August In Bloom Album (and Other Updates)

The making of a new piano album

The vast majority of people know that chicken noodle soup doesn't just contain chicken. I mean, obviously you would expect to find other ingredients, right? Maybe celery, carrots, some other veggies, and certainly you'd expect to find some noodles. And let's not forget the broth. What does this have to do with the title of the heading, you ask? Well, a lot. If you ate nothing but chicken the rest of your life, you would get bored of it. People like variety, and they can get bored of being exposed to the same thing day after day. In the same way, the Heart of Storms album seems to be well-liked, even though it is a "home recording," and there are no reservations for my wishes to re-record it using either the Yamaha N2 or an acoustic piano (with a mic, of course) but I didn't want this to be my next big release. People like something different -- variety. That's where the new piano album came into mind, and it didn't take me long to convince myself that this would be a good move. Hence, the chicken noodle soup analogy -- I wanted to give people something different to listen to, in addition to Heart of Storms.

The equipment I intend to use for the new piano album remains to be decided, although I've already started working on the album. Three of the songs ("Dozing on Avalon's Shore," "Drifting of the Dandelion Seeds" and "Stars at Crescent Lake") have been rehearsed profusely (I don't know if that particular adverb is a good way to describe it, but my dental hygienist uses it to describe how my gums bleed if I don't t floss enough, so I'm using it to mean that it was "a lot"). Recording of two of the songs ("Dozing on Avalon's Shore" and "Drifting of the Dandelion Seeds") are scheduled to be recorded this weekend, and even though it's not going to be on the album, "Velvet Touch" will also be recorded because I'm going to use these three recorded pieces as a new demo CD to hand out at potential gigs.

Possible album cover for August in Bloom

But, I digress. Enough about the chicken soup. I'm working on a new album, August in Bloom, and I hope to set a date soon for its completion but I want to get a better idea of the rate of progress, seeing as there will be 10 tracks, and a few of them are really difficult to play.

Also, it's summer-themed, a contrast I decided to create because Heart of Storms featured many of the songs I wrote that were inspired by my experiences in Iceland. You know, contrast -- I want carrots with my chicken soup.



The Yamaha School of Music has snuck up on me like a thirsty raccoon 

This actually happened to me, by the way -- not the new music school, but the raccoon. The scary part of this is that I had just parked my car, at about eleven o'clock at night, and I happened to be wearing sandals, with no socks. I looked behind me and an enormous raccoon was tip-toeing behind me, within attacking distance. When he saw me he freaked out and started drinking water from the street drain. The new music school has done the same as far as sneaking up behind me, but in a good way. The long-term goal that Vince Chambers (the piano gallery owner) and I have envisioned is that a new music school, very much like a small conservatory, will open up in Chico, and it will be at a separate location from Apollo Piano, the actual piano dealer and gallery. Vince wants to start off having a single piano lesson studio at the gallery, though, to start getting students in, so that this location will be temporary. That way we can generate some cash flow from the students and use it towards acquiring a separate location. These ideas have stemmed from Vince's dream of opening up a music school in Chico, and it's more than enough to get me insanely excited about it. The sneaking-up part of it is that students might be able to start signing up as early as next week. A massive collection of sheet music and songbooks have been ordered for me to use to start teaching new students.

Temporary lesson studio at Apollo Piano

New additions to the office space

As said before, the Yamaha AvantGrande N2 hybrid piano will be used for recording. For live performances, I've been using a Roland F140R digital piano. I don't want to talk about how many other pianos I have in my office. It's embarrassing.

An old Knabe upright piano, to be tuned and fixed up in the near future.

Upcoming Recital Hall

Speaking of something that has absolutely nothing to do with recital halls, the live events I attend (such as a performance by the Chico State opera workshop last month) may be a good way for me to network and get more exposure with my music. The opera performance, for example, which was extraordinary, is something I may look into because I arranged about ten of my songs, years ago, to fit lyrics for female vocals. Even just one of these arrangements could be of good use at, say, a recital hall, for instance. I've been pushing the idea of a recital hall for a few reasons, one of them being that if we have one at the new school, I could use it to put on a sit-down concert of my own and get exposure. The plan would be to then use that as a spring-board to start touring, and the touring/performing part of my career is really the "end goal" for me, and it always has been. I've made this clear to Vince and others, even though I do actually get quite a bit of enjoyment out of teaching the private music lessons.


I want more carrots!

Enough of the monotony of eating chicken noodle soup with nothing but chicken in it. I need variety, like anyone else, and talking about verbs all day is synonymous, analogous, equivalent and the same conceptually as eating the same food over and over. This is also true with writing a string of completely redundant adjectives. I'm fairly sure that I could spend the rest of my teaching career talking about verbs (and fancy adjectives) to students whose first language is not English, but as much as I occasionally enjoy this job, it may not be long before my days as an ESL teacher become numbered. This would be especially true if I get enough students at the new school to actually support myself. By "numbered", though, I mean to say that it could be something like "in a year from now." Don't get too excited. In any case, verbs are like chicken. Talking about them day after day in an ESL class is like eating that soup with 100% chicken. I want carrots too.

I'm actually far more excited, though, about getting going on August in Bloom, so hopefully the development of the project will be the focus of my next blog post. My posts are shorter than some of my earlier ones, but that's because I find myself remarkably busy these days, and usually in a good way. Talking about verbs, getting an old violin repaired, getting an acoustic piano moved into my office, writing web content for the revised website for Apollo Piano, ordering sheet music, and having to make another trip to the store to get my French vanilla creamer, is a lot to juggle. Nevertheless, I do respond to comments, as I believe in reaching out to people who are interested, so make sure you leave a message if you have questions or comments. Happy fall to everyone :)