I’m getting better at capturing ideas: there’s a waterproof notepad in the shower, one entire wall of the living room is a blackboard, and now of course we have Siri.

Being able to quickly voice record an idea and have it sent to you as a message the next day is brilliant – here are a few while I was developing this track:

“Sure easy menu bar thinking and subdivide employment labor Wolk with the glory and employer”

..I have no idea what this means…

“Stamnes Musician’s offer reason files next”

…I think this has something to do with offering stems – good one – will implement later this year…

“Blog post want to want want to Paul from an astonishing the kids time I want Musicians’s alarm people who couldn’t stand tedious I’m looking skills to people with Nicola movile so Columbus works out to do that the skip.”

…yeah, no idea about this either – but it sounds fascinating…

“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha”

…and this is Siri just laughing at me…

Clearly Siri has a way to go, but it’s kinda entertaining. I’ve off to want want to Paul…

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Image Credit: Ice Flow Studios

I love Christmas – the boys conjured up a new room mic so I put it to use yesterday afternoon. A buddy was going to come over and record a track as a present for a friend but the session got cancelled – so I thought I’d record one instead.

I worked as a writer on a Country gig a few years back; there are several songs from those sessions that I’m very happy with and thought I’d bring them out for a spin. When I listen to this I imagine Kelli or Patsy Cline singing it – I suggest you do the same – my vocals aren’t exactly my A game!

It’s a super loose recording – everything was done in a couple of hours yesterday afternoon – so – with all those caveats aside – here is:

What Am I To Do?

co-written with Kelli Lidell

Back after a lazy labor day weekend (yes – American spelling but it is their holiday ya’ know!) and already fighting the heat. 101 yesterday, promising to be 106 later today – so – up early and getting stuff done before it gets too hot.

I really like this tempo – 107 bpm for the piece and may end up using it although the track sounds good at 67 / 134 bpm too – it’s somewhere in that range. I’m still working out the form of the piece – there are two distinct halves and I have yet to really define the front half. The string melody is well established but this is the first time I’m working it up with the reason string patch so it may take a little while to dial it in.

This clip looks at the transition between the two halves – very basic at the moment but should sound pretty good when it’s done.

Free members get to download the Writer’s playlist which contains Frustration - the most popular music2work2 track.

After we publish a new piece of music2work2 we always produce an additional piece that is sent to our paying members as a thank you.

Having recently published Nath, here is an unedited clip from the 11 minute thank you piece that will be go out to annual members next week.

Annual members of music2work2 get to download the entire music2work2 catalog – over 433 minutes of music to work to – plus they get all new music produced in the year of their membership plus they get special bonus tracks like this one. Membership costs $15 a year and you can sign up here.

Free members get to download the Writer’s playlist which contains Frustration - the most popular music2work2 track.

So I just hit send to the mailing list to announce the publishing of the newest piece of music2work2 – Nath.

You can read the accompanying liner notes here

Annual members of music2work2 pay $15 a year and can download this and all current published tracks

Learn about membership here

Nath is coming along nicely – I’ve been listening to Mix 2 all weekend and am ready for the next one. There are some stunning parts to the theme and I’ll probably post one or two later on this week.

There are a number of fairly well developed themes that have yet to be completed and I thought I might start on them after Nath is published. One of the earliest (and possibly my favorite) is Wendi’s G Minor theme; I thought I’d take it out for a spin this morning – no tempo and no coda – just a little run through to familiarize myself. It is written for piano and strings and I’ve been backing off from it until I was really familiar with the “new’ set up (only took me a year!) Spot the Clam at 2:55!

Hah! feeling kinda naughty ‘cos I pretty much took last week off to go and celebrate 10 years of marriage – it was awesome (both the marriage and the time off!)

Back in the saddle again today – man my chops were lousy! After an hour going up and down the board I thought I’d try out the track at the true tempo of 57 bpm. This is very much in the right space – couple of clams but I’m super happy with the pacing and the feel. Will be working this up all week and hopefully dropping strings on it by the weekend; targeting end of this month for release.

Learn about membership and free downloads here

It has been a funky couple of days – fabulous fourth of July weekend down in Venice – playing guitar – watching the world go by – capturing audio here and there.

I might work this up soon – it’s about time some guitar made it into music2work2. The guitar track comes from the audioboo recording – lots more of them here – the keys come from this morning.

We caught this video when curating our page on
Background music – how music can improve your life – and thought it was well worth posting on the blog.

It’s 2 1/2 minutes long and looks at the work being done by Parag Chordia and the team at Georgia Tech into how music can impact pretty much every area of our lives – but in this case creativity.

A good playlist from music2work2 to stimulate creativity would be the Writers playlist

Download the playlist at 320K when you become a free member of music2work2

So we’re at the annual music2work2 conference in Winston Salem – lots going on including much wine tasting and general cultural intake.  Taking some time out this morning to do a bit of research into the Nath piece – it’s supposed to be a blues piece with a French twist so we thought a bit of listening to the Marseillaise would be appropriate – incredibly bloodthirsty song!

Not quite sure where this will go but it’s sounding pretty good on this rather old Kimball upright