Tag: independent music

Open Mic Adventures XXXVIII: “Quasi-Date”

The Portly Politico14 Comments

It’s been refreshing to get back out to open mic nights and to do some live performances again.  In the spirit of getting back out and playing again, I’m digging deep into my back catalog and playing some really obscure originals.

My mind is also percolating for the first time in years with ideas for new songs.  Here’s hoping I have some time to sit down at the keyboard and do some actual writing and composing.  Sure, I’ve been composing a great deal of instrumental music lately, mostly for the piano, but I haven’t written a proper song since about 2019.

That said, at last week’s open mic I decided to pull out a really old piece, one I wrote way back in 2010, called “Quasi-Date.”

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Lazy Sunday CCVIII: Original Music, Part I

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Ah, the glorious summer.  I can already feel it slipping through my Vienna sausage fingers like the grains of sand in an hour glass, or the metaphorical sandbags I’m desperately stacking up against the inexorable tide of the new school year.  I love teaching, but having mornings free to write and the like is glorious.

One perk of summer is that I can actually get out to open mic nights again.  I’ve missed playing live, and I want to find sustainable ways to play during the school year.  It’s difficult, though:  I typically don’t get in from an open mic until 10 PM.  That’s doable during the summer months, but during the school year, I’m usually zonked out by 9 or 9:30 PM, not hanging out with hipsters in some coffee shop.

Regardless, here are some recent posts featuring original pieces, two of which are open mic performances:

Happy Sunday—and Happy Listening!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

Supporting Friends Friday: New Works from Robert Mason Sandifer

The Portly Politico12 Comments

Two years ago I wrote “Supporting Friends Friday: The Cinematic Compositions of Mason Sandifer” about the composing work of one of my student, Robert Mason Sandifer.  Mason (as I call him) started distributing his music to all the major platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube, etc.) earlier this month, and he is directly responsible for inspiring me to put my old instrumental music on the same platforms.

Mason is currently undertaking an ambitious project to compose instrumental music that tells the story of the Bible, from Genesis through Revelations (or, as my friend Steve O would say, “from Genesis through Maps”).  It’s an amazing concept, and he has executed it beautifully so far.

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Phone it in Friday XXXIX: YouTube Roundup I

The Portly Politico8 Comments

Thanks to the gentle prodding of Audre Myers, I’ve decided to upload videos actively to my YouTube channel.  I’ve had this channel for almost fifteen years (apparently), but only used it to upload a short video from the video game Spore in 2008 and some footage of my old group Brass to the Future playing “The Stars and Stripes Forever” on Independence Day 2010.

I’ll mostly upload original music.  There are plenty of songs I love to cover, but uploading those covers to YouTube without obtaining permission from the original songwriters is technically a violation of copyright law.  I’m a big believer in the protection of intellectual property, and I’d rather not run afoul of the YouTube police, at least not for something legitimate.

That said, readers are welcome to cover my tunes, just let me know about it.

So, I thought I’d periodically post a digest of some recent uploads for readers who want to dive deeper into my music—for free!

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Open Mic Adventures XXXV: “The Rings of Saturn”

The Portly Politico10 Comments

Last week I wrote a short post about Saturn’s (extremely slowly) disappearing rings.  In that post, I referenced one of my songs, “The Rings of Saturn,” which I wrote way back on 7 August 2015.

Naturally, that got me thinking:  I should record that for Open Mic Adventures!  “The Rings of Saturn” is one of my personal favorites of my original tunes, but I wrote it after the release of Contest Winner EP, and I’ve never made it back into the studio.  It didn’t help that my life and work grew exponentially more demanding in those years, but I also went through a long spell of creative dryness that never fully relented.

That said, it was time for “The Rings of Saturn” to make its official Internet debut (and its YouTube debut).

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Gig Day VII: TJC Spring Jam III

The Portly Politico12 Comments

It’s time for another front porch concert!  This event—the TJC Spring Jam and Recital—will be the sixth Front Porch concert I’ve hosted (I think), and I’ve learned quite a bit from the others, including the last Spooktacular.

