What does being a baby boomer mean to me? Part II of II

I’ve met a great many baby boomers who have learned how to sacrifice and manage their time and efforts with discipline. Yet sadly, there are many of them who also have buried treasure inside their youthful passions so long denied; those many things they dimly recall as being part of the “why” of their living life.

This is not to say one should cast off all balance or semblance of work and duty. And of course, I agree with Mike Rowe in how one cannot just “pursue your passion” with blind faith that all things in life will magically come together to give you success in life that way. Surely the metaphorical highways are littered with many abandoned dreams that people sought after with great passion, and they crashed and burned with them. Yet to me, more sad is how many baby boomers just won’t even take a small step to begin to investigate their artistry or passion.

Looking over the past year, I stumble back upon my budgets and plans to spend time inside my passions. One of them has been my steady and increasing focus into my music of past and writing new music as well. My church, my music, my aerobatic flying, my sailing, and others all were given slivers of my time and budget as an investment by me to remember why the living can be such a blessing. And now, as I look back unto the past 12 months and recall 24 original song releases, 4 cover song recordings, working to learn the beginnings of playing the Hammer Dulcimer, and putting forth a slice of my time to promote a web page and better tell a story, my story, I am so glad that I didn’t wait for a more “perfect” time to begin.

Could I have done more? Sure. Can I do better? Sure. Do I wish I had waited another year or 3 before making the time to get off my butt and take those next, first steps? No way. If you had told me in the summer of 2009 that I would be now still taking joy-filled steps towards my 125^th songwriting copyright, or working on a 169^th recording, I would have likely said “yeah right.”

Sure, don’t kill yourself on the alter of passion out of proportion, but don’t rob your life with no portion towards your passion. Video Snippet on this topic.

Beauty and warmth of Bass. How it adds magic to music.

Beauty and warmth of Bass. The magic, the musicality and the depth.

Beauty and warmth of Bass. The Cello Neighbor.

The 3^rd instrument I ever learned to play was the cello – and I loved it. The tonal range and the position of the cello generally in front of the double-bass players in an orchestra allowed me to wallow in the lower tones from an early age. And that swimming in the deep end feeling of the music down there immediately translated into my piano playing and style; taking my hands an octave lower to find a sweet spot in my music there.

Beauty and warmth of Bass. A different approach than drums.

Now recently I wrote on the subject of drummers and percussion and my respect for how they add unexpected and wonderful things to many of my singer-songwriter style songs. So much better too in how it actually changes a creation sometimes. And while this may be true as regards bass and really good bass players, for me what these players more often do to a song is sometimes to give it EXACTLY what I expected. I say that not because a good bass player doesn’t create something fresh and talented in ways that I don’t or can’t, but rather in how good bass playing in a singer-songwriter song is like blood in a mammal.

It just is – and to a point, the more the better. When bass gets added to a song of mine, it frequently just adds balls, power, and subliminal rhythms which are already ghost notes in the ear of a listener. Frequently it feels like the song was just coming through an old tiny battery powered transistor AM radio and suddenly after the bass is added it sounds like it is live players 12 feet away in a nice wooden room.

Beauty and warmth of bass… and those rare moments…

Now the contrary is rare, but every now and then it happens that a bass player botches it and brings not the guts and ghost notes, but rather jams a bookend not on the end of the books in line, but rather between them and thus makes a hell of a mess on the bookshelf.

But this is rare.

Most times, the bass is like the curve of a beautiful woman’s hind end. Yeah she may have a beautiful face, nice smile, long hair, and a lovely sleeveless dress, but the picture may be incomplete if it doesn’t end well (smile). So too a good song that lacks good work from a bass player and possible bad choices, that is not fully ready for the spotlight.
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Lyrics Logic & Lullabies
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Lyrics, Logic, and Lullabies are delivered from baby boomer singer songwriter Ed Verner. Weaving together lyrics from personal experiences and tales from a life of people watching, these Lyrics, Logic, and Lullabies present contemporary younger songs from a salty renaissance man.
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For more information on Ed and his Lyrics, Logic and Lullabies, visit:
http://lyricslogicandlullabies.com/
https://instagram.com/lyrics_logic_and_lullabies/
https://twitter.com/Lyrics_Logic_an/
https://facebook.com/edvernermusic/
https://youtube.com/WindKetcher/
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Beauty and warmth of Bass. How it adds magic to music.

Would you like free music from me?

Would you like free music from me? Not an option and here is why.

would you like free music, airplane, lyrics logic and lullabies — *Above Image is free Use with out restriction from The New York Public Library Digital Collections.*

Would you like free music from me?

Just because I love making my music, does not mean I will give it to you for free. Really, you should be ashamed of yourself for asking. Now, if I choose to, I may gift it to someone for reasons that give me pleasure, or to gain exposure to a larger body of work of mine in hopes of being more successful, etc. But for anyone to have the automatic expectation of getting good quality art for free, is to further a dark and sad mantra, namely:

“When all art is free, it will be worth what you paid for it.”

A corollary to this for me is how I will always endeavor to pay anyone who collaborates with me on a song or artistic project. It may not be much, but I will always try to make some payment. And any payment is infinitely more than zero.

Would you like free music from me: Does that request consider the artist?

