Dandelion Puff: Constructing and Deconstructing a Melody

The A-Part (similar to Venus In Furs)

On Monday morning I sung a melody into my phone's voice recorder that in hindsight bears some resemblance to the Velvet Underground song Venus In Furs. I didn't give myself a chance to work on this melody until Wednesday morning when I had about ten minutes to review it before leaving for work. During those ten minutes I was able to locate and transcribe the musical notes on a keyboard based on the intervals I had sung.

The musical notes I happened to choose were: G G G C D C D Bb G.

I don't think in terms of chords or harmony, but I do think in terms of scales - the major scale specifically. So as soon as I transcribe notes like this I like to find out which major scale(s) they might conform to.

By analyzing the notes in this little melody I came to the conclusion that these notes could fit into either the Bb major sale (Bb C D Eb F G A) or the F major scale (F G A Bb C D E). Using numeric scale notes, my G G G C D C D Bb G melody was either 6 6 6 2 3 2 3 1 6 or 2 2 2 5 6 5 6 4 2. (It wasn't until I started writing this post that I realized it could also be Eb major as well: Eb F G Ab Bb C D.

The B-Part (loosely based on the 12/29/19 Bathtub Gin jam)

I like for my tunes to have at least two alternating sections. So after transcribing this melody I tried out a sequence of notes based on something that Trey Anastasio played during Bathtub Gin on 12/29/19 that I had already been messing around with by ear. 

In recent years Trey has developed a knack for landing on simple, fleeting melodies during "Type II" improvs. Phish songs like Light, Ghost, Tweezer and Carini are prime places for these. Just beyond eleven minutes into this version of Bathtub Gin, Trey - prompted by Page - comes up with an interesting melody of this sort. It only goes around for a few bars but it was enough for me to make note of it and by New Year's Eve I was playing my own thing based on that sound.

The musical notes I used for this melody were: G Bb C D, G Bb C F D, F D C D C Bb C G.  

Note that all of the notes from my first melody (G C D and Bb) are found in this B-part melody. That was a happy coincidence. The only additional note in the B-part melody was F, but that note is found in both the Bb major scale and the F major scale that I spoke about above. So just like in the A-part, my scale here is ambiguous (to me at least). It could still be either B-flat or F. (or, as I realize now, E-flat).

The thing about these little melodies that Trey happens upon during Phish jams is that they sound great in the context of the jam, but after being isolated it is sometimes difficult to find something to pair them with. They almost paint themselves into a corner. That had been the case with this Bathtub Gin melody. I had been sitting on it for a week without successfully coming up with something to go with it. But as soon as I matched it up with my "Venus In Furs" style A-part it seemed to jive.

Transposing the A-Part

I started playing these A and B parts together and instantly knew that I had a new tune. The parts fit well together. The only thing that nagged at me was how both melodies were using a lot of the same notes, and/or were living under the same piano keys or banjo frets. I wanted a bit more flavor there. Then I remembered how I had analyzed my A-part melody to discover that the first note of the melody (G) could either be note 6 of the Bb scale or note 2 of the F scale. 

So what if I assume for a moment that the scale I'm in is Bb, but move my A-part melody from starting on note 6 of that scale (G) to note 2 of that scale (C)? Now the notes in my A-part melody switch from G G G C D C D Bb G to C C C F G F G Eb C. Boom! I'm definitely not in the key of F anymore but all of these notes still fit into the key of Bb! Remember that B-flat major scale is Bb C D Eb F G A. The only note I'm not using is the 7th one: A.

My tune was basically done and ready to be recorded at this point. I had an A-part and a B-part, and each conformed to the same major scale: the B-flat major scale in this case. But, even cooler, I wasn't really even hovering around the note Bb as the tonal center for much of the tune. It's got more of a minor feel, meaning that in music theory it's probably more like the G aeolian or C dorian scale. That's getting a little heavy for me though. I only think in terms of the major scale.

About Those (Mississippi) Half-Steps

This is basically the process I go through almost any time I write a tune. My A-parts and B-parts (or C-parts) often come from different, unrelated sources. In order to pair them I try to put them into the same universe. Unless I am purposefully trying to write something "out", "blue" or exotic, I otherwise like for my A-parts and B-parts to each utilize notes from the same major scale. The same universe, if you will. In this case that universe was the notes of the Bb major scale: Bb C D Eb F G A. It's all relative though, man.

A neat thing to know about the major scale is that it's mostly whole steps. There are only two places in the whole scale where notes are going to be directly adjacent on your fretboard. These are called semi-tones or half-steps. These half-steps are always between notes 3 and 4 of the scale, and between notes 7 and 1 of the scale (or 7 and 8 of the scale in music theory, if I'm not mistaken, but I don't think about it that way). In the Bb major scale the half-steps are found from A to Bb (7 to 1) and from D to Eb (3 to 4). Anywhere else in the scale is a whole step.

Me, I'm A Part of Your Circle of Friends

I like to think of a scale as being continuous. 

Bb C D Eb F G A Bb C D Eb F G A Bb C D Eb F G A Bb C D Eb F G A Bb C D Eb F G A Bb..... and so on.

You can also start on any note of the major scale. That is when a scale is called a mode.

G A Bb C D Eb F G A Bb C D Eb F G A Bb C D Eb F G A Bb C D Eb F G A B C D Eb F G..... and so on.

Once you get going both of the above sequences start to look pretty darn similar. In fact, they quickly become exactly that same. If you start getting too loopy you might get lost. That's OK because the half-steps can bring you back whenever you want. The half steps in your melody are the guideposts, the major clues helping to provide direction. (My tunes don't have definitive chords as far as I'm concerned. I only hear and think in terms of melody, so my scale knowledge and where this melody falls within the major scale is all I have to go on. For example I know that an Eb chord in this scale contains the notes Eb, G and Bb. No duh, right? I just have no idea if or when that or any chord should be used under the melody, nor do I care. If I really had to think about it I would conclude that any number of scalar notes could be used to harmonize with the melody note, each with their own peculiar coloring. Who can say which one sounds better than the other? I don't have a preference.)

Name That Tune

I already expected my next tune title to be either Fungie (after the Dingle dolphin) or Dandelion (after the bard character in the Witcher). I went with Dandelion, which became Dandelion Puff.