This year marks the third Spring Jam, which has become a popular event with my private music students.  These front porch concerts started out as a way for my buddy John and me to play gigs during The Age of The Virus, when nobody was open for live music.  I realized that if I wanted to play in front of a live audience, I’d have to circumvent the hysteria and become the venue and talent.

Gradually, the concept morphed from a self-indulgent concert into a recital for my private music students.  The Lord has really blessed me—far beyond what I deserve—with a large clientele of private music students (around twenty-two at the time of writing, working out in practice to anywhere from twenty-to-twenty-four lessons a week), so it made sense to offer a couple of recital opportunities a  year for them.

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Open Mic Adventures XXXIII: “Spore Song (Mushroom Dance)”

The Portly Politico16 Comments

I found myself with a rare bit of free time last Thursday, 18 May 2023.  It was Field Day at school that afternoon, and while the kids were frolicking in the rain (yep, it was raining steadily yesterday), I slipped inside for a few quiet moments.  I found myself at the piano and, staring down a blank sheet of manuscript paper in my music journal, I decided to compose.

While I didn’t name it right away, the result was “Spore Song (Mushroom Dance).”  I’d been wanting to compose a piece named “Spore Song” after reading Stacey C. Johnson‘s post “Spore Song” at her blog Breadcrumbs.

The more I listened to this airy, atmospheric piece, the more I realized that this was “Spore Song.”  Because it’s mostly in 3/4 time (with two brief measures in 4/4), I added the parenthetical title “Mushroom Dance.”

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Good Friday, Bandcamp Friday, New Book Friday

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Today is Good Friday, a day to remember the Sacrifice Christ Made on the Cross so that we might be saved.  The fun part of the celebration is Easter, when Christ Arose from the tomb, proclaiming victory over Death.  Today, we Christians reflect on the magnitude of His Sacrifice.

It’s also Bandcamp Friday, which means I hope you will reflect on the magnitude of sacrificing a few bucks to buy my music—or my second book!

The first Friday of a bunch of months in 2023—February, March, April, May, August, September, October, November, and December—will feature this pro-indie music observance, a day on which Bandcamp waives its usual 15% commission on sales.

In other words, when you buy my music, almost 100% of it goes to me, instead of almost 85%.

Currently, my entire discography of ten releases is $9.50, a savings of 45%, which is not bad for ten releases.  That’s $0.95 per release—not too shabby!  To purchase the full discography, click on any release, and you’ll see the option to purchase all of them.

I’m also selling all of my paintings for $10, with free shipping in the United States, regardless of how many you purchase.  They’re one of kind, so once a painting is purchased, it’s gone.

I’ve also joined Society6, a website that lets artists upload their designs, which can they be printed onto all manner of products (like this throw pillow, or this duvet cover).  Why not get a bookbag with a mouthy droid on it?

I only get 10% of the sales made there, but some of the stuff looks really good—I really want these notebooks with my “Desert View” painting on it (which again, is just $10 for the one-and-only original).  Some of them are straight-up goofy, like this church doodle I made celebrating the presidential pardon of Roger Stone (the description for the piece is “Anger your friends with this doodle commemorating the presidential pardon of America’s most dapper political operative“).

I have a few new paintings from my highly unsuccessful foray into selling at the Lamar Egg Scramble, and I have two new doodles for just $5 each:  Robo Talk 23 No. 1 and No. 2.  I’m also working on quite a few more doodles for Society6, which will also end up here.

My first book, The One-Minute Mysteries of Inspector Gerard: The Ultimate Flatfoot, is $10 in paperback, and just $5 on Kindle.

My second and newest book, Arizonan Sojourn, South Carolinian Dreams: And Other Adventures, is $20 in paperback and $10 on Kindle.

Thanks again for your support!

Happy Friday!

—TPP