new music

Indigo

It is funny how a word can have very little meaning in your life one day and the next it turns up around every corner. In the fall of 2006 I went out sailing in the waters around New London, CT with some old friends on a boat called The Indigo. Since then I have been trying to lyrically incorporate the word ‘Indigo’, along with my experience, into a song. Unfortunately my songwriting skills are horrible and I have, to date, failed miserably. More recently I have been testing some recording equipment and coincidentally one of the components is called Indigo. Oddly enough both Indigo the vessel and Indigo the hardware have provided me with a sense of revitalizing freedom. After thinking a bit about the tune I blogged about last night in Hot off the Brain I realized that it is Indigo. So I put together a quick mp3 of the tune on whistle with some guitar backing. It’s a rough mix but you’ll get the point. At some point I am hoping to thread it together with some other tunes and record them all.

Also, here is a legible copy of the sheet music for the tune.
Indigo

new music

Hot off the Brain

I just got back from my weekly John Stone’s session and I gotta tell ya that playing with good musicians is always an inspiration for writing tunes. I had to pull over twice on the way home to jot down the following tune. I will try to get a simple mp3 and something legible posted as soon as I can. In the interim, I need to come up with a title.

untitled1

new music

The Making of a Tune

I have been playing a lot of traditional Irish music at John Stone’s Public House in Ashland, MA lately. One evening, while driving home from the session a few weeks back, I pulled over and jotted down the following tune that was rattling around in my head. I keep a penny whistle lying around my vehicle for these very moments.

The Perfect Pint

A couple days later I continued to work on the tune only to find that I was confused by what I had written. I quickly realized I had written it as if there were a pickup when, indeed, there was none. I then struggled a bit trying to tack on a B part and after an evening of failed attempts I did the only logical thing. I gave up. I have always found that if I force myself to look at a problem from a new perspective, I am often led to a solution that I did not anticipate. One mechanism that I often use when writing music and am in need of a new perspective is to simply change instruments. So, the next day I picked up a bouzouki and … shazam! … the B part presented itself.

When I played it for Mustachio later that week he asked about the name of the tune. ‘Oohh, I haven’t gotten that far’ I said. However, that very same evening the two of us were admiring the love and attention that is put into pouring a pint of Guinness at John Stone’s. So, from that chat I decided the tune should be called The Perfect Pint. Here is the final printed version that I typed into Finale:

The Perfect Pint

Incidentally, here is how you ruin a Guinness .
Here is a basic mp3 of the tune

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New & Improved

The old baconworks wasn’t working. So, it has been replaced with this new WordPress powered site with all the modern amenities.

I plan on using the site to serve two primary purposes:

  1. Publish music I write and to talk a bit about the tunes, their origin and evolution. As always music notation and midi files, as well as mp3’s, will be posted.
  2. Highlight tunes that I have learned and that I want to share.

Also, in the near future I am hoping to incorporate accompanying music written by others, features on individuals that have, in some way, contributed to traditional music and discussions around great recordings.

As I have been playing, writing and recording quite a bit lately I expect to have plenty of things to share. So, please stay tuned!