To re-cap, Monday I hummed a melody that is similar to Venus In Furs. Wednesday morning I transcribed that melody. Wednesday evening I paired it with a stray melody I had played by ear the prior week based on something I heard during the Phish 12/29/19 Bathtub Gin. Once paired together I realized that the intervals being used allowed for one of the parts to be shifted to different notes within the same universe, or scale. After that, done!

Here's a recording made last night over a quick drum machine "beat" that I spent mere seconds assembling. I used a baritone ukulele because I like the way it sounds on that instrument.

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Two "Albums" Recorded and Posted to Bandcamp

Productivity and Leisure cover art.  Doesn't that shape look like Iceland?

Back in June 2017 I started a project that involved writing and coming up with my own exclusive repertoire of music to play for fun; tunes that I could claim as my own.  That one-year project turned into two years and by June of 2019 I had come up with over 100 melodies that I consider "mine".  Also during this time in addition to tenor banjo I started playing mallet percussion - first glockenspiel then xylophone.  (Marimba will be next!).

Last month I decided to take a little breather and look back at the music I had written over the last two years by selecting ten of the them for recording as an "album".  With apologies to actual bands and musicians who post their music to Bandcamp, I decided to do the same with my amateur recordings.  

First though I ordered a drum machine - a Cyclone Analogic Beat Bot TT-78.  The TT-78 has a retro sound meant to emulate the Roland CR-78.  I knew absolutely nothing about drum machines before getting one and I still know very little.  What I've gathered is that from today's perspective a drum machine is like a DJ's instrument used for electronic dance music and so on.  That's not what I was looking for at all.  All I wanted was a glorified metronome with some cool percussion sounds on it so that I could learn where the one beat was on some of my melodies.  The TT-78 fit that bill.

Onto the recordings.  I started recording immediately after getting the drum machine.  I've actually posted two albums so far:  Contemporary Impact, recorded over a week in June of last month, and Productivity and Leisure, recorded between 7/11/19 and 7/14/19 (just finished up this morning, July 14, 2019).  Each album features ten tracks - 5 on banjo and 5 on xylophone - played over a drum machine pattern that I quickly sequenced on the fly whether it worked or not.  I'm waiting to get a marimba but that is taking longer than expected, so rather than wait for the marimba to arrive I simply used my xylophone for the tracks assigned to mallet percussion.

The Contemporary Impact tracklist is:

Bye Bye Sol

Habi Gabi

New Burteeb

Sin Nombre

Sixth Noon of Midnight

Bird Dog's

Lepinja

Plenty Here for Everyone

Flubtitle

Minyo

The Productivity and Leisure tracklist is:

Toca Paseo

Armadillo Babirusa

High-Flite 90

La Luz

Last Chance to Row

Domovoi

The Fox

Za'atar

Nomini

Liquid Yepocapa

Tune Numbers 87.5 through 91 - starting with Clown College

I've been discovering some new music lately and that has been having an influence on these new melodies I am coming up with...and/or copying directly from these influences.  The A Very British Scandal theme music, Better Oblivion Community Center and William Tyler have all been influences.  Without hearing those first some of these tunes wouldn't exist.

Number 87.5 is Clown College.  I'm considering it half a tune because it mainly is just a couple of riffs I was playing on my new xylophone.  I wrote it so quickly and it's so simple that it doesn't seem like it should count as a whole tune.  So it's just half of one!

Number 88 is The Seance Needs.  Week before last I was listening to the audio book version of Jerry On Jerry and in one of the interviews it sounds like Jerry says "Finally, a lady with the seance needs as us!".  He doesn't say that but that's what I heard and so the title of this comes from that misquote.  I heard the theme music to the Netflix show A Very British Scandal and really liked it.  It seemed very easy to transcribe and I really dug the slightly unusual scale it was using so I took that scale and made a different melody out of it.

Number 89 is Swansea.  When the Better Oblivion Community Center album was released on 1/31 Spotify added it to my release radar playlist which caused me to hear it and learn about it.  Luckily I gave it a chance (after recognizing Conor Oberst's voice) and I instantly loved the album, having now listened to it over and over again.  I don't know if Swansea is the melody to their song Dylan Thomas...it sounds like it probably is but hopefully this is different enough to make it worth counting.

Number 90 is Lagom.  I keep a playlist going of songs that I hear which I want to mine melodies from and when an Augustus Pablo/Lee "Scratch" Perry track came up it just had to be added to that playlist.  Then yesterday morning I put some notes together based on that.  It's Lagom.  Just the right amount.

Number 91 is Sun of the Golden West.  Inspirations were coming at me left and right this past week.  I had never heard of the guitarist William Tyler before but I was enticed by the track Our Lady of the Desert enough to view the whole album and it's one of those that really grows on you.  This melody would not exist without having heard of him.

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Tunes 86 and 87 - The High-C Roll and Don't Forget the Well

Last week I was listening to the Mongolian band AnDa Union and thought that I would try and write a melody like one of theirs.  Out comes The High Sea Roll or The High-C Roll.  That was my intent when this was written on January 18, 2019 but it came out sounding more like a sea shanty.  So it's a sea shanty.  Here's a phone recording I had made while playing it on banjo.  It's as good as any.

Then this week I was messing around with a minor sounding folk melody that I was calling Don't Forget the Well.  (I often add my  own nonsense words to serve as "lyrics" to the instrumental tunes I write.  The syllables in these words correspond to the notes in the melody and help me remember how it sounds).  Independent from that folk melody I happened upon a little new-classical sounding sequence of notes using just the black keys of a piano.  I didn't give that much thought at first, but when I realized that this little modal sounding folk melody could be shifted over a few semitones so that it lined up with the black key scale of that other little melody, then voila I had something complete enough to be considered a new tune. 

The scale being used here in Don't Forget the Well contains the notes in D-flat major:  Db, Eb, F, Gb, Ab, Bb, C, Db.  Also known as Bb minor.  Note the use of all five "black key" notes on a keyboard.  I wrote it that way on purpose so that it would focus on those notes.  When I got my new Sound Percussion Labs xylophone yesterday, this was the first thing I played on it.  Here's a recording of this tune in Db on my new xylophone, recorded the same day that I got it after taking it out of the box and getting it onto the stand.

