BEST OF TIMES

Charles Dickens was not a musician. You might have already been aware of that little piece of trivia. The fact is, though, that Dickens had a very musical ear. He also had an incredibly cinematic imagination, which is all the more amazing since the motion picture camera wasn’t invented until 25 years after his death!! [FYI: Louis Lumiere is often credited as inventing the first motion picture camera in 1895.]

So what’s all this got to do with the Musician in the Middle of Nowhere??

Over the years, I have read all the novels of Dickens (there’s around 30 of them), and am now reading through them all again, along with a lot of extra material, such as the travel books, short stories, magazine articles, etc. And as I was reading, I noticed several passages that would make terrific texts for music. So I started to extract them, adapt them, and versify them. The result is that I have composed a set of seven choral pieces (SATB) with piano accompaniment that I am putting under the general title of “The Best of Times”.

The seven passages are from The Old Curiosity Shop, American Notes (2), Pictures of Italy, Martin Chuzzelwit, A Christmas Carol and (of course) A Tale of Two Cities.

I didn’t plan on a rendezvous with any particular event, but the odd fact is that 2012 will be the 200th anniversary of Dickens’ birth. It’s a nice way to celebrate one of my favorite authors.

Here are a couple of pages from “A Small Tyranny” (taken from the first chapter of Martin Chuzzelwit)

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO AGAWAM

July 16, 1982 was a ridiculously hot day.

 I got in my car to travel to a small independent church (I don’t have any record of the name). I had talked to the Pastor on the phone and worked out the date and all the particulars. When I got there I found that they weren’t expecting me…at all. They had no idea who I was. The Pastor had no recollection of our conversation. I was about 250 miles from home, and it was about 105 degrees.

Well, they let me play two songs during their evening service (instead of a full concert), and sent me on down the road with $25 in my pocket. I had also booked a coffeehouse called the Lighthouse (!!!!) in Windsor Locks, Connecticut for the next day. They were expecting me and sent me back home with an extra $50 in my pocket.

In 1982, the price of a gallon of gas was around $1.30, which still put a strain on that $75 I made.

Sometimes you take a ride on The Road, and sometimes the Road takes you for a ride.

I look back at things like this (oh, don’t think for a second that this was an isolated event), and I get this strange bittersweet feeling. I laugh because the alternative is too emotionally draining, even after all these years.

The bare bones fact is this: everything that I’ve experienced has helped to get me where I am, and make me who I am - today; and I like where I am, and who I am, today.

Sidebar: as soon as I get the arrangement worked up again, I will be posting a performance of “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” on Youtube.

On Turning 60

January 9, 1951: a day that will live in infamy…at least for me. That’s the day I was born, at around 7:00 pm. And that was (yes!) 60 years ago.

I have developed a few personal thoughts about age and aging:

1. When I state my age, I state it loudly and proudly and put the word “ONLY” in front of it. No matter what age I’m at, it is only a drop of water in the ocean in light of eternity.

2. There is not any real difference between turning 58-to-59 than there is from 59-to-60. It’s still only one more number.

3. Just because a birthday has a zero in it does not make it a “milestone” unless you let it. Milestones are heavy and I choose to go easy on my back.

4. I am only (there’s that word again) 24 hours older right now, than I was yesterday at exactly this time. I cannot age a whole year just because a birthday happened.

5. I do not mind growing older. If I am growing older, that means I am growing, and that is always a good thing. I do mind the idea of Being old; that probably means I am not growing.

6. My goal is to live to be 250 or die in the attempt. If I don’t make it, that won’t be terribly surprising. But if I do make it, someone had better call the Guinness Book of World Records.


Happy Birthday to me, and to guitarists Les Paul, Jimmy Page, Joan Baez, Bill Cooley, Paul King and Dave Matthews. Also, Bob Denver, Gypsy Rose Lee and former President Nixon.

An Invitation to the Dance

Here we go into yet another new year.

2010 has been one of the most productive years for me as a composer, and as a guitarist. I put out 2 new CDs and wrote a ton of music; downloads are up (and I’ve tried to make sure that the uploads aren’t down). Also, 2010 brought me a lot of new “fans” especially on Facebook, and I want to thank everyone who has supported me.

So here comes 2011; this year is full of all sorts of possibilities. I’m hoping to actually hear my symphony played, as well as my string quartet. I have music in the hands of some key people, which I hope will result in some publication and/or performances. Some new videos will show up on Youtube, and there may even be a new CD of instrumental music.

The quandary is: how to build a bigger fan base.

I have a very strong group of followers here in Chenango County, and surrounding areas. [Sidebar: did you know that if you take every man, woman and child in Chenango County and put them in Yankee Stadium, you won’t have a sell-out?]. It has also been suggested that my videos would be more popular, especially with a younger crowd, if I included a 14 year old girl listing all the music she has on her ipod. I have often wondered what makes that so interesting.

Someone suggested that, to get a bigger fan base, I would need a bigger fan; and then I’d have to decide between a floor fan, ceiling fan, or one those big barn fans that you used to see on every episode of the X-files. You know, the ones in the big warehouse with the dark blue lighting? But I digress.

