication on the part of the Jehovah's Witnesses. Now, I'm not categorically offended by this in any fashion and I wish her the best at what fulfills her... but through my headphones at that very moment Damien, by Iced Earth, was blasting. "So here who comprehends, that the number of the beast is a number of a man, a number just for me!"

Something sad that happened today (maybe):

Walking back from my lunch break in the middle of the day, I approached a dark blot on the sidewalk that was shifting around in that way that only birds do. It turned out, once I got about a foot away from it, to be a crow laying there on the pavement... I couldn't see where he was hurt, but he was obviously not well. I pulled my scarf out of my bag intending to scoop him up and take him inside where I could call around to find an animal rescue agency that would take him in, but startled him enough that he did manage to get up and fly across the street to a nearby rooftop where he lay with his wings slightly extended from his body. I went back in to work, but could see him from the door, and he was there quite some time. Then, when I went to look, he was gone and wasn't on the sidewalk below so I assume (hope) that maybe he was just stunned and came out of it.

And my novel:

Things are beginning to come together. Wordcount wise, I'm a little (but not unrecoverably) behind. However, I'm getting to the point now where details that I feel like I'm pitching in aimlessly are starting to add up and connect in meaningful ways. That means that, somewhere out there in the ether, my characters are coming to life and doing things of their own accord, and I've just to turn my lens their direction and observe.

IT'S ALIIIVE!