Over the last few years I've been learning to play guitar, and I've gotten okay enough that I've played for the children at the library a few times, and I did a sing-along moment at a Radical Faerie gathering.  So I started experiment with recording myself using the Garage Band program on my MacBook.  It has been a really enlightening process, both ( Read more... )

I've been listening to some Fairport Convention on Pandora, and one of the songs I ran across in there was "Fotheringay." A gorgeous song about Mary Queen of Scots being imprisoned in the the Fotheringay Castle. While the lyrics are lonely and somber, the music that accompanies it is absolutely haunting. I truly love this song.

Fotheringayby ( Read more... )

I've actually been practicing on the guitar quite a lot lately. I've put together an iPod playlist of all the songs that I've got chord patterns for and I'll listen and play along at the same time. I remember my brother doing something like that, only 80 million times louder and using stage monitors hooked up to a stereo blaring death metal. I ( Read more... )

Okay, sure there's a glitch in the song in this little video, but you get the gist of it. Here's me playing and singing The Titanic song in a promotional video I made for my branch of the library.

Click to view

Yesterday I used my 40% off coupon at Borders and got 2 more songbooks. One is a dover edition of 100 classic American songs. It's stuff like the Yellow Rose of Texas and Pop Goes the Weasel and all these tunes that have been used in a million contexts. The second is a collection of Folk Pop songs ( Read more... )

I have found the perfect way to blend my knowledge of ridiculous and gross songs and my job. Sing them to kids and teens at the library! Hurrah for freedom of speech and parody rights!

It might be a little offensive, but I promise not to go too overboard.

Well, maybe a little overboard. >:P

I'm sure this is probably starting to get old as hell by now. But this is all I did last night was play guitar. I was going through the Prairie Home Companion Folk Song Book, which I'm thinking I'll probably buy. If only for the fact that it's loaded with silly stuff that I sang as a child, and stuff that my family taught me. Among them ( Read more... )

Today I've been playing the guitar since about 10:00 this morning. I went over some of the older stuff, worked on the F chord and played a whole bunch of new things. Among them ( Read more... )

Hopefully I'll come up with better headings than that, provided I keep posting about it regularly. I practiced A LOT tonight. I picked up a couple of new chords, and played about a half dozen different songs out of the "Rise up singing" book. Among them ( Read more... )

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