Heather S. Ingemar's Blog, page 33

Recording is hard.

I have seven tracks recorded as of right now.

What does it mean when I say I fully intended to have All of the songs for "Let Me Go" recorded by the end of January…??

It's not that I'm having issues with my setup, or my gear — the technical aspects of recording have been going much smoother this go-round than the last — it just seems that every time I say "I need to record," something comes up. Time scheduling seems to be the hardest thing to master about the recording process.

Excuses, I know. Best laid plans and all that.

BUT. In the meantime I am managing to solidify all the slightly rough parts, so I suppose it's been good… in a roundabout way…

 

 

Shatterproof: Masks

I stood again in his doorway, blinking stupidly at the neatness of everything.  The desk chair creaked as the occupant turned, and I stared at the face of my dad.

"Hello, sweetheart," he said, smiling.  "What are you doing here so late?"  He checked his wristwatch, shaking it forward on his arm so he could read the face.  "It's almost midnight."

I said nothing, my mind reeling.  Finally, after what seemed like years of silence, I found my voice.

"What happened?  Are you alright?"

It was his turn to stare blankly at me.  His grey eyes looked huge behind his coke-bottle lenses.  "What do you mean, sweetheart?" he asked.

I gestured to include the whole of the room.  "Your office was trashed!" I said, my voice leaping a pitch or two.  "Ransacked!  And you left without your phone!"

He frowned at me, removing his glasses with one hand and using the other to wipe the lenses on his shirt-front.  "I don't know what you're talking about," he said.  "Everything's just the same as it has been since I arrived this morning for work."

At that moment, I saw it.  Resting back on the third shelf, in front of all the books was my fourth grade pottery piece.

Unbroken.

Wordless, I stepped over to examine it.  Taking the item gingerly in my hands, I felt its heft, traced the unblemished surface.

"You know, Leslie, you're awfully strong," said her father's voice.  "So strong, that I can't let you get any stronger."

I felt cold as I stepped back from the bookshelf to stare that the stranger resting in my dad's desk chair.

"Why me?" I asked, wishing Collin would show to help me out.  The hallway remained devoid of sound.  The man behind the desk rotated his neck, the vertebrae snapping loudly.  I took another step back.

"Because," said the Devil, "You stand in my way."  He rose from the chair, stealthy even in his portly trappings.  "Because, if it weren't for you, I would have owned this man long ago."

My toe brushed up against something light and hard.  Looking down, I saw the porcelain shard of the broken piece of pottery, long and sharp as a knife.  I bent, retrieving it as he advanced.  Around me, the illusion of tidiness shattered, and the room screamed of its chaos.

"I had great plans for this man, Leslie," he said, continuing forward as I backed up.  His eyes were no longer grey, but flame-red, bright and pupil-less.  "I had years of painstaking work behind this sorry chunk of meat, years that would pan out wonderfully….  If not for you."  The creature in my father's flesh grimaced out at me, some horrible combination of sharp teeth and razor-edged flesh inside the shell that was my Dad.  I felt the edge of a bookcase, an unyielding line up my spine, and I gripped my shard tight between my fingers, a link with reality.  I found myself reaching for my gun, and it gleamed black and deadly in my hand as I raised it.

He laughed, a rolling, sinister snicker.  "Leslie, sweetheart, you wouldn't hurt your old Dad, now would you?" he said, and it was Dad's voice, but I closed my ears to it.  He laughed again, then, "Sweetheart, you'll hurt yourself; put down the gun.  Let Daddy take care of you."

I was crying now as he drew near, hating myself for wanting to run to him like the little girl I'd always been.  His eyes blazed redder than before, and so I raised the gun.

"My, my; what would your mother say if she could see you, threatening your father."  He tsked disapprovingly.

I glared at him through the blur of my tears.  "You are not my dad," I said, and squeezed off a bullet.

* * *

(This piece is part of an ongoing serial story. You can catch up on the plot via the Serials page. If you liked this work, please consider purchasing one of my other stories, or some of my music for your collection. )

Shatterproof: Separated

We walked, our shoes scuffing and squeaking on the floor.  First, the noise of the floor waxer stopped.  Then, bank-by-bank, the lights in the building went out.  I shivered, and it wasn't even cold.  Instinctively, I reached for his hand, and though he didn't shy away from me, he tensed like a spring as my fingers closed around his.

"Relax," I said.

