For Those Who Like Traditional Hymns
Current mood: excited
Category: Music

A big part of my early musical development was influenced by hymns and other church music. Somewhere around seven years of age, after having taken piano lessons from my mother since the age of four, I started teaching myself to play songs I heard in the new folk masses at the Catholic church my family attended regularly. My first paying job, in the fourth grade, was as a boy soprano in an all-male choir at an Episcopal church in downtown Schenectady's stockade section. We wore traditional English-style choir robes and sang traditional hymns. A bit later, somewhere around junior high or early high school, I got hired to play organ at a mass a week back at my own church, and became familiar with even more of the traditional hymns.

When we're talking about traditional hymns, we're generally talking about songs that have stood the test of time. For example, "Nearer, My God, to Thee" had its initial words written back in 1841, and its original music composed in 1856. The words for "Holy, Holy, Holy" date even earlier, back to 1826, and the music was composed in 1861. "Onward, Christian Soldiers" is a bit newer, with words written in 1864 and music composed in 1871. The words for "Amazing Grace" date back to Revolutionary War times, 1779, though the music wasn't composed until 1831. We're talking songs that have survived 150-200 years in many cases! I can only hope some of my songs will be around that long into the future.

Being a fan of many traditional hymns, I've often considered the notion of recording an album of my favorite hymns with modern arrangements. I'm pretty slow on the production front, though, not to mention perennially behind in recording even my own original songs. Thus, the notion has never gotten off the ground, and just remained one of those things on my list of things to do ... "someday".

Early last year, though, I heard that an LA-based independent record label, Goodnight Kiss Records, was looking for creative covers of traditional hymns. This was going to be for a multi-artist album, so I could try just doing one and leave it to other artists to fill out the album. At the very least, I'd end up trying out some of my ideas on modernizing one of my favorite hymns, and end up with a recording of that. Maybe if things went well, though, I might even make the cut and get the recording out to the world at some level.

One catch was that I was in the middle of some deadlines at the time. By the time I got around to being ready to actually try doing something, time was getting very short -- less than a week. For perspective, I often take up to a month to get a full production done. I also didn't know what hymn I'd pick, because there were so many I liked. I initially whittled my big list down to four possibilities. From memory, I think they were "Crown Him With Many Crowns", "Holy, Holy, Holy", "The Church's One Foundation", and "Onward, Christian Soldiers". Decisions, decisions...

It came down to deadline pressure, and that the first hymn on my shortlist that gave me an arrangement idea I felt was fresh enough was "Onward, Christian Soldiers". At the time, I was hearing the Arctic Monkeys' breakthrough hit, "I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor" all the time, and I was, more or less, envisioning someone with a voice and attitude like that being something like a modern Salvation Army recruiter. To be quite frank, I'm a pretty bad imitator. (I tell people that's what makes me an original.) Thus, I don't think it came out anything like an Arctic Monkeys song, but, if it sounds a bit different from some of my usual fare, you've got an idea why. Putting in some all nighters, I did get the initial recording of the song finished by the original deadline. Thankfully, that deadline also got extended, which allowed me to refine the recording a bit more after my initial submission.

To make a long story short, I heard fairly quickly that my recording was on the short list for the album. After that, much time passed waiting for additional submissions to fill out the album, waiting for final decisions, waiting for contracts, waiting for mastering, graphics, manufacturing, and all the other stuff that goes into producing a quality album of this sort. I'm happy to report, though, that the album is finally here, and the wait was most definitely worth it.

The album is called ALTARnative Music: Songs of Christian Faith, and you can listen to 2-minute clips of all twelve songs on the album, and purchase CD or MP3 downloads of the album at CD Baby. It is also already available at iTunes, but the song clips there are only 30 seconds apiece, so I recommend checking it out at CD Baby. The full list of songs and performers is as follows:

1. Nearer My God To Thee - Nine Stick
2. Jesus Loves Me - Johnny English
3. Just As I Am - Peter Ivanovich Sahaidachny
4. Holy, Holy, Holy - Heather and Andie Duncan
5. Were You There - Joe Uveges
6. Rock Of Ages - Kimberly McManus
7. Blessed Assurance - Breath To Bones
8. This Little Light - Jaye Walker
9. How Great Thou Art - Cathy Kent
10. Onward Christian Soldiers - Rick Paul
11. Amazing Grace- Shay Dillon
12. Somebody Up There - Vaughan Ray Daniel

If you've only got time to check out a few tracks after you've checked out mine (hint, hint), I might recommend Nine Stick's version of "Nearer My God to Thee" and Joe Uveges' "Were You There" as starting points. These are a couple of my personal favorites after my first four or five listens to the CD. (If you're getting the idea I really like this CD, feel free to give yourself a pat on the back for your amazing powers of observation.) However, I heartily recommend listening to the whole thing, as every track is solid, and there are a lot of great singers on this album, too.

If you do check it out, please let me know what you think. If you like it, perhaps you could also pass the word on to any others you think might enjoy it.

5:28 PM - 6 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Now in the Amazon.com MP3 Store
Category: Music

I just wanted to let you guys know about a new development that I'm excited about. Maybe this fits in the category of "cheap thrills", but here goes:

All the recordings I've released to date are now available in Amazon.com's new MP3 store. Those recordings include:

• Bubble Gum (single)
• The Lord's Prayer (single)
• That Time of Year (4-original song Christmas EP)

Mind you, these recordings have been available in a number of digital download stores for awhile. Those include iTunes, eMusic, Napster, and Rhapsody, among others. On-demand CDs and music lead sheets are also available at Lulu.com. So why am I excited about this one?

Before I answer that, I should provide a little perspective. Currently, iTunes is the biggest digital download store going, and it has certainly been the most popular one for purchasing my recordings, as well, accounting for over four times the volume of its nearest competitor. Many digital download stores have come and gone, or hung around at the margins, without coming close to iTunes' success. While I think part of this is due to the relative seamlessness of the iTunes software and store, I believe the biggest reason, by far, for this success is the dominance of iPods as portable players for digitally downloaded music. Most of the other digital download stores to date have had various forms of DRM (Digital Rights Management), enforced by the recording industry to protect their wares, which were incompatible with the iPod. Oh, you could play the various downloads on various specific MP3 players. However, if you wanted to play them on your iPod, you either had to jump through hoops (e.g. burn the files to CD then rip them into iTunes), or you had to buy them from iTunes in the first place.

