Things is the name of a piano piece that my sixteen-year-old just wrote for his end-of-semester recital at the local junior college. He was somewhat hesitant about taking the class when we discussed it back in August, but he seems to have mostly enjoyed it, now that the semester is in the rear view mirror.
Anyway, the event was last night… so here’s Jesse at the recital. As you can probably detect (if you have a few threads of Sherlock Holmesian DNA woven into your deerstalker cap), I’m immensely proud of him.
I’m not sure what the relevance of the name is to the music, but it is undeniable that music is made up of things. Math, frequencies, emotion, sound waves, patterns, vibrations, timbre, pitch, the displacement of air, strange organizations and arrangements of wood, metal, fibre, etc that are sculpted together into various instruments. And creativity, of course.
Music is a strange one. It’s decidedly odd that we (the humans) find it collectively appealing, attractive, inspiring, haunting–all manners of responses that are common to vast multiples of people. True, I might not find certain tonal patterns and scales of other cultures appealing, but it is equally true that vast numbers of those cultures genuinely find them appealing.
Music and sunsets. The affable golden retriever is impressed by neither. Which really does beg a few questions about what exactly we are as humans. And what we are not, seeing that we aren’t golden retrievers, rhinos, gerbils, etc.
One of my son Jesse’s gamer friends, Alex, recently asked him to write a blues piece. And Jesse, always up for a musical challenge, did so–hence, the aptly named Alex Blues, courtesy of JB Proof music.
Jesse has been experimenting with jazz and blues: chord structures, improv, syncopation, and all that beautifully blurry stuff. I appreciate watching the creative and educational process, particularly in seeing a kid self-propel through the endless sea of music that has not yet been written, finding his own hither-to undiscovered gems and yet-unnamed seahorses as he sails along.
Unrelated side note: have we reached the time in human history when the proverbial pig is flying? I think so. More on that later, but not during this post.
If you have a moment, check out his collection so far at Youtube, written under the name of JB Proof (not the proverbial flying pig, but Jesse). Subscribe and leave a comment–creatives always appreciate the encouragement. I’m not entirely clear on his songwriting name. JB for his initials, obviously, but proof… perhaps proof that he’s alive, creative, has keyboard and will travel? Dunno.
The proof is out there, to borrow from Mulder and Scully.
These songs are just Jesse, a Mac, a midi keyboard, an audio interface, some JBL speakers, and Logic Pro. I probably need to invest some money at Spitfire and buy him some new collections of samples to harness to that keyboard (particularly brass), but good samples are expensive…
In other creative news, I’m just about done with a new book, clocking in at about 200,000 words. Epic fantasy, of course, but reasonably light-hearted. In comparison to my other epic fantasy books, this one is in between the serious Hawk and His Boy series and the comedic Fury Clock, but somewhat closer to Fury Clock.
The new book has a definite plot ending, but the overall story is positioned perfectly for endless sequels. That said, I might publish the initial 200,000 words in five episodes of around 40,000 words apiece (and make them as cheap as possible at 99 cents each, as well as enrolled in Kindle Unlimited); this would be in order to set up an ongoing approach of adding additional episodes. Writing a 40,000 word episode or novella is a lot easier than writing a 200,000 gravestone.
Anyway, still pondering that approach.
In other news, I have come to the almost spiritual realization that bacon is a sublime food. It is the perfect combination of salt, sweet, texture, aroma and seductive visual appeal. Why didn’t I realize this when I was young? I have wasted so many years.
I recently noticed in one of those fleeting, drive-by-news clips that there’s a (sorely misguided) movement in England to ban bacon. Perhaps due to an odd love of pigs and wanting to see them frolicking in fields as opposed to frolicking on your plate? At any rate, this worries me for the future of England. The little rainy island with cramped roads has given the world so much: Lewis, Tolkien, Chesterton, Shakespeare, Monty Python, the Magna Carta, Drake and other assorted explorers, William Wilberforce, a wider appreciation for tea (which I don’t appreciate myself, but my wife does, so I’ll honor England on her behalf), clotted cream, and Stonehenge.
