Pictures from Ireland

(untitled pictures)

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(untitled 6/14/09)

(untitled 5/31/09)

Washington

The year is hedging towards the halfway marker and I still have a lot to do in regards to my New Year's resolution. But with the end of the Washington trip comes the end of the school year, and summer will leave me with lots of time to focus on finishing up more music. Recently I've been listening to a lot of older material (about a year or two left forgotten) and I've noticed that I'm in a much different place musically. In order for to get the album where I want, I'm going to need to come up with a lot more entirely original material. Exciting and daunting. The good news is that the lyrics and vocal melodies have been coming fairly easily lately, though in a strange twist of fate, the music remains elusive; where I used to be able to start up a few decent loops in a day, I'll now bang away at the keys with nothing to show for it.

While I try to come up with something new, here are some pictures that I liked from the trip. The architecture of the buildings amaze me every time. The National Cathedral is unbelievable.

Memorial Day Weekend Camping

Are the chords cutting through yet?

School has been busy lately. I'm currently searching for a new book to teach to the seventh graders next year, with a few prospects in mind. If you have any ideas, don't hesitate to share. While I haven't been sitting in front of the computer and writing music lately, I have been driving around with "Pit Stains" virtually on loop, working on vocals. I'm shooting to finish up a vocal demo this weekend.

While we wait, here's a picture of a bubbles in front of a door.

Dotted Lines and Whispers

I'm going to get over myself and start posting songs with vocals. As I may or may not have mentioned, these are demos, and there are going to be vocal issues, particularly with rhythm and pitch. If I feel the inevitable mistakes don't get in the way of giving you a decent impression of where the song COULD go, I'm not going to kill myself trying to get the perfect take.

What was "Hundred Year Nap" is now Dotted Lines and Whispers.

The picture seemed appropriate, seeing as it's my spring break and it's been snowing.

I think I'm going to try to get some vocals on an old one, "Sunday After Frank," that I wrote long before I started the blog. It's one that I've always felt had something worth uncovering in it. We'll see.

24 Degrees

Rehearsal for "24 Degrees", a percussion piece for Kurt's senior recital.

Hundred Year Nap

New song in the works. For starters, all it is is a verse and chorus, as usual. I like the percussion parts in the chorus; I've been having fun layering those up lately.

Hundred Year Nap.

Practice 03-07-09

Things are coming together.

Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.

This combination of two of the best shows on television is so glorious that it makes me want to euthanize a cat while listening to one of Baltar's sermons.

Oops.

Where did that come from?