On the other side of the coin, if you had an MP3 player other than an iPod, you couldn't use the iTunes store to get downloads for your player without jumping through hoops. The iTunes format had its own form of DRM that only played with iPods. iTunes has since come up with a DRM-free format and higher quality recordings, but the format is still not a common one that will work with most other MP3 players, and not all recordings are available in this format anyway. (I think all mine will be eventually, but, as of the moment, only "Bubble Gum" is available in the higher fidelity, DRM-free format. I have no clue how iTunes determines which recordings get into the new format at any particular point in time.) Also, the companies servicing this market have been somewhat in flux. For example, Sony's CONNECT service recently announced it would be closing down sometime in the not-too-distant future.

Amazon's late entry into this market might seem to put them at a significant disadvantage. On the other hand, their having waited for the market to shake out a bit, while observing what has and hasn't worked for others, puts them in a better position to learn from others' mistakes. Furthermore, now that much of the recording industry has come around to DRM-free downloads, Amazon enters the market at a point where they can service users of all MP3 players, including iPods.

Of course, Amazon's already being a trusted on-line retailer is a big plus. It's not only that you can feel relatively safe that they'll be around for awhile, or that you've probably already given them your credit card information. That is part of it, but the other part of it is that, if you like, you can buy real CDs, computers, digital camcorders, MP3 players, beauty products, and digital downloads all in the same on-line shopping trip. It's kind of like making a virtual trip to Target or Wal-Mart, only without having to endure the long checkout lines, especially this time of year. Only it's better, because you can find pretty much everything there, not just the most popular products that justify taking up shelf space in stores across the country.

All those aspects add up to making Amazon perhaps the first digital download store that has a chance to challenge iTunes. That is part of why I'm excited about their MP3 download store, but there's another reason, too. At least as of the moment, short of purchasing the on-demand CD versions of my releases, which provide full CD quality, the Amazon.com offerings represent the highest fidelity, most hassle-free versions of these recordings. They are 256 kbps, DRM-free MP3 files, which you can play on any MP3 player, play on your computer using software you certainly already have (be it Windows Media Player, Winamp, iTunes, or whatever), burn to CD, and do anything else you might do with regular MP3 files. I might add that Amazon supports multiple pricing levels. Whereas most digital download stores charge a flat 99 cents per track, Amazon has multiple pricing tiers, and many recordings (including all of mine), are available for 89 cents a track. (The pricing tier used is a choice made by the record companies or independent artists who own rights to the recordings.)

I also think that, if you're already comfortable with Amazon.com in general, as I am, the shopping experience may even be a bit friendlier than iTunes. For example, maybe I'm just missing something with iTunes, but I've always found it to be inconvenient to play the 30-second preview song clips for multiple songs from an album. It seems like it only plays one song at a time, and sometimes pressing what I think should play another song's clip just replays the song I'd just played. With Amazon, though, you can even preview all songs on an album, or all songs across all albums from a single artist, in one go. Thus, Amazon's MP3 store has recently become my favorite place to audition short bits of albums quickly, whether I'm just curious or even thinking about buying the CD.

Only time will tell how Amazon does in this new market, both in terms of comparison to iTunes and the others and in terms of sales for independent bands and artists like me. At the moment, though, I'm really jazzed about this new option. I think it likely provides the best value going at the moment, while also providing access to a very wide selection of music, from both major labels and independent artists, and a comfortable on-line shopping experience. Don't take my word for it, though. Check it out, and see what you think. I'd be very interested in hearing others' impressions, whether you've bought a zillion dowloads through iTunes or one of the other stores already, or you're a total newbie to the idea of digital downloads. (For the record, I still prefer real CDs, and have never been into portable players, be it iPods, Walkmans, or whatever.)

11:20 AM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

A Blog About Nothing
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

No, there is no connection to Seinfeld and the notion of "a show about nothing" implied by my blog title. It's just that I'm starting out writing not having the slightest clue what I'm going to write, or even what topics I might address. I just feel a bit guilty for not having written a blog in something like four months. I'd originally hoped to be writing on the order of once every week or two, or at least once a month, then it got to more like once a quarter year, and now it's even past that.

It's not even that I don't have anything to say. I've probably written enough words since my last blog to more than fill daily blogs, or even come up with a few books' worth of material, if that is, they were on any single subject or set of topics that related to one another somehow. Some probably were, but most were just reactive responses to questions someone posed, be it via personal e-mail or messaging or on a public or semi-public group. Then some were responses to statements someone made, where I just felt I had to speak up with another point of view however similar or dissimilar it might be to the original post.

Somehow, though, writing a blog always seems to feel a lot more daunting. It feels like it should be about me, or at least my first-hand experiences, yet it should also be related in a way that would be interesting to others.

I'm just not all that interesting, and my day-to-day activities just aren't all that exciting most of the time. I mean I get up, make breakfast, do breakfast dishes, fire up the computer, and sit in front of a screen most all day. I occasionally get up to move to a musical keyboard (as opposed to a computer keyboard) or microphone, or just to go get a drink of water or whatever. At some point I've got to cut out to make dinner for my family. After that, they've pretty much got their own stuff to do. Thus, after playing some piano and singing for awhile, both because I enjoy it and to keep my chops in shape, I generally catch a short nap to catch up on some needed sleep. Then I'm usually back at the computer until the wee hours of the morning. Isn't this paragraph making you yawn?

The largest percentage of my workday is spent working on recordings. They tend to take me forever since I'm doing everything myself. Occasionally I also get to write new songs, which, of course, adds to my backlog of songs needing to be recorded. Oh yeah, then there's a lot of time spent at e-mail, mostly discussing the music business, songwriting craft, or music production technology (I also write music technology reviews for an e-zine a few times a year). There's also the research side of trying to figure out what I need to do to take care of business and other administrative dealings in the rapidly changing world of the modern music business.

When people ask me what I do, I generally say I'm a songwriter. Honestly, though, it often feels like I spend only a small minority of my time writing songs. The vast majority of my time goes toward doing all the ancillary things that are involved in trying to get those songs out into the world and to figure out how to try and eke out a living in this industry. I've had some success in the former, but not much in the latter.