I feel like I have more ideas brewing, steeping, simmering inside so hopefully there's more to come soon.

The Melody Creating Continues Into 2019

Since reading Jeff Tweedy's memoir I've been more inspired than ever to try and create something new (almost every day).  It doesn't have to be good or that different than what came before.  The act of creating is the goal not the end product.

With that in mind, the tunes have continued into 2019.  I found an old Guatemalan Marimba Chapinlandia LP at a thrift store and this one called Liquid Yepocapa is inspired by the music on that album.  Guatemalan marimba music often has a ragtime or foxtrot feel.  This was written from January 4 to 5.  I recorded this on 1/5/19 using my Ome tenor banjo.  The tune is a little tricky to play and I was still getting the feel of it when this was recorded.

Fortunately I've never really gotten into too much of a rut, but when I am feeling that way one option is to scan through this book of scales I have called Musical Scales of the World by Michael Hewitt.  It's one of the best music books I own.  On January 9 I was looking through the section of this book on Japanese pentatonic scales and happened upon this melody while playing the Minyõ scale (page 157).  With C as the starting note, the Minyõ scale is C, Eb, F, G, Bb, C.  This is a super simple melody that is fun to play.  Here I am today playing it on glockenspiel.  Hopefully this year I'll get a better mallet instrument.

On January 10 I came up with this melody called Walls and Ceiling while playing my Keith McMillen K-Board.  I'll spare you the placeholder words I used to flesh out the melody, but this was an example where by syncing the syllables of words to the sound of the melody helped solidify it in my mind.  This is just a one part tune.  It's rare that something feels complete without at least a 2nd part but this one feels good as it is.  I hadn't played guitar in a few weeks so I was figuring out where the guitar notes were for this melody as I was recording it.  This is one of the first takes where I got through with no major note flubs.

Last night I picked up the banjo at about 10pm with no intention of playing for a long time or doing anything in particular.  Three hours later it was 1am and I had been playing that whole time, with a bunch of musical notes written out on tab paper.  Some of those notes come from here.  No Hamsters Allowed.

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Tunes 78, 79 and 80! Inspired by John Kadlecik, Dorothy Ashby, Steve Kimock and Hailu Mergia

I've got a little catching up to do because I've neglected to share tunes 78 and 79, and just this morning I wrote number 80. So here goes.

John Kadlecik has an excellent new CD called ON THE ROAD.  My favorite track on that album is the song Seen Love.  It's very well recorded and there are some jammy composed bits that really stand out.  So I came up with my own melody (hopefully my own melody) called Shooby Doo Weep based on parts of that song Seen Love.  A third part got added to Shooby Doo Weep and for that third part I pulled from the Dorothy Ashby composition Action Line.  (Dorothy Ashby was a jazz harpist.  Look her up, especially her album AFRO HARPING).  It would be best if the similarities between what I wrote and the source material is only in my head only not straight up plagiarism, but I don't have a good enough ear to tell.

Shooby Doo Weep



In early December I was reading Joel Selvin's book Fare Thee Well on the "Grateful Dead's" post-Jerry years, which made me want to re-listen to those April 1999 Phil and Phriends shows featuring Phil Lesh, Trey Anastasio, Page McConnell, Steve Kimock and John Molo.  I remember those shows being a huge deal when they happened almost 20 years ago and the music made across those three nights has stood the test of time.  On the first night 4/15/99 before going fully into Uncle John's Band the group plays around with a really cool sounding Caribbean melody, which I just learned for the first time is the Steve Kimock tune A New Africa.  I searched for another version of A New Africa and the first thing that came up was a Steve Kimock show from 2/22/2002.  I had never really listened to any of Steve Kimock's original music, but I was really taken in by this 2002 recording from the Gothic Theater in Colorado.  In addition to A New Africa, I found myself loving the tunes Cowboy and Cole's Law.  Long story short, Sudden Lee was brought to life by listening to that Kimock music.

I had an initial part that I recorded on glockenspiel which I'll share below.  But I had actually been adding more to this when playing it on banjo.  So here's the main theme on glockenspiel, and then the full version on banjo.

Suddenly glockenspiel


Sudden Lee tenor banjo


Saturday mornings have recently proven to be a very productive time.  If I get up early, around 7AM, and get straight to work, usually by noon I will have created something new that didn't exist before.  That happened again today, thankfully.  Today's tune was inspired by sounds heard on Hailu Mergia's WEDE HARER GUZO album.  (Hailu Mergia is another musician you should look up).  I'm calling this tune Za'atar after the middle eastern spice I used last night in an out of this world vegan-keto fattoush salad with baked ground flax seed in place of the bread.  I really like this one!  But of course the most recently written piece is always going to be a favorite.

Za'atar


OK - that catches it all up to now.

Five Tunes Written on Guitar (Numbers 75 to 71)

I've had my Vagabond Travel Guitar for about five weeks, and as of today I've written five new tunes on it.  These tunes are all fairly simple in structure and a lot of fun to play.  I don't think these would have come into existence if I hadn't gotten that guitar.  They feel like guitar melodies.  Here they are.

Love Awaits
I wasn't planning on writing a tune this morning but a hint of a lyric came to me while plucking the guitar around 9am today. It had sort of a bluegrass, mountain-music type feel to it so I jotted down the notes in this melody based on the sounds of the lyrics I was hearing in my head. Written and recorded on 10/27/18.

Daylight Graveyard
I was listening to the Manu Dibango album "B Sides" on Spotify when the track Fleur De Marigot caught my ear. This melody called Daylight Graveyard is partially influenced by that tune. It was written on 10/1618. Recorded 10/24/18.

Armadillo Babirusa
I came up with Armadillo Babirusa while having the sound of the Bill Frisell composition Amarillo Barbados in my head. Hence the similarity in titles. Written 10/12/18. Recorded 10/24/18.

Double Ruler
I wrote this tune on 10/10/18 - a day when I had been listening to the new Bacao Rhythm and Steel album as well as Bill Frisell's The Willies. I picked up my Vagabond guitar and these notes immediately poured out of it. This recording was made on 10/24/18.

