A Year of Writing Tunes

One year ago, on or about the 14th of June 2017, I wrote my first tune - Toca Paseo.  That broke the ice and within two months I had ten tunes to play.  By that point I had already set a goal to write fifty tunes in one year.  I got there early, reaching the 50th tune in February, 2018.  Then I gave myself a stretch goal to make it sixty tunes in one year.  Here it is June 10, 2018 and I'm at 60 tunes.  (As I write this number 61 is forming).

There were times throughout the past year where I was really focused on this project, which can be both unnecessarily stressful and satisfying.  The process writing and thinking about a melody would get my mind racing and then it would be hard to turn that off and go to sleep, especially if something felt unfinished.  

My 60 tunes now exist and I like all of them, but I think my favorites are the very easy ones, so simple they could be nursery rhymes, where due to their simplicity the act of playing them becomes like a meditation...the melody a mantra.  Hopefully more on this later as I develop a better sense of where this is going.  For now, back to the tunes at hand.  

Number 60 is called Blind Eel.  It was written on 5/23/18 just before I went to Nova Scotia and then solidified while there.  The A-part, which I play on tenor banjo in this recording, is inspired by Phish's improvised jam during It's Ice from 7/23/17.  The B-part, which I play on K-board using a vibraphone sound, is influenced by the Korean folk song Doragi.

As a bonus, here's number 61 called Rhubarb.  It didn't exist yesterday and now it does!  I hummed the sound of the melody into my phone before going to sleep last night and immediately played the notes on an instrument as I was waking up this morning.  Rhubarb is dedicated to my recent trip to Nova Scotia.

***

Be a Fan