Speaking of getting my songs out into the world, my ideas of what that means have, perhaps necessarily, changed over the years I've been doing this. When I started out writing songs, back in high school or junior high (if you don't count that one-off three-line song I wrote in the fifth grade -- "I really like to fish/And have a little wish/I wish I'd catch a fish"), it was mainly because I had visions of becoming the next Elton John. I figured I'd need some original songs to do that. There really wasn't any question of how I'd get my songs out in the world. I'd be recording them, selling millions of records and cassettes (yeah, I know, I'm dating myself -- at least I didn't say 8-tracks, though that might have been the operative format when I started writing), and touring the world performing to large audiences.

I have to admit that idea still appeals to me, albeit probably replacing "records and cassettes" with "CDs and digital downloads". Nevertheless, somewhere in my late twenties or early thirties -- I'm 47 now -- I figured the odds of my making a living that way, in a music industry that was heavily focused on youth and visual image, were decreasing rapidly and getting to the point of near extinction. I shifted my focus to the notion of my songs' getting out into the world through other people who could take them a lot farther than I could. It wasn't until I got on the web, in the mid-to-late 1990's, though, that that notion started to bear some fruit. Since then, my songs have literally been all over the world, recorded by artists as far away as Norway and Mongolia. Still, the notion of those songs' actually working their way into any sort of public consciousness has remained elusive. The closest I've come thus far is having one song go top five for both radio and video airplay in Mongolia, a country of less than three million people, via a budding young pop star over there named Nominjin. I'd had a few single song publishing deals out in Nashville that I'd hoped would lead to cuts with big name artist here in the USA. While my songs did get pitched to some of the biggest names in Nashville, as well as some up-and-comers, in the end, nothing came from those deals.

What really struck me at that point was how dependent I was on other people, sometimes multiple layers of other people, for getting my songs out there. That's not a bad thing in and of itself, but in a music business that is increasingly dominated by financial interests, with the music taking a back seat, the decisions at each layer of possible acceptance or rejection increasingly become less about the music and more about vested interests. It's not even a case of, "all things being equal, we'll go with the one we've got money invested in." Rather, it's more like, "unless there is a massively compelling reason to do otherwise, we'll go with the one we've got money invested in, then the one with at track record, then one from whom we need brownie points, then the one recommended by someone we know personally, then..." I know I am risking sounding like sour grapes, or like I'm making excuses. However, I suspect anyone who's worked in big corporate environment, be it in the music industry or otherwise, will probably understand how this can happen. And anyone who's listened to commercial radio in the last decade has an idea of the results.

I might add that it's not all that different in the independent music world when you're relying on other singers to get your songs out there. Some of the political pressures go away, and there generally aren't many layers -- often I'd be dealing directly with the artist or one of his or her parents. Of course, there is very little money in that market, and the great hope is to find someone with great potential early and develop a relationship that can provide for future opportunities if that artist makes it big. In that world, the dependencies are different. First off, only a minority of the artists truly has the level of talent that could take them very far. I have heard some artist demos of my songs that have made me absolutely cringe -- think an order of magnitude worse than William Hung. Then again, there are some immensely talented ones, too. (I'm still not parting with the early 1999 demo cassette I received featuring a then high school-aged, but already immensely talented, singer from Oklahoma named Carrie Underwood!) The second barrier in that arena tends to be change. It seems that most of the artists looking for songs are young, typically in their teens or early twenties, though occasionally there are some older ones, too. Things start out with the artist going gung ho, then some major life event happens, such as graduating high school, getting married, becoming a parent, having family or health issues, etc. All of a sudden, the music takes a back seat. This is probably as it should be in most cases, but this doesn't change the fact that all the time you've spent on something is dependent on someone else whose priorities have changed. Those artists who get past the first two barriers are generally the ones who truly have talent. The next barrier tends to be when they start writing their own songs, and decide they will be doing those exclusively from that point. Or, alternately, they get other, better-funded individuals or companies interested in helping them out, and vested interests enter the picture again. At this point it becomes much like the major label artist scenario (if it isn't literally one of those scenarios).

Wow, I think I've been whining! They whined a lot in Seinfeld, too. Hmm....

Anyway, while I've never really giving up on the notion of other people recording my songs, over the past year or two I have also begun trying to begin getting my songs out into the world in ways over which I have more direct control. Besides performing a little more regularly, I've put a few of my own recordings out there via iTunes and other e-tailers. (Besides just the downloadable recordings, there are also on-demand CDs, downloadable lead sheets, and now even ringtones available -- see my web store for the latest list of products and stores. Hey, Seinfeld had commercials, too!) I'm not exactly setting the charts on fire, but each month my music gets into the hands of a few more people. Every once in awhile I'll hear of how one of my songs and recordings has played a part in someone's life, from being played in a church just before a couple's wedding vows to being used to underscore a milestone in a man's AA program progress. When I think that those people could have much more easily chosen a song from any number of artists other people had actually heard of, those moments become all the more satisfying. Of course, that also begs the question as to how they heard of me, or at least how they stumbled on my music and decided to give it a chance despite never having heard of me.

Lately I've been working on a full-length album. If you've been checking out the songs I load on my MySpace profile, you've already heard a few songs that are at least good candidates for the album. Which specific songs end up on the album and when the album will be released are still to be determined, but I'm shooting for a total of twelve songs, and my best guess at a release date is sometime during the first quarter of 2008. How long it takes me to finish the recordings is the biggest near term bottleneck, then I'll have to deal with licensing considerations for co-written songs once I've got the list narrowed down.

Another area I'm hoping to target in the not-too-distant future is getting my songs into movies, television shows, and other multimedia works. The main bottleneck there is also getting recordings done, so getting the album recordings finished is more or less a prerequisite.