Polecat
This is the first tune I wrote on the Vagabond guitar.  It was written on 9/29/18 and recorded 10/1/18.  The idea for this melody came to me while listening to Joe Craven's Camptown album on Spotify. I hummed a skeleton of this melody the voice recorder and then later worked it out on guitar.

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P4 Tuning Guitar

I've been playing tenor banjo for over ten years now.  Tenor banjo is tuned in fifths, either CGDA or GDAE.  This tuning is very symmetrical, but the fifth interval between the strings means that notes in closed positions don't really fit under the fingers.  To remedy this and yet retain a similar symmetry, I've been thinking that an all fourths tuning would be fun to try.

The day before yesterday I received a left-handed Vagabond guitar made by Kevin Smith of StringSmith.com and tuned it EADGCF.  Note how the two highest strings are tuned up a semitone (from B to C and from E to F, respectively).  One of the first things I did was try and play the major scale across all six strings and as expected it fits very well under the fingers all up and down the neck.

After quickly familiarizing myself with where notes one through seven of the major scale are located, I then analyzed one of my tunes called Frosted Cherry and wrote out the melody in terms of where the notes fall on the major scale.  This is something I learned from David Reed's book Improvise for Real.  See image below, where the numbers begin 3 6 1 3 2 2 2.  In the Cmajor scale this would equate to the notes E A C E D D D.  In the Amajor scale these notes would be C# F# A C# B B B.  And so on.

With the Perfect Fourths (P4) tuning on guitar, you can play all of the notes of the major scale anywhere on the neck.  This also means that in this tuning the above melody to Frosted Cherry can be played in any key, in any position on the neck without ever having to use open strings.  This type of lead sheet replaces both guitar tab and sheet music and transcends key.

To make the recording below I found a random place on the neck to play the major scale.  I then figured out where the notes to Frosted Cherry would fall within that scale and played the tune.  As mentioned above this tune starts on note 3 of the major scale.  I don't even know what key I was in while playing it.  It was about playing out of a position, not a key.

Here's another sound sample.  A tune called Bye Bye Sol.  Recorded 09/23/2018.

That's all I have to say about this right now, but the possibilities seem endless.  

Tunes 62 Through 70

Back on June 10th I posted about a year of writing tunes.  In the three months since then I've added 8 more pieces to my catalog, bringing the total to 70.  That matches the number of compositions published by Thelonious Monk.  Just sayin'.

Time for a rundown I suppose.

Number 62: Emily Redoux, written on 6/24/18
For the A-part of this one I believe I took some of the notes from the written vocal melody to portions of Phish's album version of the title track to Story of the Ghost and re-arranged the rhythm and pacing to match a sound I had in my head.  Then the B-part seemed to just play itself.  There might be a tag at the end that was totally stolen from a melody that came up on Spotify.

Number 63: Show Ponies, written 6/28/18

I had the name Show Ponies before I had the tune.  So I had to write a melody to fit.  I gained inspiration by listening to Gitkin's 5 Star Motel.  However, one part of this tune may actually be completely original that I came up with on my own!

Number 64: Beach Breeze Motel, written 7/5/18

This piece was written to commemorate a vacation to Nova Scotia.  Played here on K-Board using the SampleTank app "Alto Sax" sound.  Ideas in this have been borrowed from or at least galvanized by Eamon O'Leary's song The Second Bottle.

Number 65: Yam Cakes and Ackee, written 7/23/18
Beginning with Yam Cakes and Ackee, I got on a little three-tune Caribbean kick.  I came up with this tune after listening to some St. Croix Quelbe music and the reggae group Black Uhuru. It was fairly effortless.

Number 66: Bye Bye Sol, written 8/9/18
I had a head full of ideas after seeing Phish for three nights in Alpharetta, Georgia in early August 2018. Bye Bye Sol and its sister tune La Luz are both composed almost entirely of sounds I heard (or thought I heard) in the music played during those three nights.  I couldn't wait to get home and get these ideas onto paper.

Number 67: La Luz, written 8/9/18
As mentioned above, tunes 66 and 67 were both distilled from music played by Phish on their stunning Summer 2018 tour.  With a name like La Luz, it's likely this tune owes its existence to the version of the song Light played by Phish on 8/7/18 in Camden, NJ.  Hot off the press.


Number 68: The September March, written 9/3/18
Sometimes for a song written by someone else, if I really want to know what the notes are, I'll request a transcription from Built to Last Music Notes.  I did that a few weeks back for a ragtime sounding number from the year 1916 called Guatemala-Panama March by the Hurtado Brothers Royal Marimba Band.  However, soon after sending that for transcription I decided to come up with my own melody based on the sound of that Hurtado Brothers composition.  Four days later this had become The September March.  I'm curious to see what the actual notes are when I get the transcription.  That'll help me know how "original" this one is.


Number 69: Not a Care in the World, written 9/12/18
For some reason this week I thought of and then felt like listening to the album of O'Carolan music released by mandolinist Butch Baldassari back in 2007.  The very first track - a set of two tunes for Young William Plunkett - caught my ear and made me want to write a melody just like it.  So I did.  Maybe this is too much like it!  What I ended up with was a notey, three-part, repetitive tune.  It's called Not a Care in the World because I was writing it on the Wednesday before Tropical Storm Florence was supposed to arrive.  I like that major to minor transition which happens between the two tunes in Baldassari's setting. Something similar happens here but it is between parts A and B.

Number 70: Little Cat Nicholas, written 9/12/18
On the occasion that a melody comes to me out of the blue, I'll usually try and hum it into my phone's voice recorder for later use.  Forget about that for a moment.  Earlier this week, late in the evening just before bed, I was putting away my banjo when I pulled it back out and began improvising a quiet, pretty, waltzy melody on the instrument for a few minutes. I didn't record it. I put the banjo away and went to sleep.  A day or two later - this would have been 9/12 - I decided to recall that melody.  I'm pretty sure this is that. I called it Little Cat Nicholas:  our temperamental cat Nicholas is approaching 20 years of age and is not long for this world, so this tune is dedicated to him.  Anyway, after all that I noticed a recording on my phone titled generically as "hummed melody" and it's pretty much this same tune.  So this was floating around for a little while and needed documenting.

Biting Cat Nicholas having a typically lazy day.  September 15, 2018.

