New Song! New Song!

My sister and I have a song for your downloading pleasure! But more on that later…

Lots has been happening around here and in my life, and it’s taken me away from blogging. No surprise there! But, after quite a few months away from not producing any new songs, I am happy to say that they are coming again. Now that’s a reason to blog. Woohoo!

Unfortunately, I haven’t suddenly developed instrumental skills despite my lack of practice. But I have felt more motivated to get things going again. I was missing the creative side of my life, and thanks in part to the need to write a wedding song for early April, I was pushed forward. I also give credit to time spent with Kelly Ash, my former voice teacher, at the end of December in Seattle, and also in NYC over my school’s February break. She helped open up some dams that were blocking me, and it propelled me forward to finish the wedding song. As well, she connected me with a songwriting coach who works out of NYC, and provides fantastic feedback on whatever song I’m currently working (and gives me a reason to keep creating so I have something to submit).

As I’ve mentioned before, having a community of artists is extremely helpful and beneficial to one when pursuing anything artistic. Now, I don’t really run in an artistic crowd (and I like the balance of what I have!), but I do have the privilege of knowing and/or working with a few who are doing something creative for a living. And of course I have my family, or, more specifically, my sister, Tara Kelly Kearns. She is a singer and songwriter in her own right (and a former amazing karaoke host—seriously!), and it seems we’ve found a little bit of a groove in creating together. That is, we’re very sporadic with how often we work together, but when we do we seem to complement each other fairly well. What a nice realization!

So Tara and I wrote a song called “Frayed.” I started it with lyrics and a melody, Tara came in and changed the sound from jazzy to folky/bluegrassy (sort of), and added a few more lyrics and the bridge melody. Justin Froese, one of Tara’s good friends and an amazing musician and producer, helped arrange and produce it with Tara, as well as played all the instruments on the recording. Voila! We have a song!

For those of you who know I have a lot of sad-ish songs, please note that I was not actually sad when writing this. But it’s sad. Oh, yes, it’s definitely sad.

Please go to the musican-friendly website, Bandcamp, to download at a “pay what you want” rate. You can listen to the song directly from the website, but it would be awesome if you would download it as well. It’s free! And then you’ll “get” to listen to it over and over and over and over… OK, or just download it because it’s fun for us to see how many people have downloaded our song. 🙂 It’s all very exciting!

And hopefully just the beginning.

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Can I Blame It On The Weather?

Today I stayed home.  Well, actually, I woke up to my alarm at 5:20.  I dozed.  I got a phone call from my school district somewhere near 5:30 that we were running 1.5 hours late due to snowy conditions.  I went back to sleep, gratefully.  I got a text from a tenant that her ceiling fan was leaking.  I got ready.  I walked out the door and checked her situation.  Not good.  I spoke to another tenant with the same issue on the way out, and ran much later than I wanted to.  But, I eventually left for work.  I started meeting with juniors for our annual “junior blitz” (I won’t bore you with the details, but these are important check-ins).  I made a call about the leaky roof.  I got a call that the basement was flooding fast.  I went home after an hour at work, and have been home ever since.  I was either waiting for people to show up and fix things I can’t fix, or waiting for calls.  It was rather monotonous, but had to be done.  Blitz on hold, unfortunately.  I watched “The Man From Snowy River” (love that movie!).  I Facebooked.  I emailed.  I had lots of time to practice.  Did I?  No.  I did not.

Oh, goodness.  Big sigh.  So this is a blog post of frustration.  With myself, that is.  (don’t worry, I won’t make this a habit!)  I have moments where I feel completely inspired and want to write (or rather, complete) a song.  These moments usually occur when I’m nowhere near an instrument.  But in the end, that’s just an excuse.  I’m well aware of it.  My guitar calluses are virtually gone.  I’ve gone to my lessons, but I haven’t been practicing.  Sometimes it’s legitimate (ie:  last week I was out literally every night of the week from Sunday to this past Monday).  Oftentimes it’s just a lack of motivation.  Or is that inspiration?  Or very possibly just plain laziness.  Yes, I can own up to that.  I know I have that tendency.  Not proud, people!  Not proud.

So that said, I have two instruments I’m trying to learn.  I can’t do much with the songwriting until I do.  I have random verses and melodies running through my brain.  Sometimes they make it into the iphone’s voice memo recorder.  But there they stay.  Why is this so hard???  Overall, life feels good, so I’m pretty sure it’s not about that.  Something about coming home makes me just want to turn on the TV.  Again, NOT PROUD.

Kelly (former voice teacher, aka songwriting partner) was in town over the New Year, and we got together for a couple hours.  That was great.  Although we just got together for coffee, I felt inspired to do more with music as that obviously filled much of the conversation.  But then she left, and I’m still not doing anything.  Must break the mesmerism!

So the obvious answer would be to find another songwriting partner.  Sort of like a workout partner, right?  (another downfall of mine.)  But for many of us, we’re often more likely to work out if we have a partner.  It appears I also may operate that way for songwriting.  So for these next couple of weeks, please wish me well in my endeavor (ability?  desire?) to get motivated and inspired, and then to actually do something about it.  Verbal wishes unnecessary—I’ll take your good thoughts from afar!  🙂  And am sending good thoughts to you, as well.

Happy New Year to all!

P.S.  I also haven’t been motivated (or had much time) to do a blog entry lately.  So this may be considered a step in the right direction.  Maybe.  🙂

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