While my performances have been limited to Southern California for quite awhile now, I've at least been starting to think about the notion of trying to get out a bit further afield. I love traveling, and the notion of combining that with performing for live audiences (another of my favorite things), has always felt a bit like the Holy Grail to me. Of course, the obvious challenge is trying to find a way to do that practically since people don't generally come out to hear singer-songwriters they've never heard of. It seems like the few who have heard of me, and like my music enough to go to a live show, are fairly well dispersed around the USA and overseas. Who knows, though? Maybe there are people who'd like to see me perform in their town that I just don't know about? Just to get an idea, I've just added a "Demand It" control, from Eventful.com, to my MySpace profile page and the Gigs page on my main web site. I figure if there are enough demands between now and Summer 2008 to do some kind of house concert, coffeehouse, or stadium tour -- hey, I can dream, can't I! -- I'm game.

In the interim, for anyone who's in Southern California, I do have a show coming up in late November. I'll be adding some Christmas songs, including all the songs from my 4-song Christmas EP, That Time of Year (hint: you can "gift it" at iTunes or get on-demand CD versions from Lulu -- oops, another commercial message from our sponsor), to my normal fare for that show. I'll probably be adding another date or two in early December, but I'm still waiting for confirmation of any additional dates at this point. My show list on MySpace is always up-to-date, though, so stop back anytime for the latest list.

Okay, well, I guess I've made enough ado about nothing. I hope you've enjoyed the rambles.

12:23 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Summer Happenings
Category: Music

While it might not technically be correct to call the first of August the halfway mark for Summer, it always feels like it is. We won't be taking a vacation this year since my wife is in an intensive MBA course that considers September to be the right month for a break. Of course the kids are back in school by then. Well, maybe we'll get to one of the local beaches before the season ends. After all, we're only about 10 miles inland from Laguna Beach.

Meanwhile, I've been taking advantage of the summer non-break to continue doing what I can to create new music and get that music out into the world. Here are a few recent and upcoming highlights.

My latest single, "Bubble Gum", is finally available on iTunes and various other digital download stores (CONNECT, eMusic, iTunes, Lulu, Music.com, Napster, Rhapsody). For anyone who likes to sing karaoke, you can also get karaoke tracks, with and without background vocals, at many of the download stores. An on-demand CD version and downloadable lead sheet (in PDF format) are also available at Lulu, while a ringtone is now available at Music.com. The recording is a remix of an earlier version my longtime MySpace friends may remember. (If you'd like to listen, for free, to the full-length recording, I recommend checking out either the Napster or Rhapsody link above.) I decided to put it out as a single, partly because it is very different from most of my material, so wouldn't fit any of the album concepts I have in mind, and partly to coincide with an upcoming, highly fun use of the song. I hope you won't mind if I leave the latter as a surprise for a little while longer. Let's just say it involves a flying pig on the other side of the world.

Speaking of the other side of the world, I've been collaborating with a Russian songwriter and producer, whose name is Alexei Ustinov, on a new song and recording to be released sometime later this year. Alexei is producing the instrumental tracks over in Russia, with production just now getting underway. Once the tracks are ready, I'll be recording the vocals as a duet with a female singer, whose identity shall remain a mystery for the time being, here in SoCal. This project will be a first for me on a number of fronts. In addition to its being my longest distance collaboration to date, it is the first time someone else will be producing one of my recordings, and it will be my first ever duet recording. It has already been another first for me, though. It is the first time one of my songs has been recorded, as a duet no less, by two "robot" (actually software-based) singers. The song is called "Make Me Feel", and you can hear the new Vocaloid virtual singers, Big Al and Sweet Ann, perform a clip of an earlier draft of the song at www.jasminemusic.com/vocaloid/05-28-2007.htm. (I think you'll get a kick out of Big Al. I'm thinking he shouldn't give up his day job, though.)

Thanks to a challenge from our local Just Plain Folks chapter, which involved writing songs to two predetermined titles, I've written two brand new songs ("Wishing You Well" and "The Last Good Day") in the last month and a half. Adding these to the other songs I've written in 2007 is making 2007 a more prolific year than I've had in awhile, and adding to my backlog of songs to be recorded. I'm afraid my non-local friends will have to wait awhile to hear the new songs, which are my first solo writes in quite awhile. For you Orange County locals, though, I've already started playing both songs in my live shows. I plan to play "The Last Good Day" again this Saturday at the Neighborhood Cup, and will play both songs in my full-length Borders shows later this month (August 24th at the new Tustin store and August 25th at Costa Mesa/Newport). See the Upcoming Shows section of my profile page for details.

I'm currently working on recording a song Mike Parker and I wrote a couple of years back called "Take Advantage of Me". You can hear the latest working mix on my profile page (it's currently the top song). In the tradition of country drinking/cheating songs, this is a drinking/cheating song. However, there's a twist. I won't spoil the surprise, though. You'll just have to listen if you want to find out what makes it a decidedly non-traditional cheating song. It'll probably take another week or two to finish the recording, and I'll update my profile with the final recording when it's done.

Man, I'm tired just rereading this (it's being about half past one in the morning may be coming into play, too), so I'd better quit and get some sleep. Have a great second half of the summer!

11:08 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Happy New Half-Year
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

If you blinked, you may not have noticed, but the first half of 2007 has come and gone. Or maybe it's dragged on for you like it might never be over. Or maybe you're thinking, "huh? Why is this guy talking about half years? Who cares?"

To be honest, I suppose there's nothing all that special about half years. However, we tend to start out new years with grandiose plans of all we're going to try and accomplish. Sometimes those plans are realistic, and sometimes they aren't. Often, though, we lose sight of them after awhile, or get pulled off on tangents, and the year winds its way down, and we're not much nearer to where we'd hoped to be at the end of the year than we were at the beginning. That is where half years come in handy.

The half-year break just seems like a convenient time to sit back and take a look at the goals you had at the beginning of the year, and how far you've come in your quest to reach them. Or maybe it might be a time to reassess those goals, and whether they are still relevant to your life today. Maybe there were developments along the way that have given you a new sense of perspective or purpose. Perhaps continuing to pursue the goals you had at the beginning of the year would only represent stubbornly doing something just because you said you would, rather than because it is still worth doing.