Seventy.  Whew.  These are so much fun to play!

Silverleaf Travolin Travel Mandolin

Luckily I was home this morning when my Travolin mandolin by Silverleaf Instruments arrived a day early!  The Travolin is a high quality travel mandolin made by Steve Hallee in Maine.  Mine is a custom 4-string left-handed version (normally they have 8-strings just like a regular mandolin).

For reasons unknown I woke up this morning wanting to learn the Monty Norman song Under the Mango Tree from the James Bond movie Dr. No.  When the Travolin was delivered I had just about gotten the tune of it so Under the Mango Tree was the first thing I played on the Travolin.  That islandy song seems well suited to this instrument.  Here's an overdubbed recording I made today with the Travolin as lead melody, my Romero tenor banjo for the chords, and a metal scraper on a metal patio table to "approximate" the sound of a snare drum.

This 4-string version of the Travolin is 20 inches long and 5.5 inches wide.  It has a scale length of about 13.25 inches.  It's the best feeling, sounding and playing travel mandolin I've had, and the most compact.

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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.

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Why Glockenspiel?

My Vic Firth Glockenspiel

I recently got a glockenspiel and it has instantly become a favorite instrument of mine!  A glockenspiel is a small metallic xylophone with tuned keys.  It has a high-pitched, percussive sound.  The word Glock means "bells" and Spiel means "to play".  Together, glockenspiel means "a play of bells".  I ordered mine + mallets from Rob Zollman, who was excellent to work with.  So why did I get one?

Reason Number One:  Anna Meredith Plays One!
I hadn't heard of Anna Meredith before watching this Tiny Desk concert video, but I really liked her music and enjoyed seeing her play a little metallophone/xylophone during some of her compositions.  That was the inspiration right there.  I actually didn't know what a glockenspiel was until watching that video and had to look it up online to learn more.  A day later I had ordered one!

Reason Number Two:  It's a Legit Mallet Percussion Instrument
The primary mallet percussion instruments are vibraphone, marimba, xylophone and glockenspiel.  I've been wanting a mallet percussion instrument for some time now and glockenspiel allows me to have one.  I had also considered the Pearl malletSTATION or the MalletKAT but those are more modern, technology-based mallet percussion instruments.  The glockenspiel is a good old traditional acoustic instrument.  I also like how mallet instruments are designed like piano keyboards with the white keys on the first row and the black keys above them, but you strike the keys with mallets.

Reason Number Three:  It's Inexpensive
I've known about vibraphones and marimbas for a while, but I also knew that even halfway decent ones had a hefty price tag.  I wasn't going to get one of those any time soon.  However for about $150 you can get a pretty good glockenspiel and some really good mallets, and be all set.  So why not?

Reason Number Four:  It's Compact
Even if I could afford a vibraphone, I wouldn't have room for it.  My house is pretty small and because I like to have my instruments handy, the amount of space an instrument would take up is definitely a factor.  The glockenspiel I got is 32 keys, which is plenty to play any melody I want, but still small enough to fit on top of a bookshelf in the living room.

Reason Number Five:  It's Low Maintenance
One of the things I find distracting about a stringed instrument is having to tune it.  I just want to play an instrument that's already in tune and doesn't need to be fiddled around with.  I could be naive about this, but I began playing the glockenspiel right out of the box and haven't made any adjustments to it yet.  I like how it's always just ready to be played.  If I'm walking by it I can stop and spend a minute playing a tune before moving on.  Very cool. Perfect for super-econo practice sessions.

Reason Number Six:  The Bell-like Tone
Another word for a glockenspiel is "bells".  Some people might not like the high-pitched tone of a glockenspiel but I do.  The sound reminds me of the bells used during a yoga or meditation class.  Meditation bells are said to have a cleansing sound and vibration.  The purity and clarity of the glockenspiel's sound may have similar effects, and at the very least the bell-like tone is a reminder to return to a state of mindfulness in all walks of life, not just in music.

The glockenspiel is also considered a children's instrument.  Children, by their very nature, are beginners, and so again there could arguably be a Zen connection to the glockenspiel via "beginner's mind".  Beginner's mind refers to dropping our expectations and preconceived ideas about a subject, and seeing things with an open mind and fresh eyes, just as a beginner would.  I started playing the glockenspiel as a 44 year old beginner so I hope to retain that beginner's mind for as long as I play it.

Over the last year I've written about 57 tunes.  Most of these were written on tenor banjo but not necessarily for tenor banjo or any one specific instrument.  Quite often I randomly select five of these tunes using a card-turning selection process and after playing the five on my banjo I usually select one of them to try out on the glockenspiel.  Every single tune so far has been just as fun to play on the glockenspiel as it is on the banjo!  This gets the music out from under the fingers and off of any one particular instrument and into the brain.

Here's a a new tune I recorded this morning on the glockenspiel:

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Tunes 51 Through 56 (The Hits Keep Coming)

I was recently listening to Terry Gross' interview with John Oliver on Fresh Air.  During the conversation, John Oliver mentioned that he played viola as a teen.  He said, "The better I got at it, the more frustrating I found playing it because I realized that I could not make the music sound the way I wanted to make it sound. And it was so infuriating because you just feel so impotent.  There were girls that I played with - when they played the violin could make it sound just spectacular. And I knew if I practiced for the rest of my life I would never be able to make it sound like that. So it was that weird situation of as I got kind of good at it the more and more I wanted to smash it into a wall.  When you start being able to technically play the notes of like an incredible piece like the Bach Double Concerto - just one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written - and playing it at my absolute best I was always butchering it. So it was really, really disappointing to kind of feel that the better I got, it felt like the worse I actually was".

I've experienced this frustration myself.  To overcome that hurdle, I set about writing my own personal repertoire of music to play that is mine and mine alone - little melodies I can play for enjoyment that are free from any genre, style, quality, precedent, example, tradition, expectation or sound other than my own devising.  OK cool.  That's now done.  I have 50+ tunes.  Enough to last a lifetime.

Last month I saw Bill Frisell play in New York City.  With him were Thomas Morgan, Rudy Royston and Eyvind Kang.  The improvised musical repartee that this quartet was able to achieve was both transcendent and discouraging.  The ease at which these guys made music together was an ever present reminder that what I'm doing is something completely different.  To overcome that valley I had to hit the reset button and realize that what I'm doing is something completely different.  So there.

