Hello! If you’re a new subscriber, this is what’s going on here: I started including readers who were interested in following along how I go about writing and recording a new song, called “Hurry.” Here’s a footnote listing the song posts if you want to see from the beginning: 1
I hope you enjoy watching the condensed process of creating a bass line for “Hurry.”
There’s a part 2 to the bass part, already recorded, which I’ll follow up with soon after sending this dispatch. Meanwhile, I keep getting interrupted with work, travel, band, obligations. At this rate, making a completed record this year is looking like a tall order. I’m not going to worry about that though, it’s a goal, something to work towards, but not to the exclusion of everything else.
Thank you to everyone who has made the switch to paid subscribing. A little over 4% have signed up to pay and I very much appreciate these and the appreciation for my work I put into the D of M! I hope for 10-20% but will continue to offer all content to everyone in hopes of getting there without a paywall.
Here’s a familiar visual approximation of my direction of motion lately:
{here I am going to be writing about the wind}
The winds blow, one way or another, randomly changing, subject to eternal forces: the sun, pressure systems, temperature, Earthly rotation. Or in the case of these inflatable used car dealer things, the less eternal electric fan.
I’ve been flapping and flailing, following the flow. It’s not graceful, not yet. Trying to keep up, stay on top of, generate, chase, attract a clear and concise path. I’m sure there is one—for all of us, one we should follow. One we will follow—regardless of “should.”
I love wind and all it’s characters: the benevolent nurse extending a caress, an exuberant and powerful tycoon, a ballroom dancer waltzing gracefully across the land, the drunken, angry destroyer. Don’t necessarily want to be in it’s way, but I love it as much as I love the ocean, or sunsets and sunrises, mountains, rivers and forests, or stars. I love it because it’s so much more grand than we are. I love that we can’t fuck it up, but it can sure mess with us. Take that, human race. Respect.
One of my favorite memories from my mom is a story she told me about taking me to England for the first time. I was three years old, it was a cold winter day and we were walking. She let go of my hand and was adjusting her coat, and looked up to see me flying down the street. She says she ran after me and caught me before I was dropped to the ground. The image of me, airborne in my little red coat, imprinted itself upon my mind since childhood. It’s one of those stories that we like to make our own, make them true, whether or not they are real, they become a memory. An adopted memory.
One of my favorite memories of being a new mother was witnessing my baby Audrey take note of a breezy California wind blowing into her face for the first time—her little features registering surprise and joy, breaking into a smile and giggling in delight at the wonder of it. Coincidentally, another thing that brought glee to infant Audrey were the afore mentioned inflatable tube people awkwardly dancing and whiplashing on street corners.
{here I return to my recurring theme: coming of aging. again. and again.}
I’m having a lot of memories about my child, and the children of my friends and the children of my family. These invite me to move in and to inhabit a state of perpetual poignancy. This is an interesting word, shrouded in sadness and regret, even when it’s brought forth by a memory replete in happiness. I don’t want to live in perpetual poignancy.
I suppose it’s all about loss. Loss of a time, an era, a youth, people who were here who are no longer. I won’t do a full KV entymological garden on ‘poignant’ —as much as I love my word dives, but it comes from roots and words meaning sharp, acute, piercing. Pointy pointy poignancy.
Some of my friend’s formerly small children have careers and/or families. I remember the playdates and the car pickup lines at different schools. Visiting a succession of Santas at interchangeable malls over the years. Dance classes and birthday parties.
I sit with a friend and the present moment is diffused: we are intact, ever so slightly worn, gently used versions of our young selves. Until, confronted with the irrefutable truth: the photos are scrolled and shown—hello, we are parents of full on adults—and the balloon illusion is popped. Popped by that pointy piercing pin of poignancy. (Sorry not sorry for that sentence.)
Couple this with the stream of deaths. Who was it this week?—RIP Burt Bacharach and Raquel Welch. People have been dying my whole life I suppose, but now it gets my full attention, it gets my panic, it revs up the urgency. Hurry, indeed. Hurry but enjoy and luxuriate in each and every precious allotment of health, good fortune, opportunity, segment of time.
this is the base line that matters.
{here I am writing about reading and books}
I’ve had trouble keeping my focus with reading books for awhile now. I think it’s a combination of things; hormones and aging, getting out of the habit when I became a mom, and the pervasive nature of distraction culture perpetuated by technology and consumerism. Any of these could be doctoral dissertation length topics, but I’m just going to leave it at this: if I don’t make a consistent and concerted effort to make time for reading, it doesn’t happen. And even when I do make that effort, my attention span is shorter and it takes far longer to finish a book than it used to.
I dream of going on a months long beach trip where I can just sit in a cabana or under an umbrella by the water and catch up on all the books I want to read. The stack on my bedside table is reaching tower-like proportions, and I refuse to skip around—if I take a book from my pile, I am going to finish it. Unless the writer annoys me.
In most writing classes that I recall, we are encouraged to read as a writer. This is a blessing and a curse. The blessing part is learning, observing, admiring a given writer’s talent. The curse part is more insidious: If I get the slightest inkling of the writer writing, consciously employing the tools of the trade, it starts jumping out at me and taking me out of the story until I have to give up the story.
I have two tendencies that make me even more susceptible to this sort of perspective: one is an uncanny prowess to spot patterns and repetitions. I can tell, within a chapter or two, any little habits the author may have: a tendency to incessantly, constantly, relentlessly use more adjectives than necessary. Or an insistence on what I call “clever verbing”— the boat noses it’s way to the pier, the sun slashes through the cloud, and so on. Some may be good writing, sure, but if it jumps out too much, it’s a pattern, no matter how cleverly it’s been done.
I recently read a short story by a very well celebrated author I’d never read and was astounded at how many metaphors were used in every single paragraph. It became comical, a game, to count them all. I didn’t care about the story anymore. Not good. I mean, a good story, but ruined.
The other tendency I have is what I call “behind-the-scenes-itis.” With this affliction, I’m constantly imagining what happened before—what led to the result I’m now experiencing. I imagine pitch meetings and writers rooms and directors and dressing rooms and backstages and preparations and editors and special effects makers and costumers and…in general, all the people doing their jobs to make whatever it that’s been made.
So with a book, it’s a kiss of death if I start imagining a writer sitting at their desk casting around for cleverness. Unfair really, but justice is rare these days. I guess it’s like playing an instrument or dancing or any of those practiced things one prefers if they seem effortless.
Anyway, books, like my friends—just like my friends—take effort and time. A small price for the value they bring. I received quite a few books for my birthday and am making my way through them. Enjoying “Horse” by Geraldine Brooks. It’s been a while since I’ve read a story like this. Thank you, Melessa.
Speaking of wind, check out this mesmerizing Wind Map!
Speaking of wind maps, here’s mine!
This substack is one of my windy forces.
My record is another.
My band the Bluebonnets is another.
My book, sequel to “All I Ever Wanted” is a big one.
My move to London and the work that entails.
And I’ve been working on a pitch for a TV series based on my first book.
Yeah. Super cool stuff, fun stuff, but it takes such time and focus.
As mentioned before, I’ll be following up soon with another video showing the recording process - a dispatch with less writing, but meant to keep a pace for the song progress.
As usual, I welcome your comments and thoughts! I read and appreciate them all and usually respond.
In Detour I show how I came up with the melody and chord progression. At the end of Afternoons Around the Sun there’s an audio recording of me figuring out some new lyrics. And Incremental Progress shows the trial and error of figuring out the rest of the song, or most of it. In Cura Te I got a tempo, a drum loop and some guide tracks.
11) Bass Line and Baselines