I can tell you the past half-year has turned out a whole lot different than I'd been hoping or expecting. While I always tend to have many more things I'd like to do than I have time in the day/week/month, there was one very specific goal I had at the outset. It was something I'd hoped to have gotten to a significant milestone on by the end of March, but which I have yet to do. Oh, I've done some of the supporting work en route to that milestone, and the way I've approached some of that work may actually make what I deliver better than it would have been had I focused more closely on the specific goal. I've also gotten distracted by some other projects, though. Some got me nowhere, and others still look like they might hold some promise somewhere down the line. Nothing's ever a sure thing in this songwriting business, so "looking like they might hold some promise" is at least mildly reassuring.

I've also written more new songs already this year than I wrote in the past couple of years combined. If you've been following my bulletins and blogs, you've already heard two of those ("Elizabeth, Lately" and "Spam It"). While writing and recording those might have been "distractions" in the sense of working on the specific goal I'd had in mind, writing new songs is part and parcel of what I do, and what I need to do, as a songwriter. Without the songs, all the business-oriented goals in the world wouldn't mean much.

I look at years and goals as being a bit like long distance trips. You can try and plan out the exact route to get you from here to where you want to end up, but it's unlikely you'll have a great trip if you stick too rigidly to your plan. Perhaps the freeway is tied up in one place, and a detour through the mountains might be a nice breath of fresh air (probably literally in this case), or the motel you'd hoped to stay in is closed, so you'll need to try somewhere else, maybe even in another city. Or maybe there's bad weather in the Texas panhandle, so it might be time to try the northern route instead. Heck, did you even want to end up in New York City in the first place? Maybe Maine might be nicer?

Okay, I profess to being one of those types who tends toward meticulously planning trips, often months in advance, and down to the turns to get to the motels where I've made guaranteed reservations. It tends to bug me when things don't work out, be it because something closed unexpectedly, the motel I'd booked is really a rat hole, or I get tied up in traffic for a bunch of hours and don't have time to do everything I'd wanted to do. Sometimes, though, you just have to roll with the flow. As long as you're heading in the right direction, does the route you're taking matter all that much, especially if you make the most of the experiences you have en route? Sometimes the best experiences end up coming from detours.

At some point, though, you do have to take stock of your direction, and readjust for your new course. Better to do that somewhere en route than to wait until the end of the trip and find out either you've arrived at the wrong destination or the destination just isn't as attractive to you at this point as it was when you started. It just seems to me that, if we're talking about years and goals, the half-year point is as good a place as any.

So, happy new half-year, and happy journeys en route to wherever your end-of-the-year destination may be!

12:30 AM - 1 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment

What's Goin' On
Category: Music

Wow, can it already be March? It's hard to believe we're already in the third month of 2007. Honestly, I'm not sure where the first two of them went.

So, will that work as my excuse for not having written a blog in the last couple of months? Oh well, at least I tried...

Anyway, since I haven't written in a long time, and don't actually have anything significant to say at this point in time anyway -- unless you happen to ask me a question on some subject I'm passionate about, in which case you might have a hard time getting me to shut up (or stop writing, whichever the case may be) -- I thought I'd at least drop a quick note to let you know what's up. Just in case anyone has actually missed my rambling, or wondered what I've been doing...

Rewinding to the end of last year, I'd been so busy for so long trying to finish the Christmas EP (That Time of Year), from the recording to the mixing, and the artwork to the paperwork, then trying to get the word out as best I could in the short time that was available between it's "official" release in late November and Christmas, that most everything else just piled up. I did manage to record a quick piano/vocal version of the traditional Christmas carol, "Away in a Manger", which I finished just before my last blog, but that got right down to the wire with the holiday week.

One of the things I'd postponed was a long overdue upgrade of my studio computer. The one I'd been using was already over five years old, which is ancient in the world of technology, and even moreso in the world of computer-based recording. Figuring out what I needed to buy and getting things ordered consumed pretty much all the time I had between the holidays, and I got my upgrade parts order in just before the end of the year. Needless to say, I spent the first part of the year backing up, deconfiguring, reconfiguring, and, of course, troubleshooting each incidence of intervention by Murphy.

The good news is I'm now happily running on an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 with 2 GB of memory, 600 GB of total disk space (of course, a lot of that is already used up with large sample libraries and such), and all the rest of the pieces that allow me to record my music and get it out into the world. The even better news is this new system absolutely screams, and that has made the recording and mixing processes much more efficient. I'm hoping this means I'll be able to get more music out the door more quickly as time goes on. If you heard "That Kiss", my featured song of last month (if you didn't, you can still hear a clip from it on the songs page on my main web site if you like), that was the first direct beneficiary of the new system. It had been sitting on my hard disk, partially produced, for a few years, mainly waiting for a block of time in between other things to finish it up. The new system helped keep the block of time it needed a lot smaller than it would have been with the old system, thus making it way more likely to get finished before being interrupted again.

Since then I've mainly been remixing some of my recordings, trying to improve the production quality in anticipation of submitting them for possible inclusion in a music library aimed at film, television, and multimedia placements. That process has been going a bit more slowly than I'd have liked, and there have been a few detours (e.g. for getting my tax return together), but hopefully I'll have an initial submission together soon, then additional ones as time goes on. There's a long lead-time for getting from the point of submission to getting songs placed and having the results available to the public, but I'm really hoping these efforts will start yielding some results beginning late this year.

In the interim, I'll be posting some of the results of my remix efforts from time to time. In fact, the new mix of "You Get What You Get" on my MySpace profile page (you can also find a slightly better quality MP3 version of it for download on my SoundClick site) is one example. That is still not a final mix at this point, so please do let me know of any feedback you might have.

These remix efforts may also do double duty with helping get some of my recordings ready for a possible album release later in the year, or perhaps for some single song releases from time to time. I'll be sure to let you know when anything new is available.

What else? Well, I did actually write a new song a few weeks ago with my friend and collaborator, Mike Parker, and I'm very excited about that. A few of you who have contacted me personally have already heard an early draft of that one. Those of you who have heard me play live last month have also heard it -- I'm also planning to play it again tomorrow afternoon (Saturday, March 3rd) at The Neighborhood Cup (see the upcoming shows listings on my profile page for more details). Once I get a recording done with the final lyrics, I'll be posting it here or on my web site. In the meantime, those of you who can't make it to tomorrow's show will just have to wait in suspense. Sorry...

Oh yeah, I've also, er, "had time" to have a multi-week bout of laryngitis. And, if you got to hear that early recording of the song I alluded to above, or heard me live last month, you, unfortunately, also got to hear that. I think I'm close to getting over that now, though.

