Poem: Any Morning by William Stafford

by | Nov 6, 2012 | Inspiration

Just lying on the couch and being happy.
Only humming a little, the quiet sound in the head.
Trouble is busy elsewhere at the moment, it has
so much to do in the world.
 
People who might judge are mostly asleep; they can’t
monitor you all the time, and sometimes they forget.
When dawn flows over the hedge you can
get up and act busy.
 
Little corners like this, pieces of Heaven
left lying around, can be picked up and saved.
People wont even see that you have them,
they are so light and easy to hide.
 
Later in the day you can act like the others.
You can shake your head. You can frown.

Ukulele: Study in E Minor

by | Nov 5, 2012 | Animation, Music I Like

Between doing art related work, I decided to take a classical turn in my approach to learning the ukulele today, learning a uke version of Francisco Tarrega’s Study in E Minor (my proud, yet very rusty abbreviated version in the video with only one mistake at the end). Also working on a version of the traditional Japanese folk song Sakura Sakura.

One of my ultimate goals with this is to be able to do some animation and produce my own soundtrack for it, non-digitally. I think that would be awesome…. I haven’t done as much animation as I had hoped this year – not even scratched the surface, but I’m trying to reorganize my mind these days and focus in new directions. And the ukulele & animation is one of them.

Weekend Wrap-up

by | Nov 4, 2012 | Music I Like

gilbsuke

Thursday night: I headed to my hometown, ukulele in tow, and serenaded my cat, Gilbert, for as long as he could stand it (which was not long).

Friday: I facilitated a rocks & minerals art workshop at the Lawrence Arts Center with 27 very energetic first thru fifth graders. Somehow I mustered up the energy to continue my day into the night..

Friday night: I hit up an amazing Chuck Mead (a Lawrence, KS native and Nashville transplant) & The Grassy Knoll Boys concert at The Bottleneck in Lawrence with a handful of my closest friends.. and their first encore song was Apache. Mind blowing to say the least.

Saturday: listened to records, ate vegetarian tacos, napped, listened to more records, ate more tacos, slept. It was very sloth like.

Sunday: a mandatory visit to Love Garden Sounds. 15 new acquisitions made possible by a very nice gift certificate from the folks at the Lawrence Public Library in thanks for the paper cutting workshop I did there for the Read Across Lawrence program. Finds included a couple Bobby Bare records; Mike Auldridge – Dobro (playing along with the likes of, but not limited to, Doyle Lawson, Vassar Clements, David Bromberg, etc), Original Sloth Band, Dicky Betts, a couple records featuring music with Theodore Bikel, Red Rhodes, Sneaky Pete Kleinow, etc.; Several cool finds in the dollar bin including Black Oak Arkansas and Pretty Things.. etc, etc, etc. Kinda cool: Saul Broudy’s record “Travels with Broudy” signed by Broudy himself with the note, “To Sylvia, Thanks for the wine! See ya soon.” I love finding little notes like that..

And an afternoon meeting for the upcoming Bizarre Bazaar.

Back to work. Much to do. Lots of music to do it to.

Real Country Dark

by | Nov 2, 2012 | Inspiration

dark

One of my favorite places to be. Quiet gravel roads with hawks and raccoons, one shooting star, and home before sunlight even touches the horizon. A full day of teaching ahead. Happy Friday.