He paused, looking at me with eyes glinting like coals in the low light.  "You have no idea," he said.  "I hurt mortals like you without even trying. Plus, I made a promise to keep you safe, and that includes from me, so please; keep your distance."

He tried to extricate his hand from my grasp.

"I don't care what you are, or are not," I said.  Stubbornly, I held onto his fingers, daring him to refute me.

He opened his mouth to speak; instead we heard the scratching of claws on plaster down the corridor to our right.  Collin shut his mouth, cocking his head to listen.

"Stay here," he whispered, and moved toward the sound in the dark.

I huddled close to the wall, my eyes straining to see where he'd gone.  The hairs on my neck and arms raised, prickling through the sleeves of my thin turtleneck.  The scratching noise continued, scrape, scrape.  Skrrrsh.  Scrape, scrape.  I felt for my gun.

I waited.

And waited.

The scratching noise stopped, and I expected him to rise out of the blackness like a specter to tell me it was okay.  Just a flyer on a bulletin board, flapping against the wall in the air from a vent above.

Any minute.  Any minute he'd appear beside me, and whisper to keep moving.

He didn't come.

I waited, hanging onto the grips of my .380 until my sweaty hand was slick on the plastic.

He didn't come.

Maybe something had happened to him, I thought.  How long had he been gone?  I wasn't sure, and I found myself walking quickly toward the room I knew best: Dad's office.  Even in its disrupted chaos, it would be a comfort.

* * *

"Shit," he hissed into the black corridor.  Further down the hall, the scratching continued, moving away ever time he stepped toward it, pausing, tantalizingly close when he paused.  The damn thing had been a decoy, and now he wasn't holding up his bargain.  He turned fast and began to run back the way he came.

He reached the spot where he'd left her and felt cold.  Cursing again, he took off for the place he thought she would be.

He really didn't have the right to pray, being what he was, a former, discarded demon.

But it couldn't hurt, and so he prayed he would find her first.

* * *

(This piece is part of an ongoing serial story. You can catch up on the plot via the Serials page. If you liked this work, please consider purchasing one of my other stories, or some of my music for your collection. )

Those who wish to sing always find a song

(from an old proverb)

I wasn't always able to sing. Believe it or not, there was a long span of time when my voice sounded like nails in gravel. When I couldn't sustain a note to save my life…

When I was a toddler, my family had made a surprise visit to Grandma's house. Grandma was a professional portrait artist, and her workspace was always filled with her paints and brushes and cleaners. As we walked through the door, she told my mom that she hadn't had time to baby-proof the house.

I was fast. Before anyone could even breathe, I had made a beeline to Grandma's art table. I grabbed her jar of brush cleaner, her paint thinner, and tipped it over on my face.

To make a long, involved story shorter, it was a very touch-and-go situation. The doctors diagnosed me with chemical-caused pneumonia. The paint thinner had burned everything: nasal cavity, mouth, throat, windpipe, lungs, vocal chords. I don't remember any of this, but my recovery was very slow. I defied the doctors' dire predictions of imminent death and pulled through to have a fairly normal childhood.

It wasn't until I was in high school that I began to be able to hold a pitch with my voice. It was frustrating, because I have perfect pitch and could hear the note i was trying to hit! But my voice was like a wild horse–perfect one minute, then bouncing wildly away the next. My mom didn't want me to sing (because it was so painful to her ears, she said), so I only sang when I was alone in the car or home by myself. Every day it got a little easier. Slowly, I tamed my wild vocals into some semblance of order. I had this dream that one day I would sing on stage, just me and a guitar, likely because that option was taken from me so early, and we always want the things we're told we can't have…

I have scar tissue in my lungs to this day. I have a strange, limited vocal range. My voice gets tired sometimes if I do too much talking and reverts back to its rough quality even despite the practicing I do.

But I can sing. When I write for myself, my limitations are less pronounced. And every time I get up on that stage with my ukulele or my guitar, it's a good day because I have found my song.

Shatterproof: Taking the Plunge

The industrial door of the science facility loomed pale and beige before us.  We'd come back to the place where it all began, hoping to find some clue to my dad's location. Even though the hour was late, half the lights glowed through the wide windows, and I heard the faint hum of a floor waxer running.  The street lights shone through the diminishing branches in eerie patterns.  Collin pulled open the door, and I followed him in.  Far off inside the building, I heard a deep rumble as the air-conditioning turned on.