So are we caught up now? Okay, a few last things...

First, for all of you Southern California locals, I'll be among the featured songwriters performing in the Songwriters Live writer's night at the Gypsy Lounge in Lake Forest on Thursday, March 22nd. This month, the headliner is going to be Steve Dorff (Kenny Rogers' "Through the Years", George Strait's "I Cross My Heart", Anne Murray's "I Just Fall in Love Again"). I haven't heard the full lineup yet, but two other writers I have heard will be there are my friends Anna Marie and Frank Jon Paul.

Second, I know many of my MySpace friends are also songwriters and musicians. Those of you who have your own home studios may be interested to know that I've written a number of music production software and hardware reviews, as well as a few other articles, over the past few years. The e-zine I write for is called CakewalkNet, which is aimed primarily at users of Cakewalk's SONAR recording software, and you can find all my reviews on their web site. My latest article is an interview with Noel Borthwick, Chief Technology Officer at Cakewalk, who talks about Windows Vista, the latest SONAR developments, and more. For anyone who might be interested in quickly finding articles I've written, I've also added an Articles index page on my main web site.

Last, but not least, since March is the month for St. Patrick's Day, I thought I'd feature "Portadown Rain" on my profile page this month. "Portadown Rain" is a song I wrote a number of years back with Vic Michener, from Ontario, Canada. This is one of those songs I'm really hoping to re-record in the not-too-distant future, but I hope you'll enjoy my original demo of the song in the meantime. This is one of my personal favorites, and seems to always be a favorite with my audiences, too. Anyone coming out to Songwriters Live on the 22nd just might get a chance to hear it live, too. (Hint, hint.)

Okay, I think we're caught up now.

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A Christmas Gift for You
Category: Music

Somewhere in the next few days we'll reach that point in time where, no matter what we have in progress, those of us who celebrate Christmas will start to shut down our "life as usual" mode and switch into "Christmas celebration" mode. I know that, when I get to that point, I sometimes go quite awhile between on-line sessions. Thus, I thought I'd take the time right now to wish all my MySpace friends, and anyone else who may be reading this, a very merry Christmas, and a safe and healthy rest of the holiday season.

I didn't want to just leave it at that, though, so I'd also like to offer anyone reading this a small holiday gift, in the form of a custom recording I just finished. The song is one of my all time favorite Christmas carols, "Away in a Manger". In considering how I wanted to record it, I decided my goal would be to come as close as I could to simulating what it might be like if I were to visit you personally, playing the song for you on your own piano, assuming, of course, you had a Steinway Model D grand available... Okay, well, I didn't have one of those, either, so I used some software that gave me the next best thing, but you know it's the thought that counts, right?

Anyway, you can hear the recording on my MySpace profile page, and you can download it from there if you like. However, in checking what would happen if you did that, I discovered that MySpace converts the MP3 files I upload down to 96 kbps, which, frankly, sound kind of crappy. Thus, I've also put a free download of the same song on my SoundClick site, which allows me to put up a 128 kpbs version, and you can find the song here. I hope you will enjoy it. (Note: If you're reading this after the new year begins, I may have taken it down from my MySpace page, but I'll leave it up on SoundClick indefinitely.)

Happy holidays to everyone!

P.S. - If you haven't already checked out my 4-song Christmas EP, That Time of Year, I'd also like to invite you to have a free listen to the entire EP via Rhapsody or Napster. (Note: Napster requires you to register to listen, and you can listen to any song up to 3 times for free. Rhapsody doesn't require registration, but does require that you download their free player software.) If you find you'd really like your own permanent copy of the EP, you can find the latest list of places to get it in my web store.

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That Time of Year
Category: Music

Oh, yes, it's here, that time of year,
The whole world's filled with Christmas cheer.
- from "Santa's Best" by Rick Paul

Whatever your personal feelings toward the holiday season, from eager anticipation of family celebrations to dread of crowded malls and the seeming hopelessness of trying to choose just the right gift for a loved one who is just impossible to buy for, it's impossible to escape the fact that it is indeed that time of year. The Thanksgiving leftovers are just about gone (are you as sick of turkey sandwiches as I am?), but the streets and malls are decked out in red and green, television ads remind us it is time for Christmas shopping, and we're starting to hear all that wonderful, or tired, depending upon your perspective, holiday music.

I have somewhat mixed emotions toward the holidays. Being somewhat claustrophobic, and impatient (at least inwardly), holiday shopping crowds aren't exactly on my list of favorite things. I admit to frequently being frustrated with the challenges of gift buying, between budgetary considerations, not knowing where to start in picking presents for many on my list, and the deadlines for shipping to relatives on the other side of the country. Then there's just the thought that time's ticking down to Christmas Day, and that last minute rush that results when earlier shopping trips come up less than wholly successful. Time pressures also seem to be extreme at this time of year, perhaps partly due to the additional activities, like parties and shopping, but also due to the simple desire to get things to a breaking point before any extended holiday breaks.

On the other hand, I do enjoy the holiday celebrations, getting together with family and friends, and even just the extra time and thought we tend to devote to other people this time of year. I also like all the holiday decorations, or at least the ones that aren't totally tacky, and then there are the once a year treats like holiday cookies, eggnog, pumpkin pie, and so on. Perhaps my favorite part of this season, though, is the opportunity to hear, and play, some of the wonderful Christmas music that has amassed over the years and centuries. From traditional carols that remind us what Christmas is all about to more modern popular tales of red-nosed reindeer, magical snowmen, and the like, there's simply a wealth of wonderful material.

Over the years, I've written a few Christmas songs of my own. Some of those are among my personal favorites among all the songs I've written, so I've also looked forward to the opportunity to share those songs with others any chance I get to perform during the holiday season. Playing a Christmas song in, say, July, just isn't quite the same thing somehow.