This applies in so many areas of life in how many people believe that if someone is blessed to do something they love for a living, they should be able to give it away – as if the joy of doing should be enough for them. What a crock of manure. I have a dentist who genuinely loves fixing, removing, and sloshing around with teeth. And when I have dental pain I am damned glad he not only loves doing it, but that he is in the BUSINESS of doing what he loves. Good for him, and when he makes a pain go away, I am a happy guy to be able to pay him.

Would you like free music from me? Well, if there is a fair barter in place, then I think it is ok.

Sure there are times when a barter system applies in music. And is one of the only times it would be right to answer yes to the question, would you like free music? There are times when someone says they will play on a song of mine, if I will play piano on a song of theirs, and sometimes I will agree, or other times I may decide to pay them, and then ask for the same rate later if their song ever gets an instrument add on from my fingers, etc.

But I’m not speaking here of people in the industry of making art. I’m talking about how many people (who can’t play or write chopsticks) somehow feel they are entitled to listen to and download astoundingly good music or art for free. And how they often may find a song, avoid buying it, and spend 30 minutes figuring out how to snatch it for free… Buddy, 30 minutes of your time to download the software to become a thief/pirate is worth more than the 99 cents you could have supported the artist by buying it in the first place. Wake up douche-bag.

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Lyrics Logic & Lullabies
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Lyrics, Logic, and Lullabies are delivered from baby boomer singer songwriter Ed Verner. Weaving together lyrics from personal experiences and tales from a life of people watching, these Lyrics, Logic, and Lullabies present contemporary younger songs from a salty renaissance man.
************************************************
For more information on Ed and his Lyrics, Logic and Lullabies, visit:
http://lyricslogicandlullabies.com/
https://instagram.com/lyrics_logic_and_lullabies/
https://twitter.com/Lyrics_Logic_an/
https://facebook.com/edvernermusic/
https://youtube.com/WindKetcher/
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Would you like free music from me? Not an option and here is why.

Hidden Song Titles & meanings

Hidden Song Titles and meanings in a short story from Ed Verner

Hidden Song Titles and meanings in a short story.

See if you can catch the hidden song titles in the short story and blog. I took the approach of writing a piece for fun that would include a number of my songs. There are thirty of my songs in this story, can you find them? Or if you don’t know them, which words together do you think would make a good title of a song?

Every once in a while I have to tell myself to “Come on”, especially when I feel like I’ve been thrown off. Years ago when I rather suddenly accepted how I was a single parent now and I absorbed that feeling of being on a lonely island of sorts, it kind of felt that our town was no longer my town for a while, and the hurt of that took me outside of my usual nice guy side and plopped me into being capable of being a dangerous man for a brief moment. I could see the future looming at times, even feeling a bit like I had a crystal ball and chain in that I could foretell, but not avoid, some drama headed towards me and my fairy tale life. And yet, enduring some suffering was good and in many ways that’s the reason I could slog through what was a long cold winter for me and my family.

Not going to give away the hidden song titles yet…

but I will tell you there were 10 hidden song titles so far in the last paragraph.

The truth is that even when I was working in a county honkytonk and watching that genre change to the point of feeling I was witnessing a country song epitaph of sorts, good music still had a way in and to my heart. And even though I saw time and time again (at what was a honkytonk toying with being a nightclub) how you can’t depend on love too much, I still romantically clung to the idea of love like a captain with his ship. And in my mind I love not only the future happiness I work for and hope to find, but also any passed love affairs; remembering at times the happiness of knowing, man, she is so pretty, even more inside than out.

Eight more hidden song titles in that last paragraph.

Hint, if you visit https://soundcloud.com/ed-verner, you may be able to make out some of the hidden song titles. These are not all originals of mine would be a solid second hint. Plus I linked a few of them too!

Sometimes ‘wait’ she said was too long, or the road we didn’t go conjures a feeling of howling at the moon, but in the end things fade away and that’s ok. When the warring angels that guard me and someone else find themselves conflicted it is my style when I look at them to see how they are both doing their job, and I’m glad. They can both majestically defend their charge in a heroes’ waltz of sorts, each trying to guard and protect the little china doll they shelter.

And eight more in the previous paragraph and four more in the next to make it 30. Could you find them all?

What are you dreaming? These things that you are dreaming, do they fade over time, or crystalize and motivate you with an ebb and flow of inspiration? Any regrets? If you have the gift of big dreams and opportunities, don’t lie to yourself – don’t be some beautiful liar that makes me sad. I don’t want to write any sad songs here just now.

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Lyrics Logic & Lullabies
************************************************
Lyrics, Logic, and Lullabies are delivered from baby boomer singer songwriter Ed Verner. Weaving together lyrics from personal experiences and tales from a life of people watching, these Lyrics, Logic, and Lullabies present contemporary younger songs from a salty renaissance man.
************************************************
For more information on Ed and his Lyrics, Logic and Lullabies, visit:
http://lyricslogicandlullabies.com/
https://instagram.com/lyrics_logic_and_lullabies/
https://twitter.com/Lyrics_Logic_an/
https://facebook.com/edvernermusic/
https://youtube.com/WindKetcher/
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Hidden Song Titles and meanings from Lyrics Logic and Lullabies