"Whatever you do, don't believe anything Luce says."

I nodded.

"He will try to make bargains with you; don't take them."

I nodded again.

"You trust me in this, right?" he asked.

"Even as much as I'm…freaked… by, oh, everything in these last few days, Dad trusted you with this, and therefore, I trust you, too."

After a few minutes, the air-conditioner turned itself off, and the noiselessness became heavy in my ears.  I looked down at my hands, noting how my vision had sharpened in the dark.

"So," I murmured, wanting to change the subject.  "Do we have any kind of a plan? Besides, you know, just wandering around in the dark looking for clues?"

"Not really."  He glanced at me.  "They probably know we're already here…"

* * *

(This piece is part of an ongoing serial story. You can catch up on the plot via the Serials page. If you liked this work, please consider purchasing one of my other stories, or some of my music for your collection.

Finding Your Passion, a post by ukulele maestro Ralph Shaw

What is Your Passion? With so much going on in our lives it can seem pointless to even consider it. I can almost hear the reply, "Huh? You want me to work full-time, raise kids, make meals and follow my passion? Sure thing buddy!"

…

I complained to a friend of mine recently. She's a singer named Kristie. I griped that my life has become too diverse and I muttered that my activities have increased to the point where they're not so enjoyable anymore. Extra pressures include paperwork and endless online communication. But it's also from taking on new projects without letting old ones go. The result, I grumbled, is that I'm juggling more objects and it's becoming less fun.

I felt mean-spirited to complain in such a muttering, grumbling sort of way. To display a lack of gratitude for opportunities in life seems churlish; especially when compared with the miserable lot of all those clapped in the shackles of grinding servitude. But instead of chastising my selfishness Kristie took me in a surprising direction. She asked, "What is your passion?"

"Erm, why?" I replied, "What's that got to with anything?" She said, "If you know your passion then you can devote more time and energy to that and less to the other things."

I was stunned. This was a new way of thinking for me.

Some things were easy to cross off my passion list. They included taxes, house-hold chores and anything involving a computer or phone (basically life's unavoidable duties.) Much harder to choose from were my various work related roles: making music, live performance, teaching uke workshops, singing, creating songs, recording, and writing. All these things I take pleasure and pride in. If I had to drop all but one of them which would it be? This spurred me on to a new round of griping, "I can't possibly…it's too hypothetical…how can I choose just one?"

With further urging I narrowed down my top passion contenders to two choices. Kristie then asked me to imagine placing one of these in each of two corners of the room. As I closed my eyes she reminded me to visualize the choices I had made and the parts of the room where they resided.

Kristie said, "Do you feel a pull towards one of the corners?"

Yes I did. The attraction to one corner was unmistakable, and slightly overwhelming. Moments before this my mind had been a confused swirl over what to do. Now it was clear. Apparently this was my passion. The other trivialities in my life paled in comparison and I felt a surge of deep feeling; an abiding sense that this experience was profound and true. It was actually enough to stop me grumbling for several minutes.

Many take up the ukulele with some idea that it will lead them to their passion. Which they believe must be to perform onstage. But I disagree with this thinking. When I travel to ukulele clubs I meet a wide cross-section of people who all happen to play the ukulele. But look more closely and you'll see the instrument is but a conduit to many possible passions. The uke players come together to make music but their natural roles soon become evident:

Some are leaders: they express themselves by forging a vision for the group.
Some are carers: they scan the group looking for those in need of assistance and come to their aid.
Others are teachers: they strive to develop their own understanding in order to pass the knowledge to others.
Some are communicators: they develop the threads of interconnection that bind everyone together and help to disseminate information.
Some are stage entertainers: they shine in order that we may connect with our own spirits.
Some are social entertainers. They may never go near the stage but are always ready to share a song or a story that will crack you up.
Some are hosts: they offer their homes and time to accommodate visiting entertainers from far away (Indeed I am presently being humbled by the kindness of several Australian strangers who are going out of their way to make my upcoming visit there possible.)

If you don't know what your passion is, perhaps this can help: Figure out what you enjoy doing most of all. It has to be something that you feel strongly about. It should be nearly as vital to you as food, air and water; something that you'll always want to do no matter where life takes you.