Sometimes I think it would be easier to live in an area where there is a base where there would be more fans to build from. But the Musician in the Middle of Nowhere is just that: in the middle. That means that I’m equidistant from everyone and everything and everywhere. And that’s especially true on the internet.

So, here we come to the invitation. I’m going to ask anyone/everyone who is reading this to help us out. If you would be so kind, send a link to my music Tom's website or Youtube or CDBaby, to 10 of your own friends.

And no, this is NOT a chain letter. I couldn’t figure how to put a chain in an envelope anyway. Of course, if you put a link in an email, does that make it a “chain link”?? After all, mail (as in armor) is made of chain links. Is this too many puns? Ha! There can never be too many puns. And there can never be too many fans.

Can you, will you, help?

"The Return Journey", new cd by Bill Cooley

My friend Bill Cooley has recently released a CD called “The Return Journey”. This is his third solo guitar album, and it really does top the other two. A while back I wrote an article about Bill- you may want to go back and refresh your memory.
Briefly, Bill is a very busy guitarist from Nashville. He tours regularly with Kathy Mattea, and has worked with Hal Ketchum and Reba Macintyre.

In the simplest terms, he’s the stuff.

In this CD bill displays some amazing guitar technique, although that’s not really what the album is about. It’s a collection of songs; songs that have no words (all right, except the guest appearance by Kathy Mattea doing Elton John’s “Madman Across the Water”). When you listen to this album you hear the guitar singing these tunes; you can even make up your own words if you like.

You can order a copy of this wonderful CD at Bill’s own web site Bill Cooley Music                   
Or you can visit CDBaby Bill Cooley on CDBaby

If you like guitar music…if you like good music, you’re going to like this.

YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND TOMORROW

I want to tell you about my friend, Ray Repp.

For those of you who don’t recognize the name, Ray has been described as the person most responsible for introducing folk music and guitar into Christian Churches in 1965. Born in St. Louis, Ray eventually found a home near Ithaca, NY.

In the early 80s Ray published a book of mine called “The Christian Guitar Handbook” and we struck up a solid friendship, and in 1985 he asked me to arrange some new music and play guitar on a new album. It was originally titled “Ever Bless” and was issued on cassette only.


I recently discovered that this wonderful album is now available on CD through Oregon Catholic Press. They have changed the album name to “Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow” and it contains all the music from the original release. Of all the recordings that I have worked on with other people, this is my favorite. The songwriting is superb, the singing is impressive, and the lyrics are lovely, being deeply rooted in scripture.

You can download the entire disc, or individual songs. I hope you will check it out:  YESTERDAY, TODAY, and TOMORROW

The Art of Music Appreciation

Is guitar player A better than guitar player B? Should the innovative, but not very popular sax player from the ‘50s be discussed in the same breath as the not very innovative but extremely popular sax player from the ‘90s? How can I possibly appreciate something I don’t like? Why I should I listen to, or care about, music that isn’t in the style I prefer?

Loaded questions, all.

Here’s something to consider: my personal preferences are not automatically someone else’s; your personal preferences are not necessarily my fact. Ergo, when we claim to be learning about music, we must put aside those personal preferences all together. Appreciation of music comes down to this: it’s the way you listen, not what you listen to; it’s the search for the answer to the question “why?”; it’s music education in its purest form.

Nobody has to convince you that you like a certain artist, you already know that. Knowing that, then, is a good place to start. The next, and most important question, is: why do you like certain music?

Is it just the beat? Is it the intricate interplay of voices or instruments? Is it the arrangement? Is it the production values? Is it the songwriting? Is it the lyrics? Is it the melody? Is it the fact that you can sing along easily? Is it all or none of the above?

When music is popular, that means a lot of people like it. That’s an obvious statement. On the other hand, if you can’t listen to a style of music and figure out why it’s popular, you’ll never learn anything from it. You’ll never be able to work in that style, and you’ll be that much poorer in your general music education.

Personal example: I dislike bluegrass. Did I just hear a gasp? Regardless, I once set myself the task to listen to a 3-hour bluegrass program on a local public radio station, every week for about two years. When I started to listen for what made this music what it was, I found a whole new, fascinating mother lode of techniques. Being a guitarist whose music incorporates jazz/folk/classical influences anyway, I started to learn some of the hammer-on riffs and lead fills that bluegrass musicians use regularly. After working them out, I then took it back into my own music to see how I could make it part of my personal style. My music expanded.

When you start to compare songwriting techniques of (say) the Beatles with Billy Joe Armstrong (Green Day), you may run into a bit of a stylistic preference problem. You may not. Either way, it makes absolutely no difference whether you like one, both or either of these artists. What matters is, can you get past your preferences to take a look at what they wrote and how they wrote it? Use the list of questions above as a place to start.

Bottom line: As musicians, we grow or we grow stale. Music is always changing and there’ll always be something new coming along that a previous generation of musicians rejects off-hand as not worth their attention. Don’t fall into that trap. Listen to everything. Learn to appreciate. Then, like whatever you want.