When I reached 50 tunes in February - three months earlier than goal - I gave my mind a break.  However, I'm always going to have a creative drive that can't be turned off.  Fortunately I have an open tap and whether it's a blank page or a musical instrument, shit is going to come out.  It might be shit, but shit is going to keep coming.  That can't be stopped.

Tune number 51 is called Flea Circus.  I had the title before I had the melody, so it was going to be the title of whatever I wrote next.  This is what I wrote and it came to me almost immediately after hearing the Arthur Russell album Love Is Overtaking Me for the first time.

Number 52 is Doro Wat.  In this case I had the melody first.  I stole it almost entirely from the music of Mulatu Astatke who is basically the inventor of Ethiopian Jazz.  Soon after "writing" this music I needed a title and found the words Doro Wat which I learned was an Ethiopian chicken stew.  At my first opportunity I went to an Ethiopian restaurant to sample Doro Wat, and yes it is tasty!

Tune number 53 is called A Weird Drame.  It's a direct result from seeing Bill Frisell in New York.  During his first set that night he played his tune Baba Drame.  That sound stuck with me and the first time I picked up my banjo after returning home a melody very similar to that was the first thing I played.  The same exact notes you hear here.  Before leaving for New York, I had already been working on a little melody that I had hummed while listening to melodica player Augustus Pablo.  In the interest of convenience and synchronicity I forced that Augustus Pablo type melody upon the Bill Frisell/Baba Drame inspired melody.  A Weird Drame indeed.

Number 54 is called Kestrel.  I guess there are four mini parts to it.  It's a combination of things but I can't remember what the genesis was.  Some of it might be from steel drum music.  But steel drums have 55 notes not 54.  I know that one section of this was in my head as I woke up one morning and I played what I had heard in my head on the banjo as soon as I had gotten up and walked downstairs.  The rest of it - or all of it - might be an exercise in trying to make distinctive melodies out of a small amount of notes.

Tune 55 is Now Defunct.  I pride myself on not being able to transcribe by ear very well.  This is how I convince myself that I've written an original melody instead of a direct note for note copy of something someone else came up with.  So hopefully that happened here, although a trained ear might hear a similarity to an obscure composition called Funky Resurgence by Ulysses Crockett.  I noticed that because Funky Resurgance's head melody was my source for Now Defunct, but upon transcribing/writing it I noticed an unexpected similarity to the Phish song Meat.  Cool.  I love stuff like that.  The B-part was just slapped on spur of the moment.  This may be a continuation of the trend to write really simple, sparse melodies with just a few notes.

Finally, tune 56 is called Wanderley.  Six tunes in less than two months might be a fairly fast pace, but it's not as fast as the 50 tunes I wrote over nine months from June 2017 to February 2018.  I don't feel as much pressure to create right now, being content with the 50+ tunes I've got.  I can't even get to all of them in a week now unless I play an average of 8 per day.  Anyway, I had a little melody going based on what sounded to me like the vocal line of the Bad Religion song Operation Rescue.  It was too insignificant to stand on its own so I shelved it temporarily.  Meanwhile I was listening to the Brazilian organist Walter Wanderley and as a result came up with a tropical sounding melody.  I played with some more experimental sounding B and C parts for it, but then I realized that the teeny tiny little Bad Religion based melody could be tacked right on and a simple, fun tune was now in existence.  I would like to welcome Wanderley to the world.

That's all I got for now. 

50 Tunes in Less Than Nine Months!

I had a goal to write 50 tunes in one year.  The first tune of the 50, Toca Paseo, was completed on June 14, 2017.  The 48th tune, Frosted Cherry, was written on January 31, 2018.  In a little over 230 days I had come up with 48 new tunes to play.  Just two more to go.

I spent the first few days of February in a state of malaise, with subtle waves of illness making their presence known.  Although I never fully succumbed to whatever malady was horning in, it did stifle my interest in playing music and being creative for a few nights.  Instead of holding a banjo, I just wanted to hold a book and then go to sleep.  Some part of me may have been wanting to delay this process to hold on to the chastity of a project nearing consummation.

More and more, I've been applying words to a melody - a syllable for each musical note to use as a reminder.  I hadn't tried it the other way around - adding a melody to words - but I knew that for one of my last two tunes I wanted to try doing that for a Marosa di Giorgio poem.

The Curtis Mayfield/Impressions song People Get Ready had been stuck in my head recently.  With that in mind, early in the morning on February 8th I opened the Marosa di Giorgio book of poems I Remember Nightfall to page 197 and all of a sudden the words on that page began to sing.  It begins:  All of a sudden, gladioli were born. In a high place, in the North. I know that there are red gladioli, and blue, and black gladioli. Around my house there are only white ones.  I begin to walk toward them.  

Just like that I had found the poem I needed for inspiration.  I extracted a few other lines from the poem and in a manner of minutes had arranged these words on a scratch pad and appointed musical notes for each syllable, without concern for scale or theory or form.  I left for work thinking that I would edit later, but by evening the notes I had selected that morning seemed to solidify.  All of a sudden, there were gladioli.

Gladioli

Getting over the complex hump of tune number 49 made me want to make tune number 50 as effortless and lighthearted as possible.  Upon re-listen to Steve Earle's The Mountain, I took notice of the little instrumental track Connemara Breakdown with new ears.  It's sort of a bluegrass/Celtic mandolin tune, with possible similarities to Red Haired Boy.  

Yesterday morning I played around with the same general theme and came up with something similar, but different.  To add a little meat to it I referred to some scribbling from the night before based on a melody from Jean Ritchie's Folk Songs of the Southern Appalachians.  It all fit and as simple as that, without overthinking it, I had tune number fifty.  

To give this tune a name, I thought back fondly on the tiny Irish village of Roundstone in the Connemara region that I had visited twice over a decade ago.  On one night there in Roundstone I might have set a personal record for most Guinness consumed in one "sitting", but that's another story that I'll have to hash out later.

This Irishy sounding tune provoked Laura to get out her bodhran for the first time in over a year and play along.  A mini Cardinal Puffin reunion of sorts.  I hit record to capture the moment.

