music journal

I set out early this year with a goal of a small album of original instrumental tunes on my octave mandolin. I was hoping for 10 tracks by the middle of the year. Well it’s just now spring and I’ve got 8 tracks, and my interests at the moment arent on instrumentals, so I’ve decided to call it an album. so here it is:

http://BobWiegersSimpleSongs.googlepages.com/

it’s a short little album, but I’m pretty happy with it. I hope you enjoy.

another Simple one…so named b/c I miss my Michelle, Caleb and Alice right now…

so here’s Missing

there’s 2 slightly different versions of this one…

Midnight take 1

Midnight take 2

this simple song is indeed simple and short. it’s minor and mellow too. named after the little cabin that I first discovered it, where Michelle and I got away to not long ago.

so here’s Cabin 10. it’s actually a little different than the original but that’s fine with me.

so I’m here in Portland Maine for a work thing, and when I have time I’m working on my Simple Songs. after a lovely pub dinner and a couple beers downtown I returned tired but ready to try to get a track down. the only problem was this rather noisey hvac unit outside, but thankfully this track isnt a very quiet one. but I did do a take in the bathroom just to see if it would sound better or not. so here’s the newly dubbed “Portland Waltz”. (I only yesterday realized it’s in 3/4 time, and I figured since I’m putting it down here in Maine, I might as well put it in the name for posterity).

here’s take 1 (in the bathroom) - less mistakes on this one I think

here’s take 2 (in the rest of the room)  - sound is a little more mellow I think

it’s a little tune I’ve been working on for a little while, and it contains 3 simple parts. usually I play the parts ABABCA but sometimes you never know how it’ll come out.

I think one of those takes will do for this one…on to the next!

here’s the 2nd track of my collection of octave mandolin tunes. this one is a medley of little lullaby tunes from our family. the first part is actually a composition of Caleb (our 3 year old) who made up this song last year. it’s called “Birdies Fly Away”, and he used to go around singing it in his cute little warbling voice. I’m very proud of his little song, so I wanted to capture it. the 2nd part is an old lullaby called “By Low My Baby” (or however that should be spelled) from when Michelle was a kid. it was apparently on an old record they had, and Michelle’s dad sang it to our kids this summer, and it’s become a nightly requirement ever since. finally, the 3rd part is a little ditty I made up when Caleb was a baby, called “You’re my baby (and I love you)”. I still sing it with the kids now and then. not really a lullaby, but a fun little thing we do. anyway, the last little tag is a bit from the first two parts, and if sung, it would say: “Birdies fly away. all through the night.” for some reason I really like that.

the medley is simple enough, but for some reason I couldnt quite it right when I was trying to record it. I did a bunch of takes and always messed up a little something each time. I guess that’s the trials of recording stuff. so I eventually gave up on getting the perfect take and took the best one and edited it a little. ideally I’d like to have a better version, but it was getting late. I also think I’m playing it a little faster than I should, but I think it otherwise turned out OK.

so here is my Lullaby Medley. as always, feedback is welcome. now on to the next track…perhaps something a little minor.

Michelle and I had an awesome weekend away, and I took advantage of the down time to mess around with some song ideas. you can hear the fireplace in the background on some of them. so here they are with tentative titles, more for my own sake so they dont get lost on my harddrive.

Cabin 10 - a pretty mellow walkdown thing.

Fire and smoke - a small idea that I came across without even thinking about it. it reminds me of something, but I’m not sure what…perhaps everything else I do, since everything is starting to sound the same to even me :-)

Darkest Day - I wrote lyrics to a cheesy/fun pop song that was inspired by the winter solstace. here’s a rough idea what the tune might be for it.

Thirty One - today is my 31st birthday. here’s a little jam for it. still needs work of course.

Jim and I played my little song in church, but with a wonderful twist: Jim figured out that he could weave the melody for “All Creatures of Our God and King” through my picking. it took us a little while to figure it out, and it could actually use a little more polishing, but I think the result was very nice. some folks in church had nice things to say about it too, which is always good to hear. I give full credit to Jim for coming up with the melding and turning this rather simple progression into something much more. playing it during the services I was pretty nervous, so I messed it up a little, but probably not enough that anyone besides Michelle and Jim would notice. so I’m glad and thankful that it went pretty well. I’m still not very confident in my songwriting and solo playing abilities, especially in the context of church, but I think experience is helping. as my good friend Lynn reminds us, when you’re serving God with what He’s given you, you cant give into fear.

so here’s a rough version from our practice session. it’s not quite right here, but then again I dont think we ever got it quite right…

this Sunday will be a first: we’re going to play one of my songs in church. it’s the instrumental song I’ve been working on lately that I’ve been calling “Solitude“. I’ve actually never really liked this title, so I’ve renamed it to “Be Still” — partly because it’s silly to call a song “Solitude” if there’s more than one person playing, partly in reference to the “Be still and know that I am God” passage, and partly in reference to Katie’s awesome painting of the same title.

so Jim is going to back me up on bass (or perhaps mandolin) and I’ll be on my octave with my little tune. I’m more nervous than usual, since the last time I tried something similar almost exactly a year ago it didnt go too well (see the last paragraph). but the difference is this is my song, so it’s pretty well ingrained in me.

since it’s essentially a one chord song, we’re keeping it short. I’m looking forward to what Jim will come up with, and hoping and praying that it will be a help to our worship service.

I might rename this little tune, but as of now I’m calling it “solitude”. this is the first of my handful of song ideas that I’m working on to make into a proper song (whatever that might mean). I like what I’ve got so far, and I’ve been working on it today, trying different instruments over top of this to see what might work. I didnt get much that I liked out of the regular mando, but I did find a nice walkdown kinda thing on the guitar, which would probably be good on a bass. so maybe I’ll get together with Mark and see if we cant make something a little nicer out of this.

here’s “solitude” so far.