SOMETIMES "HALFWAY" IS ENOUGH

Over the years, I have written songs that never had a place on an album.

Now they do.

The album is a CD called “Halfway” and is now available on CDBaby as a digital download.

These songs run a rather eclectic range of styles, from pop to folk to country. There’s a romantic ballad or two, and a few humorous songs. All of them are catchy and easy to sing along with. Some are quite emotional and others are autobiographical.

There are musical threads that hold them all together, but the lyrics also have a certain consistency to them, since they all come from the same source, and express my own particular world view. For instance: in the song “Halfway” I try to demonstrate that it’s all right for a guy to say he’s sorry; both “I Love This Town” and “Little Place in the Country” explain why I choose to be “In the Middle of Nowhere”. “Baseball: It’s America’s Game” was my response when Major League Baseball started playing again after 9/11/01, and “On This Silent Night” is a prayer for world peace.

Someone once asked me how I knew if any of my songs were good; I answered that I knew they were good because I had finished them. After more than 50 years of creating music I like to think that I know when a tune is worth completing or not. You can decide for yourself; give a listen HALFWAY

PLAYING THE GUITAR: A CHICK MAGNET?

I don’t think this is what Dire Straits had in mind in 1985 when they wrote:

Get your money for nothing
Get your chicks for free.

Although…

You do hear it said that playing the guitar is supposed to be a chick magnet. Come to think of it, back in 1966, when I first started to teach the guitar, I had a young lady who I thought was really (REALLY) cute. It turned out that she also had a crush on me. Who knew? Not me, that’s for sure. Anyway, in 1971, I married that girl, and she’s the one who took this photo. We’re coming up on our 40th wedding anniversary this year!! So…well, I guess it DOES work.

The chicks are all part of Woodchuck Acres self-sufficiency program. Some of these chicks will stay and some will be sold. Dare I say it, some might become dinner; but not today.

In the words of one chick I know: peep, peep, peep.

PREPARING TO PLAY A SHOW

On April 2, 3 , 4, 7, 8, and 9 I will be playing guitar in Morrisville College’s production of “The Robber Bridegroom”. This is a Tony-Award winning musical from 1974 that starred Patti Lupone. It is based on a story by Eudora Welty, and is completely in old-time country and bluegrass musical styles. This should be a lot of fun.

The music director, Doug Keith, sent me the score and I have started to work on it, thanks to a handy CD that came with it. As always in Broadway scores, there are some strange rhythms, some oddball time signatures, and an occasional weird key signature- what guitar player in his right mind plays in Ab minor???? That’s 7 flats…that’s the most you can have.

Well, my plan is to walk into the first rehearsal at least 85% performance ready. This saves a lot of time for everyone. Since the music is fairly simple, this should be no problem although there are always surprises.

The performances will be in the theater in the student center on the main campus. I hope to see some of you there.

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?