Roundstone

What happens now?  I suppose I continue to enjoy the 50 tunes I've written, but also consider it done and start a whole new batch of tunes.  No need to rush though. 

***

January's Tunes: Numbers 40 Through 48

I'm getting close to reaching my goal of writing 50 tunes in a year. Very close. There's 48 now in a span of 8 months.  In January I added 9 new pieces of music.

Goodbye Carnival

If I achieve this goal of writing and playing my own tunes, then a possible negative is giving up the Caribbean melodies I had been playing for enjoyment.  So Goodbye Carnival (and Domovoi from the month prior) is an attempt to carry over elements of those Caribbean tunes into this new format while also leaving them behind.

Tropical Tango

You can see this Caribbean trend continuing in the naming of this tune at least: Tropical Tango.  When I was writing it I wasn't concerned with what key or what scale/mode I was using.  I intentionally didn't analyze it and just let the notes fall and resolve where they wanted to.  I naturally ended up with a very common scale (the Major scale) in an unusual key (F#).  The B-part might have an unintentional Beatles similarity.

Latin Lover

Domovoi (12/29/17), Goodbye Carnival (1/1/18), Tropical Tango (1/4/18), and Latin Lover (1/6/18) were all written within a span of 10 days so they feed into each other.  Latin Lover might be more in a Slavic/Balkan territory than the Caribbean, but the first time I played it the name Latin Lover was assigned.

Goner

On 12/29/17 Phish played an exceptional version of their song Chalkdust Torture. At about the 16-minute mark Trey goes into a really fetching melody that is reminiscent of Homeward Bound by Simon and Garfunkel.  Those few measures stuck in my head and I found myself playing similar notes on the banjo - the beginnings of a new tune. I kept hearing the words "Gone, just like a train" in the melody. That is of course the title of a Bill Frisell album which I then listened to.  The 2nd track on Gone Just Like A Train is called Verona, and I took part of the Verona melody and did my normal mixture of getting it wrong and further tweaking.  Now I had a B-part and an A-part...another tune!  Meanwhile, during all this process I was also hearing and playing a melody that is similar to a section of The Grateful Dead's Scarlet Begonias. I slapped that on as the 3rd part and voila - a three part tune!

The Fox That Was Too Foolish

My whole point with writing my own repertoire is to have tunes that are uniquely my own, but it's also fun to carry over aspects of my favorite music into this format.  That's what I've done here with The Fox - perhaps too obviously.  This is definitely veering into Scents and Subtle Sounds territory, but it toys with that spirit just enough to veer in and out of it.  As an aside, I've been loving my K-Board recently.  It's such a fun instrument to play!

Brown Eyed Rig

When I first started playing a musical instrument - tenor banjo - back in 2006 one of the first things I instinctively did was try to write an "original" tune called Brown Eyed Jig, based on the melody to Beautiful Brown Eyes.  Eleven years would go by before I tried writing anything else.  A couple weeks back I found that year 2006 tab for Brown Eyed Jig and realized that by combining some portions, changing the key, and changing the rhythm from a jig to more of a rag, then I could have something of interest.  That became the B-part to this new tune called Brown Eyed Rig.  The A-part I added on 1/18/18 was fairly effortless, and a surprisingly good fit if you overlay them.

Montegno Cedeno

My tunes are instrumentals, but I've found that by adding phonetic, top-of-mind lyrics to them I can better remember how they sound.  Basically, each note in the melody equates to a syllable in the words I insert as reminders.  Sometimes now the rhythm of the words comes first.  That happened here with "Montegno Cedeno, the merchanteer", or "Montegno Cedeno, a merchant she".  It doesn't have to mean anything other than the sound it makes.  More syllables/notes followed "Danced for the guard-yun of the Redwood tree" / "Trained with the master of the Wu tai chi".  The B-part - where I heard the words "the soul of the sphere, the soul of the sphere, pumpkin of the patchwork, the giant hunts the deer" - matched up to portions of King Pharoah's Tomb by STS9.

Coffee and Tea

This whole time now I've been wanting to write something in 6/8 time that could be thought of as being jig-like.  That might have happened with Coffee and Tea.  Better yet, I was able to incorporate a minor-key vibe I had been wanting to laud.  I can tell where I got the second half of the tune from, but the first half is cloaked in a mystery that even I can't unpack.

Frosted Cherry

That was going to be it for January, but then Frosted Cherry turned up.  I already had the name Frosted Cherry and was fairly certain that my next tune - to be written in February 2018 - was going to be called that.  However, it got written and completed by January 31st.  It's so diluted that even Trey Anastasio may not be able to find it, but some of the notes in the first part of this tune are lifted directly from the Phish song Horn.  The B-part is lifted from what I believe to be a super obscure track called Margarita by Honore Bienvenu Et Son Orchestre from a record called Zouk Vol. 1. Together they are Frosted Cherry.  To record this example of it, I downloaded an app called SampleTank, randomly found the sound Synth Flute and recorded the first (and second) takes.

I'm at 48 tunes now.  I expect to write the last two this month, and already have ideas for those.  Then I'll have 50 and be done, right? 

***

December's Tunes

I'm in the midst of a goal of writing 50 tunes in the span of a year that I could then, presumably, have as a repertoire to play for fun going forward.  In December, six tunes were added to this project.

Pass Code
Pass Code was written on December 6, 2017.  I don't recall the inspiration behind the A-part.  I had spent the first part of December attempting to "transcribe" melodies out of some of the longer jam sections from Phish's Baker's Dozen run.  The A-part of Pass Code came to me independent of that, but for a B-part I looked to the notes I had transcribed from the Phish jams and saw how it could be directly applied, albeit with a different cadence and rhythm.  Pass Code should have a little lilt to it.


Snow Crawl
Snow Crawl was written over a two day period - December 9 and 10 - when we had a very pretty and non-disruptive snow fall in our area.  This was also the weekend of a local beer crawl that I did not participate in.  Instead I stayed home and this melody flowed out in full.  Show Crawl arrived to me as an existing composition that I simply had to transcribe from my own head by what felt like memory.


