I’ve decided to take my vacation this year in small chunks of 2 days at the end of the week for the rest of the year – It will enable me to have 4 day weekends until January. I found the first one of these 4 day stay-cations to be exceptional! I didn’t get everything I wanted to accomplished completed, but I made some huge steps forward in recording video and the setup for doing so plus a ton of practice. I find I want to practice guitar more than singing but the better I get with singing and my songwriting, the more I like to do it so hopefully one day it’ll be about 50% of what I do.

I managed to take a few older pieces and give them some new life with a bit of practice and some concept – I like to think of things when I write that the piece might be about and I like to feel that helps me add some emotion and foundation to what I write. I might just be shitting myself, but it’s fun for me to do so whatever!

I’m anxiously awaiting my next 4 day weekend and plan on doing just about the same things, but I will certainly record a few more videos now that I have the whole process sorted out and the quality is a lot better than before. I was having issue with either the sound or the light or whatever and decided to spend some time and experiment – a beneficial endeavor as it proved to be. I’ll post more and hopefully some more videos once I get more completed – here’s the only real good bit I managed to record over the weekend. This is a piece I call ’16’ because I was about 16 when I wrote it and that time in my life had a certain flavor to it and this instrumental brings a lot of things from that period to mind when I play and hear it.

Yeah, it’s probably not that great of a song, but I’ve had the concept and part of the song in my head for a long time and finally decided to finish it. It’s not that long, but it’s a new birthday song and it’s posted on youtube.com here.

Or here:

I wrote a new piece and everyone who hears it likes it so I’m going to make an effort to record it ASAP and post it – it feels good to write something you’re proud of. Unlike an author penning the last sentence to a novel, or a painter making that last stroke, strumming the last chord of a new song isn’t sometimes quite as obvious to the artist; I guess that’s what makes writing music more interesting to me is that it never has to be finished or completed, and it like like and matter evolves in time. I know a lot of artists will play you the exact same song you hear on the radio or CD, but I always liked it when a bit of evolution takes place or even just an improvised arrangement or addition to the song, making it fresh and unknown – an element that’s lost in music after listening to the same things over and over for years. I feel numb to a certain degree and I blame radio however I haven’t been an avid listener for many years – TV the same, I don’t do it. I think that formatted media has caused just far too many clones of cliches and fad and hip mainstream popular things that people do and wear and say. If they see something a popular band is doing, then watch out – the Clone Wars begins!

I hope never to be a follower of fads or the latest whatever – I don’t do that. I don’t like doing what other people do or say and I surely like to keep that anthem in my writing and composition. I have always made an effort to be as organic as possible in my writing and not let any one source influence me so much as to be obvious – I hide what made me well I like to think.

I’m working hard to practice and perfect some of these songs, to evolve them to a point I think I can share them and open the door in to my world of wonderment and inspiration.

Brent

I’ve decided to focus on my music and quit hitting the open mic scene for a while – most likely until the first of 2011. My idea is to really maximize my practice time and composition time – I want to make what I do a lot better and make more of what I do, period. I have a slew of new bits that growing in to songs as I discover new parts and hone the old; my playing is growing dramatically with the new techniques and approaches that I’ve been adding to my palette over the last year. I’ve moved to a finger-style player mostly, but I think it’s more or less just a current focus and I’ll always retain and practice my pick playing on both acoustic, and electric. I do feel as though the nylon string will be my main instrument in the near future, but that might just be a fad with me as I further develop my new music – I will probably go back to playing heavy electric music one day, but as with normal, I won’t just play one style or genre – never!

I’m also spending a little time in the studio and recording some of my older, more solid instrumentals, and I’m also working at home to record some slightly-more-than-crude versions of my new songs and focus on singing. The singing lessons are really helping me out and if anyone needs some vocal lessons in the city (San Francisco), let me know and I’ll see if my teacher is available – she’s awesome!

This is a piece entitled ‘Time’ – it’s about all the time I’ve lost on things that I wish I would have – it’s about how going forward, I’ll try to make more out of what little time I have and make it count.