To sum up the current situation: celebrate England’s past, look with grave concern on her current bacon perspective, tell your Aunt Edna about my books, and listen to some more JB Proof music.
And if anyone has a new comedic fiction book they can honestly recommend to me, I would love that. Nothing with millionaire or billionaire in the title, please. In my modest and incredibly humble opinion, the vast majority of the titles in Amazon’s humor bestseller list do not seem to be humor. Does humor even exist anymore?
My second son has been writing and recording more music. His latest, Nowhere, just went live. He constantly amazes me with his creativity. Writing and recording music has been a constant in my life since the late 80s. I think one of the key beginnings of that arc was when I was on staff with Youth With a Mission in Lausanne, Switzerland. Several friends and I started a practice of writing birthday songs for whenever someone had a birthday. We usually just did rewrites of existing songs and then performed them during lunch or dinner, to the great embarrassment of the song’s object.
And things progressed from there, into my first two albums (acoustic folk with my good friend Lionel), the hard rock Autumn War years of playing in bars and random venues in the Chicago area, to the folk-protest of several albums I did back in California (precipitated by the rewrite of the Monterey County General Plan and all its attendant lunacy), to the more recent electronica of my Inflatable Hippies effort, as well as a Christmas carol album with completely rewritten melodies but traditional lyrics.
Creating music isn’t always the easiest thing. As compared to eating snacks and watching Netflix or any other number of rather pointless pursuits.
So, hats off to Jesse. You can find his music (13 songs so far) on Youtube, Amazon, Itunes, Spotify, Deezer, etc etc. Here’s a Youtube link to get you started. Nowhere, Stories and Circus Act are his newest songs.
Speaking of hats off, my brother Mike is currently coordinating planes and helicopters out of central North Carolina, in order to move supplies into flood-ravaged spots in the western part of that state. He’s a helicopter instructor at the JAARS base in Waxhaw and has been flying helicopter and fixed wing for decades.
Remember those parts of the East Coast in your prayers. It’s only the first of October.
Son #2 just finished a new song called Legacy. It’s available at most of the usual places. In terms of light and darkness, his music is full of light and shadows. You can’t avoid the shadows down here on Earth if you really want to see how bright the light is.
Contrasts are necessary for context.
In writing news, I’m about 90% done with a new epic fantasy. It’s currently around 170,000 words. Once the draft is finished, I’ll go back through it to adjust things–(probably) mostly character arcs and sub plots.
I find the revision process more enjoyable than the first draft process. Polishing, nudging, refining, deepening, adding in narrator perspective, all that sort of thing. The danger for me in the revision process is allowing perfection and good to get in a protracted battle. Those can be lengthy battles, kind of similar to the Hundred Years War between England and France in the Middle Ages. Edward III should not be allowed a hand in any writing.
The new fantasy is about halfway in between the Tormay trilogy and the Fury Clock in terms of the mix of seriousness versus humor. Maybe an inch or two closer to the South Pole of humor. It contains all of the necessary characters: a semi-delusional farmboy, a dwarf (see photo–yes, I took a photo of him), a wizard, a bad-tempered (but pretty) elf girl, a unflappable swordsman, a stolen map to an Ancient Place You Should Not Visit Unless You’re Fine With a Horrible Death, an extravagant amount of treasure, the Darkness (definitely with a capital D), several psychotic aristocrats, cold ale, and lots of roast boar (in honor of Asterix and Obelix–if you have not read Asterix and Obelix books, you need to get some immediately, as they are pretty much the pinnacle of comic literature).
Speaking of Darkness, the world seems a darker place these days. All the more reason to curl up on the sofa with a good book and an endless supply of snacks. And hopefully not a psycho cat strolling by at random moments to sink her claws into your leg. We just acquired a new kitten who still has not learned when it is appropriate to use claws and when it is not to appropriate to use those same claws. Her name is Pepper and she’s proving to be in the Ghost Pepper-Carolina Reaper category for now. We assume she will mature and make wiser choices sooner than later.