Tasting Room
Snow Crawl came to me unexpectedly.  I had been trying to write a sequel for Pass Code, or at least a tune that could be paired with it.  It took over a week of labor to come up with Tasting Room, although the end result seems fairly natural.  I'm not sure if it is original, but it serves my needs for a tune of this sort.


Matching the Breeze
Twenty to twenty-five years ago, long before I ever played a musical instrument, I would write little poems that were more like song lyrics than poems.  None of those writings have survived the years, but I can still recall snippets.  So this month I tried setting some of those to music.  I think it worked out in this case, even if I did steal a little bit from Bob Dylan (musically, not lyrically!).


The Gretchen
It's an annual tradition at my house to play Kokomo Jo's Caribbean Christmas album while putting up the Christmas tree.  The tree usually goes up on the night of Winter Solstice.  There's actually a song called Caribbean Christmas on that album and it got stuck in my head this year.  I don't know or care if I properly transcribed it, but I somehow managed to alter the lyrics to that song and apply it to fit words and themes from song lyrics I had written 20+ years ago about the characters Ray Hawk, Kelly Rainbow and The Gretchen. 


Domovoi
I thought I was being pretty creative to take something written in G-major and alter some of the notes to make it more like an Eastern European scale.  What I ended up with though, were the notes in a B-flat major scale with a tonal center of G, which is the same thing as G-minor.  Anyway, I've got a few traditional tunes in major keys from the West Indies and I pulled from aspects of a couple of those to accidentally put together this minor key AA/BB piece which I am calling Domovoi.  A domovoi is a protective house spirit in Russian folklore.

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Seven November Tunes

Back in June I set a goal of writing 50 tunes in a year's time.  With 7 tunes added in November, I'm now up to 33 total - on the way to having 50 tunes by the end of May 2018.  Calendar-wise, this is the half-way point (6 months in).  The act of writing tunes is now more familiar, however, the concern over when is this going to get difficult is now apparent.  Am I repeating myself?  Falling back on repetitive patterns, characteristics, or intervals?  Is that wrong?  I had these concerns a few times in November.

The first November tune was actually written on November 1st.  To compose it I took some personal catchphrases from my childhood and added melodies to the rhythm of those nonsense sayings.  That supplied an A and B part.  Then I tacked on a winterish melody I had been playing around with to make a C part.  I don't always care if parts go together musically or thematically.  If I was writing them both around the same time then they fit together for other reasons.

Fall Winter Cold


After writing Fall Winter Cold, which arrived almost effortlessly, most of a week went by with no tangible results.  For several days I played around with an idea inspired by the sound of a children's TV show theme and/or a 1950's girl singing act.  I almost gave up until I realized that I might have something there.  What I arrived at was almost too minimal - more of a jingle than a fully fleshed out tune - but I really like it. 

Virginia Fur


I have a book called Musical Scales of the World by Michael Hewitt.  If/when I run I run out of ideas, my thought was that I could refer to that book and see if any melodies could be derived from an unusual scale.  On the morning of November 14th, I had about ten minutes to spare before I had to leave for work so I opened the book randomly to the page on the Major Blues Scale, which, believe it or not, was brand new to me.  The very first thing I played upon looking at that scale has become the A-part to The Sparrow Blues.  It seemed good enough to me.  I wrote down those notes before leaving for work.  By the time I had gotten home that evening I had an idea for the B-part: take a Russian folk melody and alter the notes to conform to the Blues Scale.  I walked in the door, got out the banjo, and within 30 minutes had the B-part.

The Sparrow Blues


The Sparrow Blues was ridiculously easy to come up with and it is super fun to play.  A tough act to follow.  Whatever I came up with next was going to be my 30th tune, so that made things a little more difficult.  It took a few days of ruminating, but I pieced together an odd, chilling melody called Change for a Thirty.  Something I've been doing recently, which really helps, is to quickly make up words to go with the melody.  In this case those words are (A part) "hey now how 'bout you, have you had enough to do, did the seasons change, be the change you're looking for", and (B part) "take it easy don't look back, it's the same old song, be the change you're looking for".

Change for a Thirty


There's a screw in my bed roll isn't anything I had to write - it was just....there.  Words and melody.  It was a non-premeditated improvisation that I played on 11/20/17 in real time out of the blue by thinking/singing the words "there's a screw in my bedroll" (whatever that means) while simultaneously playing a melody to go with it.  Without pausing I added "and it's nailed shut doors ten fold", then "all the people there complain about things that they don't know", then returning to "there's a screw in my bedroll".  I played that part again and knew I needed to go higher for the B-part, so without hesitation I went higher and improvised the words/melody "there's a brighter side I know, through open doors once closed, not ev-ry one needs another one, there's a brighter side I know".  Done.  I played it again, and again, and again to make sure this could legitimately be a composition.  Then slept on it.  I might have ultimately changed one note.  Will this ever happen again?

Screw in my Bedroll


At this point I was good for the month of November.  Five tunes.  I felt pretty sated, but the inspiration kept coming.  Change for a Thirty and Screw in my Bedroll are both pretty dark and cold, so I pulled a switcheroo with a cliche Jamaican-style melody called Job To Do. (formula = melody first > then words > name of tune taken from words).  Before I decided to write and play my own tunes, I had been learning and playing Caribbean melodies.  The 5th tune I wrote - Bougainvillea Moon - is a Caribbean melody, but Job To Do might be the first overtly Caribbean feeling tune since then.  I try to write melodies without any discernible relation to a style of music other than my own, but with Job To Do it's inevitable that it sounds Jamaican.

Job To Do


I was home sick on November 30th with a cold, but not too sick to play the banjo.  So with instrument in hand and the general sound of three songs in my head (I'm A Lonesome Fugitive by Merle Haggard, As I Went Out One Morning by Bob Dylan and Greenville by Lucinda Williams) I started plucking out a melody, with no intention of actually composing a tune on the last day of the month.  Four hours later, after having being sucked down the creative wormhole and forgetting to eat or drink or dwell on the fact that I was congested with a sore throat, I had something.  I love that feeling of churning out a melody.  After letting it sit for 48 hours, I just played through Night Time To Day again this morning and it can stay, having gotten in on the last day of November.

Night Time Today


That was the November re-cap.  I'm 66% of the way at the half-way point.