Sometime earlier this year, I made the decision to take things a step further this holiday season. Instead of simply sharing my holiday songs with people who come to my few live shows, or happen to stop by my web site, I decided to release recordings of the Christmas songs I've written to date, collected in a 4-song EP. I've called the EP That Time of Year, though I actually had no idea that would be the title until after all the songs were recorded. The four songs on the project were written completely independently, with no thoughts of having them collected together in a coherent project. I was coming down to the wire and desperately searching for some possible common thread to tie the songs together. At some point, I decided to go through all the lines of each of the songs to see if perhaps there might be something in one of them that could serve that purpose. The lines quoted at the beginning of this blog entry struck me as perhaps providing a possibility, but would the phrase "that time of year" fit all four songs?

The first song on the EP, "The Day After the Day After Christmas", written with Mike Parker, is about a unique family tradition. Whereas most of us go crazy trying to get all our shopping done by Christmas Eve, then opening gifts on Christmas morning, the family in the song heeds the wisdom that, "good things come to those who wait." Waiting until December 26th to shop gets them all those great "after Christmas blowout sale" prices, so they can extend their limited means for a bang up celebration on the day after the day after Christmas. Yeah, I guess time of year, or timing at least, could play into that one.

Next up is "Santa's Best", a tribute to Santa's reindeer. Of course, the title comes from the opening line of this song. The focus of the song is really on this one night of glory the reindeer have, and the service they put in on behalf of Santa, the children of the world, and all of us on that one long night. Things coming down to one specific night in the year -- yeah, that'll do!

Then comes "Molly's Bar and Grill", written with Vic Michener. When you're lonely from lost love, the holidays can be a pretty depressing time, and the "Christmas cheer" might come in a bottle or glass. Still, there's always room for a Christmas Eve surprise to put an end to "wasted time." "Time" -- yep.

The EP closes with "It Started in a Manger". This is the only one of the four songs that has been recorded and released before, initially by the Altarmen & Julie back in 1998. Lana Kress recorded her version the following year, and an earlier recording of my own version came out on a multi-artist charity album called Ho Ho Ho Spice back in 2002. That song starts out in a downtown Christmas scene complete with a "cardboard Santa advertising the sale at the corner store." I guess that's pretty typical of "that time of year." The real message of the song, though, comes in the reminder that "it started in a manger" with "no tinseled trees, no Santa Claus, no twinkling Christmas lights."

As I thought about each of the songs in the collection, alongside my prospective title, what started out as a desperate shot in the dark, seeking some tenuous connection, started to make sense. Maybe "that time of year" was indeed a concept that could tie the songs together. Suddenly I was feeling that what had initially felt a bit to me like an odd hodgepodge of songs, collected initially only because they were Christmas songs, might make sense as an actual collection. While I'd always liked the individual songs, somehow this almost accidental title had gotten me more excited about the project as a whole. It also made me eager to try and get the word out so that others might enjoy not only the individual songs, but also the experience of the full EP.

And now it really is here, That Time of Year. To be more precise, the EP was released last Tuesday, November 21st, with initial availability on my Lulu.com storefront for CD-on-demand and music lead sheets for the individual songs, as well as on both Rhapsody and Napster for digital downloads. You can also listen to the complete EP for free on both Rhapsody and Napster. (With Rhapsody, you have to download their special player, and you can listen to up to 25 songs for free in a month. No registration is necessary. With Napster, you have to register, which is free. Then you can listen to any album or song in their collection up to 3 times for free. There will be some forced ads, but they are relatively painless. I find Napster a great way to check out albums I'm thinking about buying or just curious about hearing.) As of Tuesday November 28th, the EP has also become available for digital downloads, and streaming in some cases, from a number of other digital stores, such as Yahoo Music Unlimited, Urge, Virgin Digital, FYE Download Zone, and more. I've also added MP3 downloads of the individual songs to my Lulu.com storefront. Notably absent at the moment is iTunes availability, but that will be coming (for the USA, Canada, UK/Europe, Australia, and Japan) soon, as will availability via Sony Connect, possibly as early as Tuesday, December 5th.

Now I'd like to invite all who are reading this blog to have a free listen to the entire EP via Rhapsody or Napster (or any other services you subscribe to that might give you that possibility -- just search for "Rick Paul" as the artist name or "That Time of Year" as the album name). If you like what you hear, I'd greatly appreciate it if you could let others you think might enjoy listening know about it. (You might just send them the link from your favorite digital music site, but you can also use the "E-Mail to a Friend" link above to let your friends know about this blog entry, or just direct them to http://blog.myspace.com/rickpaulmusic.) I'm also looking for radio stations, be it terrestrial, satellite, cable, or internet who may be interested in playing the recordings, to let even more people hear the songs. (To that end, I've been informed that my MySpace friend SongwriterPro.com has already added "It Started in a Manger to the Christmas song rotation on their SongwriterPro Radio internet radio station, so give them a listen! I've also heard interest from a couple of radio programs in the USA and one in Norway, so stay tuned for more details later.) In short, anything you might be willing to do to help me get the word out about these recordings and songs, would be greatly appreciated.

Finally, it is that time of year, and I'd like to wish all of my friends a happy, safe, and healthy holiday season. May you find the Christmas spirit within you and around you.

4:53 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Cheap Thrills (a.k.a. I Get Around)
Category: Music

Being a mostly unknown songwriter has a few advantages. For example, when you're performing for an audience and mess up your lyrics, no one knows. Try getting away with that once you've had some hits that everyone knows by heart! There's a silver lining to every cloud, right?

Of course, most of us who write songs, known or unknown, really do want people to hear our songs. Otherwise, we'd stick to writing diaries or sticky notes to ourselves. It's a whole lot easier to get those in front of their intended audience.

While many of us might have the goal of writing the kinds of hits that everyone knows by heart, that's a thrill few of us actually get to experience. That doesn't mean, however, that life is bleak for the rest of us. In fact, gratification can come from the applause of an audience, a compliment received after a show or from someone who's heard a song on the web, or a note on how one of the songs you've written has touched, or otherwise played a part in, someone's life. Then there are the cheap thrills...

I love to travel, and have traveled to many parts of the USA. I've also traveled a bit outside of the country -- to Canada, Mexico, England, Hong Kong, and, most recently, France and Spain. One particular kick I get out of songwriting is when my songs get to travel to places I've never been, especially places that intrigue me.

