Dear family, friends, and fellow travelers,
The song this cycle is Sing Your Song, which has been kicking around for a couple of days and finally took shape this morning and just now, a quick recording. Sometimes I think that music is the mother tongue and when we sing or play or listen we tap into that grace and love that creates and blesses the cosmos. I was recently reading about the Chilean poet, musician and activist Victor Jara who was the musical catalyst of the Chilean people's movement that led to the election of Dr. Salvador Allende. After a brutal military coup, Jara was arrested. Soldiers broke his hands and taunted "Play your guitar now". At that he started singing the Chilean protest song "Venceremos" and was shot dead. The tune lived on long after Victor Jara and long after the dictator, Pinochet, was removed from office, arrested for war crimes and died.
Music is a place of such power, comfort, sorrow, joy, energy, and, ultimately, of deepest compassion. Sing Your Song is a pretty simple tune offered on this snowy day in February. Peace, friends.
Here's the filterable playlist of all the songs from all the newsletters.
I've added a couple of new things to the site. I've been slowly curating the endless hours of improvs on piano and guitar that I have and am adding them to an Improv playlist, on the menu tab. As improvs they often capture the moment in ways unique to them. They certainly have flaws and hesitations. The piano ones are recorded digitally directly on the keyboard which gives them a full sound quality. The guitar ones were recorded on my phone, often in the night, quietly, and have a much lower audio quality. I'm including a few that I really like, but you'll see, on the Improv page, that you can filter the list to be all , just piano, or just guitar. I'll be adding more recordings regularly - both new ones and ones from my archive.
I've also added a Favorites feature so that, as the playlists grow, you can mark those songs you particularly like and just listen to those, again from using the drop down filter at the top of the playlist. Right now it's a two-step process. You have to click on the song you want to mark on the playlist and then go to the side bar (bottom on phone) and click the gray heart so select; click again to deselect.
On the technical side, the favorites function relies on you not clearing your cookies, often the default setting. Favorites will be lost if cookies are cleared. I hope to add a login feature that would allow you to keep your selections without cookies.
Finally, realizing that many people no longer have a CD player, Leonore and I made our three albums available for free here on the site in playlists. There's a new tab, Albums, on the top menu. Select the album you want to hear from the dropdown and enjoy. Songs are free to download as well. We will make some CDs for those who may want that medium - if that is your desire, feel free to contact me.
I'm sending you a monthly offering from original music I've been writing over many years. I've been so bold as to add your email to my newsletter list. You can unsubscribe at any time (link at the bottom of the email).
Many songs are recorded solo, some are from different musical twinings from over the years - all are original tunes, with some occasional collaborations.
My best to each,
Brian