If your answer is unclear then sit in a quiet room and place your two most fulfilling activities in each of the far corners. Then close your eyes and notice if there is a pull of attraction towards one part of the room. You may experience this as a sense of peace or another feeling that draws you. If this works but seems incomplete it could be that you need to define your passion in more detail. Try using the technique more than once to refine your choice.

Knowing your passion helps focus your energies and decision making. Do newly presented choices further your life's purpose or are they mere sidelines and distractions? Cut out the things that no longer serve you. It's good for us to be diverse, for as author and waterbed inventor Robert Heinlein said, "Specialization is for insects", but enough is enough.

Figuring out what you don't want is important. And imagine the joy you'll get in doing what you love, in the place where you want to be. It's certainly nothing to grumble about.

© Ralph Shaw 2011

If you'd like to know more about Ralph, please check out his website, his blog, or even his brand new book, "The Ukulele Entertainer," which is to be found in his web store. Reposted with permission.

SNOPOCALYPSE!

Over a foot and counting…

"Lose You" video

Lyrics can be found here.

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Shatterproof: Collin's Truth

"You aren't human," I said.  It was a statement of fact.

He shook his head ruefully. "No matter how I try, I'm still… me."

"Then what are you?"  The silence stretched long and thin until I felt I could cut it with a knife.

"Incubus."  He said the word softly, distaste in his voice.  He didn't look at me though I watched him close, and his face looked like some horror.  Shaking his head, he gave me a wry, bitter smile.  "Used to be, anyhow," he said.  "But even after these last years, I still can't get away from the hunger. And it's harder to fight when I'm injured." He glanced at me, a meaningful look. I felt guilty, remembering how I'd shot him.

"Used to be?"

He paused at the bottom of the stairs to his apartment, and checked both directions. "I had a change of heart. I renounced Hell."

"And now what? Does that make you a strange angel?" They headed up the stairs.

"Hardly!" He snorted as he unlocked the apartment door. "No, I'm stuck trying to live a more or less normal, non-evil life while hiding my dirty little secret. Do you see now why I push you away? You can't trust yourself around me. I'm a predator. I mask myself in appealing forms to lure you in unknowingly.  Maybe you've noticed how my eyes aren't always the same color, or how my features shift.  It's all an illusion."  He took a breath and shut the door behind us. "It's all a beautiful, deadly lie."

"Dad trusted you," I said.

He grimaced.  "A bad idea."

I rolled my eyes. "Well whether you like it or not, it looks like we're in this together. Now: where do we begin looking for Dad?"

* * *

(This piece is part of an ongoing serial story. You can catch up on the plot via the Serials page. If you liked this work, please consider purchasing one of my other stories, or some of my music for your collection.

My Creative Commons decision

Since I'm having a time coming up with blog posts while I'm working on my next album, here's one I've been meaning to blog on for a while and never managed to do it.

Creative Commons.

So, why offer any of my work under CC? Why not go the traditional copyright route?

Simply put, CC is a way for creators of content to maintain their ownership of a work (or works) and still allow legal sharing. When I started this whole 'creative lifestyle' thing, I heard this quote:

"An artist's worst enemy is anonymity." (Or something similar)

And unfortunately, it's true. If nobody reads your awesome book, they don't know about you. If no one hears you play, no one knows about you. Likewise, if no one knows you're an artist, they don't tell their friends, co workers, etc. Anonymity kills careers, and it does so without even flinching.

I didn't want that. But let's talk about that little "word of mouth" thing…

We are in the age of technology, and it is busy changing our culture every second. Sadly, the current copyright model is far, faaar behind. The most notable reason is the practice of sharing. We live in a world of social networking, which boils down to the practice of sharing information with your friends. Traditional copyright explicitly forbids this practice — even scholarly use of materials (citations, quotes, excerpts, etc.) is iffy, depending on interpretation of the law. At its worst, such things are considered outright theft.

I didn't want to penalize any potential fans for sending a copy of one of my songs that they legally purchased to their friend with a note to "check out this." That excited sharing is what keeps art alive, what keeps it fresh and relevant. Art is, by it's very nature, a shared experience. Where would our famous Michaelangelos and Rembrants be today if no one had seen their work and wanted to share it with someone else? Music is art. Why should the experience of it be any different than visual media?

Creative Commons has the leg up here. By releasing my work under a CC license, I not only retain the rights to my work, but I enable those who enjoy my work to share it with others.

For more info on Creative Commons, please visit their website, or if you'd like to read more about the license I use, please see this page.