Earlier this year I mentioned that one of my songs, "Bubble Gum", was playing on a web site in China. (See "Now Playing in China" for more details.) In years past, I've also had songs released by two different singers in Norway, had my 9/11 song, "Help Us Understand", played on the radio in Western Australia, had that same song performed at a vocal recital by a singer in Germany, and even had a top five hit for both radio and video play in Mongolia via a young female pop singer from that country. Additionally, some of the singers who have recorded my songs have received radio play for those songs in the Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and several other countries.

This past week, I've added two new destinations to my "cheap thrills" list of places my songs have been that I haven't. The first is a country that interests me greatly, the second a destination I'd never heard of before and, quite frankly, wonder whether it even exists. Curious? Okay, here are the details.

The Asian Age is a daily, multi-edition newspaper based in India. The founder and editor of that newspaper, M.J. Akbar, also has a blog. That blog is managed by one of my relatively new MySpace friends, "blossom", who recently asked if I would send her a MIDI file of "Help Us Understand" to play in the background for M.J. Akbar's blog and another blog she writes at www.kidsfreesouls.com. An instrumental version of the song can now be heard on both sites. I may not have had the opportunity to travel to India yet, but, thanks to "blossom", one of my songs has made the trip. (If you'd like to hear the original recording of the song with vocal, you can have a listen here.)

The other day, I was discussing digital download music with another of my MySpace friends. He looked me up on iTunes, and made a comment about some iMixes that included my songs there. (For those not familiar with iTunes, iMixes are basically custom playlists that iTunes users create, which can be shared with others and even purchased as a compilation album.) I wasn't aware there were even any iMixes that included my songs, so I had a look and found two. The first was called Lord God Prayer Moves the Spirit, and it is a very nice compilation of Christian music, including songs from Dan Schutte, Dolly Parton, and Amy Grant, among others. The second one, however, was the one I found intriguing, and which took one of my songs to a new, er, place(?). That iMix contains instrumental tracks-only versions of a number of Christian songs, and is called God's Karaoke Bar. I can honestly say, this is one place I never imagined one of my songs playing, if for no other reason than I never in my wildest dreams would have envisioned such a place. (In hindsight, I suppose it makes perfect sense. I mean, where would karaoke singers hang out after they've died and gone to heaven?) If such a place does exist, I'd certainly be more than honored to have my song played and sung there. For now, though, I'll just have to be satisfied with the cheap thrill of imagining that, thanks to this cleverly titled iMix. (It turns out that both of these iMixes were created by yet another of my MySpace friends, Steven Cravis, though I didn't realize that until awhile after learning of them.)

Keep those cheap thrills coming!

12:55 AM - 3 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

More Top Friends
Category: Music

Back in late June, after being on MySpace for just under a month, I picked my initial 8 top friends, and told anyone who was reading my blogs at that time a bit about them. That blog was called "Introducing My Top 8", and you can still find it here. Some of the specific comments I made, regarding songs on their profile pages for example, may be a bit out of date, but the general notes are still on target. If you haven't already checked these guys and gals out, I'd heartily recommend you do.

Well, a lot of time has passed since then, and my list of MySpace friends has grown. I've been thinking for awhile now about adding some top friends, and I've finally done it. Just four more for now, and (drum roll) here they are:

One Foot In - These guys are a local (Orange County, California) acoustic group that fits somewhere in the general bailiwick of Americana. On the musical side, if you think, "a more acoustic version of the Band," you'd probably be somewhere in the general ballpark of their sound. What makes them unique, though, is Michael Gardner's songwriting, especially his intelligent lyrics, which often tend toward the dark side, frequently laced with an ironic sense of humor. To give you an idea of what I mean, one of my favorites is "I Never Liked a Train". After telling us reasons he doesn't like trains in general, he leads up to, "no, I never liked a train, until I saw the one that came to carry you away." A bit of a different kind of breakup song, don't you think? Check it out on their MySpace profile page or their new CD, Songbook.

Earl Okin - I think I must have known Earl, to the extent one "knows" someone via Internet discussion groups anyway, for close to a decade now. We've had our share of interesting discussions on music, cultural differences between Europe and the USA (Earl's from England), and a whole lot more. We'd even traded demos at one point, and I've read with interest various travel diaries Earl has posted from his performance tours to places all over the world. It wasn't until very recently, though, after seeing videos Earl posted on MySpace, that I really came to appreciate Earl, the entertainer. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and, in this case, I think the same could be said about a video versus an audio recording. If you're up for being entertained, and don't mind a bit of risqué humor, my suggestion is to visit Earl's video page, and have a look at "Mango" or "Bessie" as a starter. I predict you won't want to stop there.

Raspberries - I've listed Eric Carmen of the Raspberries as being one of my major musical influences. That is equally for his work with the Raspberries and, later, as a solo artist and songwriter for other artists. A few weeks ago, I came across a letter Eric wrote to a fairly well known music industry blogger, and that got me wondering if he might be on MySpace. Well, he wasn't on his own, but the Raspberries were, and I gather they've reunited for some recording and touring. I guess to be "cool", I'd have to list the Raspberries as a guilty pleasure. After all, we're talking great pop songs, mostly about teenage love and lust, and I'm 46 years old now, for Pete's sake! But I've never been worried about being cool, and there was never any guilt in my love for their music, nor even for the stuff Eric wrote later that got recorded by people like Shaun Cassidy. (In fact, I still love singing "Hey, Deanie" and "That's Rock and Roll", though my version of the former is based on Eric's version rather than the Shaun Cassidy hit version.) Nope, we're talking great melodies, lyrics that suit the song, and just plain good stuff that's stood the test of time!

Birtles Shorrock Goble - If the three names in BSG don't sound familiar to you, you're either too young or never got into reading the songwriting credits on the songs that were big hits back in the late 70s and early 80s. We're talking three of the main singers and songwriters from, and the founders of, the original Little River Band. (Like many "oldies" acts of today, most of the members of the group that own and perform under the LRB name have little to do with the actual group of people that made that name recognizable in the first place.) These guys are working together again, and the harmonies still sound as awesome as ever. I'm a big fan of harmonies, and these guys are masters at that. The songwriting's pretty darn good, too. So, if you feel like spending a little time "Reminiscing", do check them out.

Currently listening : Capitol Collectors Series By The Raspberries Release date: 26 February, 1991

5:03 PM - 1 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment