Heather S. Ingemar's Blog, page 29

Would you buy a digital-only E.P.?

Basically, an E.P. is a short album. Used to be 20 minutes or under in length, but now I think the term is more used to describe a half album (about 6 songs instead of the 10-13).

I want put out some music utilizing the electric guitar (aka. The Balrog). So far I have two new songs (“Holes” is one of them) written for the electric, but I have at least three others that I would like to re-release (“Bad Penny,” “You Never Were Mine,” and possibly either “All the Hardest Things,” or “Lose You”).

I also would like to do release some of my more medieval-themed music. (“Gypsy,” which is unrecorded, and “Monster”)

My issue is — those projects do not mix, and neither of them are enough for a full album by themselves. And my musical tastes change so quickly I really have no idea what I will turn out in the coming months. So here’s my question:

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As far as pricing goes, I probably wouldn’t charge any more than $5 or $6 for either of them, but they would only be available off my Bandcamp site.

Thoughts?

Demon’s Music II: “Tough”

“Again, from the top, Piano-Girl. You’re not doing it right.”

Miss Poulan tossed her heavy hair behind her shoulder and cleared her throat. Adjusting her stance, the older woman prepared to sing.

Maren took a breath. Her fingers ached from practicing with the self-proclaimed ‘Diva of Brisby,’ and the notes of the aria’s accompaniment blurred on the page in front of her. In fact, the black and white keys of the rehearsal room piano wobbled most disturbingly. Maren tilted her head at the keyboard until the nauseating motion stopped. How many times had they been through the aria already this afternoon? Thirteen? Twenty? She wasn’t sure, only that they’d started when the late sun still slanted in the windows and it was full dark now… Nevertheless, Maren bent her stiffening fingers to the keys and began to play under Miss Poulan’s stern glare.

She wasn’t a bad singer, Maren mused as she listened to Miss Poulan belt forth the melody. In fact, her voice sounded rather lovely. But the woman herself tended to be…

“Piano-Girl! You make it sound so heavy!”

…Pretentious.

Maren closed her eyes against the shrieking tirade. Dropping her exhausted hands from the keys, she let them hang straight down in an effort to relax the muscles.

“Ugh! I can’t work like this! Nothing will be ready for the Variety Show at this rate!” Miss Poulan stalked about the room, her multiple bracelets jingling with every dramatic movement of her arms. “And you! Piano-Girl!” The raging diva advanced on Maren, snapping her fingers in front of the young woman’s face. “You are lousy! I will have another pianist. Never have I sang so badly! You can’t accompany me properly. Five rehearsals like this — FIVE! I give you more than enough time and now, no more! The manager will hear of this!”

Maren sighed as the angry woman hustled out of the rehearsal room. Maren stretched her arms above her head. The ensuing silence felt good. Leaning her head back, she looked at the worn ceiling, studying the plaster cracks she knew by heart. How had she let herself get stuck as an accompanist for hire? At one time she’d been good enough for solos, for full concerts with her name as the headliner. How had she ended up at the mercy of people like Miss Poulan?

Oh, right. Stage fright. That crippling fear of what lay beyond the curtain. Being an accompanist meant being in the pit where you were hidden from looking like a fool, hidden from judgment, and immune to the paralyzing anxiety. Maren made an exasperated sound. If only she could grow a pair, stand confident under the stage lights…

“Rough session, eh?”

Cal leaned in the doorway, his dark eyes watching her with sympathy.

“You heard?” she asked, leaning forward to gather her music.

“With that woman’s voice, how could I not?” he retorted, smile lines crinkling the edges of his eyes.

Maren snorted, slipping the sheets of music into her briefcase. She pushed back the bench, closed the dust cover over the black and white keys. She walked to the door.

Cal blocked her path. His gaze was serious again, direct. “Don’t let her get you down,” he said. “Your a better musician than any of them give you credit for.”

“Yeah, right,” she muttered, trying to step around him. He put out a hand, grasping her gently by the arm. Their eyes met, and he suddenly looked awkward. He let go.

“I mean it,” he said. “They haven’t heard you playing like I have, after everyone else has left. You’re good. Don’t let people like that diva tear you down.”

Maren took a breath and nodded. “Thanks,” she said, touching him on the arm briefly before heading up the stairwell. She felt his eyes on her until she rounded the corner.

As she passed the new piano on the way to the backstage door, she felt eyes on her again, but she didn’t see Cal anywhere in the shadows.

* * *

This is the second installment of an ongoing serial story — catch up via the Serials page!

Thank You

To whomever purchased some of my music the other day — and to anyone over the years who have purchased my ebooks, music, hired me for creative gigs, or whatever –

THANK YOU.

Thank you for supporting the arts, thank you for valuing creativity and imagination. Thank you for taking a chance on the little guy. Thank you for helping me to continue doing what I do. I hope you enjoy the art I’ve put out there as much as I have enjoyed creating it.

Thank you.

(If you’re new here and would like to see just what it is I do, please check out my music and my writing. And thank you for taking the time to do so!)

More

When I’m not performing, writing songs or fiction, working on the farm, or holding down the Day Job, I teach music lessons. It’s a rough go most of the time, what with scheduling woes, short time slots, and a lot of information to cover. Sometimes the kids aren’t interested; forced into it by their parents, they are merely going through the motions. Sometimes the kids are very excited by the idea of being a musician, but either don’t understand the amount of work involved or their ambitions are bigger than their prowess…

Some afternoons are hard to get through. Sometimes I walk out of a session thinking, “WHAT am I doing?” It’s rough.

And then there are days like today.

I have a young student. She’s a bright girl, and boy does she love her flaming pink 3/4 guitar. She’s always eager, always ready, and she has quite the healthy dose of talent to go along with her desire to learn. Whatever I throw at her, she soaks up. I’ve been teaching her for a few months now, and I was seriously starting to wonder if there was anything she wouldn’t get on the first try…

Today, things started getting tough. But this little girl just furrowed her brow and asked for more.

More!

No hesitation, no self doubt. She admitted the exercise was “tough,” but she still asked for “more.” She amazes me and makes me smile. I know so many adults who, at the first sign of difficulty, say “I can’t” (myself included, though I try hard not to). I know so many adult who simply give up on their dreams when they find out it might be difficult.

Not this wonderful little girl. “More,” she says with an emphatic nod. She knows she can do it with practice, and her desire to achieve outweighs the present difficulty. She informed me that she will be playing and singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” for her school talent show. “I even have it memorized,” she said. “Want to hear?”

And be damned if she played it perfect for me right then and there.

Whether she knows it or not, she’s an inspiration to me, and I’m easily twice her age. Twice her age, dealing with bills and insurance and the rigors of finding paying gigs and trying to sell my art in a poor economy. Feeling tired. Feeling marginalized. Feeling out of place and like I’m treading water.

And there’s this little girl who looks at a difficulty and simply asks for “more.”

It’s a humbling lesson in persistence.

Demon’s Music I: “Piano”

Time to start another serial story, folks. This one’s got mystery, romance, uppity divas, and a cannibalistic piano… Gonna be fun! Enjoy!

* * *

Maren Thompson fell in love with the piano the moment she saw it. “Where’d you find that?” she added the Brisby Theatre manager, Cal, on his way across the backstage area. He frowned, and for a moment his young face showed the age and strain of someone much older.

“We don’t know,” he said. “The movers don’t know. Nobody knows.”

“What do you mean, nobody knows?”

“I mean, this piano shows up on our doorstep when we didn’t order it and the moving company can’t find squat about the sender.” Cal shook his head in exasperation.

“A donation, maybe?” she suggested. It wasn’t unusual for odd pieces of furniture and other things to turn up from fond patrons cleaning out their attic or estate sales.

“Possibly. I’m gonna have a helluva time tracking down who, though.” He scratched his head and wandered off in the direction of his office.

The piano was a tall cabinet grand constructed in ebony wood with wrought silver flourishes crawling over its surface. Silver-edged columns swooped gracefully up from the floor to support the keyboard and bas-relief silver trim laced across every edge of the box. It was stunning, a beautiful piano as far as pianos go, all dark shine and sparkling opulence, and Maren couldn’t breathe.

The piano dominated the narrow space, crammed as it was against the back stage wall among the set pieces and spare curtains.

Reaching out, she caressed the case of the instrument with an open hand, regarding its beauty with a careful eye. “How old are you?” she murmured, moving around to get a better, closer look. She’d never seen an instrument so finely crafted before. Most pianos were simple, utilitarian. She traced her fingers down the front, following the inset silver along the panels. On a whim, Maren retrieved the bench from where they’d left it by the door. Settling it in front of the piano, Maren sat and pried the keyboard dust cover open.

The black and white keys grinned back at her, a full set of teeth in the dim backstage light. Reverently, she touched them, skiing in awe of the perfect ivories. Her little spinet at home, though well cherished, exhibited a badly flawed smile: chips marked every white key and scratches marred most of the black. Maren ran her finger down the edge of the flush keyboard. Positioning her hands, she pressed down on the keys.

A firm, robust chord rolled from the instrument, the low notes rich as honey and the high ones delicate as lace. Beautiful. If Maren didn’t miss her guess, this instrument hadn’t even fallen out of tune with the moving. Shaking her head, she played some more. Hell, this piano sounded way better than the Theatre’s Steinway. Maren smiled, letting her fingers drift over the notes from Miss Poulan’s accompaniment music.

“Where is that accompanist-girl?” shrilled up the stairwell from the basement rehearsal room.

“Speak of the devil…” Maren muttered, returning the bench to its rightful spot underneath the keyboard before setting off to meet her client.

* * *

This is part I of an ongoing serial story. Learn more on the Serials page!

The Finished Project: Hearpa Success!

The strings arrived sooner than I anticipated, and thus, bring my goofy little project to completion:

I’ve also published the final report in .pdf format: Anglo Saxon Hearpe

And the glamour shots…

Click to view slideshow.

Flying Solo

A lot of people seem surprised when they find out I’m a soloist, that I have no musical backup. They seem perplexed when they find out I’m content being a sole proprietor. After all, shouldn’t all musicians aspire to be in a band?

Certainly, I believed that at one time. Now? Not so much. And here’s why:

I had been in bands, duos, trios, and small combos and ensembles for almost my entire musical career. In my band experiences, there’s always someone who does the majority of work, and someone who is a total slacker. There’s also someone who has no concept of time (I.e. punctuality), and someone who micromanages. When you’re a soloist, you are the ONLY one responsible! You do all the work yourself, you’re responsible for being on time, and you can hash over a song until its absolutely the way you want it, IF you feel like it! Sure, going it alone is hard, hard work, but there’s no fights and no ruined gigs because someone didn’t show or didn’t learn their part. Its all on you.

Also, finding rehearsal time can be very tricky. I live in the boonies and I have two very hectic day jobs. It’s hard enough trying to find time for myself to practice, let alone finding time when my crazy schedule meshes with someone else.

Bands also seem to be fairly limited in scope. If you’re a soloist, you can play whatever you want to play, and you don’t have to answer to anyone. If you want it, play it! Easy as that.

Certainly there can be a large amount of enjoyment gleaned from communal music activities (I love me a good jam night). Certainly I’ve been in some really good bands who were more like family than coworkers. But here’s the biggest reason why I have no desire to return to being “one of many” any time soon: I haven’t found myself yet. Up until this recent exploration, my solo experience was limited. In a group, it’s all about blending. No one can stick out or the entire group falls apart at the seams. I got real good at being whoever they wanted me to be. But I didn’t know how to sound like ME. I need time to find out just who I am.

And that’s why I am not tripping over myself to go back just yet. I’m still working on me. With all the writing I’ve done, with all the genres I’ve picked up since I’ve quit the band scene, I’ve come a lot closer to knowing what my musical heart is made of. But I’m still not quite there. There’s a ways to go yet…

Nearly Done!

The tuners arrived! Hooray!

But it meant more sanding. The headstock was way too thick, so it took another round of vigorous sanding. The good news is, the tuners work now! Plus, there was enough room for all eight of them, which means I have more options for tuning it.

At this time I’m considering tuning it in a standard octave, for ease of playing notated medieval music, instead of the older, pentatonic scale. Because there are simply NO resources for Anglo Saxon music. There are plenty of resources for later (10th century on) medieval music, mostly because that’s when the notation system developed. Before that? Nada.

Unfortunately, it appears my strings are back ordered. I strung it up last night with some old strings I had laying around (when I change out strings, I like to keep the old set around for emergency spares), and… So far, so good! Four strings doesn’t help me learn to play anything, but I am pleased with the tone of the instrument (and satisfied that it will actually work!).

It also enabled me to see that I need to reevaluate the tailpiece design. It’s very hard to knot the strings so they stay put around the rope. As soon as they get under tension, they start pulling loose, a little at a time. I’m currently looking at a method using a fat section of copper wire attached to the brass plate, which should give me enough width to do a traditional “classical” nylon string knot….

Back to the drawing board…

Waiting On Parts

I ordered the tuning machines and strings. Nylgut (made by Aquila) is a synthetic substitute for authentic gut strings. They have been engineered to retain the resonance and sound qualities of gut, without the extreme sensitivity to humidity and temperature and without the short life span. Nylgut is also more readily available, and significantly less expensive. I have used them on my ukuleles and have been very pleased with their performance and sound.

These final materials should arrive within the week.

I hate waiting.

In the meantime, Husband has helped me by carving the bridge from oak (a bona fide hardwood, I wasn’t strong enough to hand carve it on my own):

We have also applied the mandatory second coat of Tung Oil finish to the instrument. My concerns about the carved design standing out have proved to be unfounded: as the oil finish dried, the carved sections turned darker in comparison to the rest of the wood.

I’ve also spent some time sanding down the headstock. The specs for the tuners say they will fit head stocks 11/32nds of an inch thick (just a shade under 3/4ths), so my almost-an-inch thick board needs to be skinnified. I’m so sick of sanding, haha.

In the meantime, I’m trying to locate anything I can find on playing the instrument, so I have something to get me started instead of “oh, just make it up…”

All Put Together and No Place To Go… Yet

Assembly went a lot quicker than I thought:

We oiled the inside surface and drilled the sound holes in the morning. We also drilled tiny holes around the outer surfaces to prevent crackage when we installed the finishing nails. Gluing was a snap.

The whole rest of my day was spent transferring the dragon design to the face:

…carving it, and lots and LOTS of sanding. Husband took turns with me, and we watched two History channel specials and half of a sci-fi movie before I deemed it finished. It is now ready for its outer coat of oil!

I have also solved the tailpiece issue. During our Home Depot trip, we came across a set of brass entry cover plates. They are intended to sandwich over an old doorknob hole, but I think them perfect for attaching the tail rope. We drilled one hole entirely through the hearpa base, looped the tail rope around the top plate, and sandwiched them together. If I can get my hands on an engraver, I plan to do a circular knot work design on the shiny brass.

Now, all I need is strings and tuning machines….