Tag: indie music

Open Mic Adventures CLIX: “Dido’s Lament”

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Want to play the sax like yours portly?  Read my ultimate guide to getting started for under $350.

Years ago, my dear mom found a copy of The Usborne Book of Piano Classics (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of any purchases made through that link, at no additional cost to you) at a book sale and picked it up for me.  I have used that book countless times over the years for gigs, piano lessons, practice, arranging, etc.  My High School and Middle School Music Ensembles have performed arrangements based on those in the book many times at the annual South Carolina Independent School Association Music Festival.

While it consists of piano arrangements of famous pieces from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods, I often play the pieces on saxophone.  I found myself pulling the book out in preparation for a gig this past Sunday (a wedding proposal—the client’s girlfriend said yes!), and came upon a melancholy piece from the Baroque composer Henry Purcell, “When I am laid in earth,” perhaps better known as “Dido’s Lament.”  It’s from Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas.

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October 2025 Bandcamp Friday!

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Pickup my newest releases, Säx and Electrock III: Euroclydon, and Triple Deluxe!  Spooky Season IV is coming soon, too!

Want to play the sax?  Read my ultimate guide to getting started for under $350.

Wanna be utterly perplexed while laughing uproariously?  Grab a copy of my first book, The One-Minute Mysteries of Inspector Gerard: The Ultimate Flatfoot (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link, so I’ll receive a portion of any purchase made through that link, at no additional cost to you—plus I’ll get the book royalties).

Today is Bandcamp Friday, when Bandcamp doesn’t take it’s usual 15% cut of proceeds from sales.  It’s a great time to purchase tunes from yours portly.

My latest EP, Säx, released last month, as did two full-length albums, Electrock III: Euroclydon and Triple Deluxe.

My full discography typically goes for $87.64.  Considering it’s twenty-nine (29) releases, some of which are not available on streaming platforms, that’s pretty good—and just $3.02 per release!

Thanks for your support!  And if you haven’t already, check out my YouTube series 31 Days of Halloween.

Happy Friday!

—TPP

September 2025 Bandcamp Friday!

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Pickup my newest releases, Säx and Electrock III: Euroclydon!  Get 50% off with promo code storm.  That’s 50% off ANYTHING and EVERYTHING on my Bandcamp page, including the album, full discography purchases, merch, etc.!

Want to play the sax?  Read my ultimate guide to getting started for under $350.

Wanna be utterly perplexed while laughing uproariously?  Grab a copy of my first book, The One-Minute Mysteries of Inspector Gerard: The Ultimate Flatfoot (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link, so I’ll receive a portion of any purchase made through that link, at no additional cost to you—plus I’ll get the book royalties).

My latest EP, Säx, released earlier this week, as did a full-length album, Electrock III: Euroclydon.  They’re normally $9 and $12, respectively with promo code storm they’re only $4.50 and $6, respectively.

My full discography typically goes for $82.64, but with promo code storm it’s $41.32, or roughly $1.48 per release.  Twenty-eight albums, constituting of over nine hours of music, for $1.48 per release is ludicrous.

But it’s even better—if you purchase anything from Bandcamp today (Friday, 5 September 2025), Bandcamp does not take their 15% cut.  I get more money, and you get insane amounts of music for pennies on the dollar.  That’s the beauty of Bandcamp Friday!

As I detailed some weeks ago, yours portly needs your financial support.  Purchasing my music is one way you can help—and enjoy some enigmatic tunes in the process!

Happy Friday!

—TPP

Memorable Monday: Happy Labor Day [2025]!; New Releases!

The Portly PoliticoLeave a comment

Pick up my newest releases, Electrock III: Euroclydon and Säx, for 50% with promo code storm (promo code is good for any release and works through 1 October 2025).

Another glorious Labor Day has dawned here in the United States.  I hate the Communists, but God Bless those red diaper babies for getting us a random day off in September.

This Labor Day is particularly auspicious:  I’m releasing two albums today, Electrock III: Euroclydon and Säx.  I was hoping to release a third, Ringtone Circus, but my distributor, CD Baby, took issue with the use of the word “Ringtone” in the title.  Apparently, that set off some kind of filter against what they call “pre-cut ringtones,” which they do not and will not distribute.

I pointed out that I was using the name euphemistically, and that the pieces are not ringtones, but, alas, I had to change the title of the album and its related track.  So now I’ll be releasing the album as Triple Deluxe on Monday, 15 September 2025.

I’m also working on Spooky Season IV, which still has a long way to go before it’s ready for distribution and release.  It will likely be my last full-length release for the year, with Leftovers V landing the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Otherwise, I’m not sure what today has in store for yours portly.  I do know that the first couple of weeks of school have already kicked my butt (but they’ve been awesome), so I’m hoping to catch up on some rest today.  Dr. Fiancée has to work, sadly, but such is residency.

With that, here is 2 September 2024’s “Memorable Monday: Happy Labor Day [2024]!“:

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Phone it in Friday XCVII: YouTube Roundup LCVII: Roll Trilogy

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Over the course of the last two years I’ve composed a ton of music.  I treat composing the way the Native Americans treated the mighty bison:  I don’t waste anything.  That means I probably release a lot of “filler” tunes, but I find that pieces I think of as throwaways compositions are sometimes the most popular.

I do not know if the pieces shared today fall into that category.  But for whatever reason, I like writing pieces with “Roll” in title.  These are always based, in part, on food.

The first of these was “Orange Roll,” an odd little piece in 5/4 time.  The “Orange” comes from the fact I used an orange pen to compose it; the “Roll” came from the rolling feel of the melody.

Later, I wrote “Tomato Roll,” a clarinet duet in 5/8 time.  I wrote the piece mainly because I spent way too much time drawing a detailed tomato in MS Paint as a way to illustrate a concept to my Economics students during a couple of days of online learning.

Finally, I recently composed “Crunchy Roll,” which is a bass guitar in 3/4 and 4/4, but with lots of odd timing.

But enough of my yakkin’—let’s boogie!

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Mallets!

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Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

I’m in the process of working on three different releases right now, two of which consist of old material (some of it very old), one of which includes new works.  My tentative plan is to release all three of them on the same day, so listeners will enjoy an explosion of new-to-them pieces from yours portly.

The collection of new pieces is Ringtone Circus.  The pieces don’t all have a Nokia cellphone ringtone feel to them, but several possess that plinking, happy, upbeat quality.

Today, I’m sharing the pieces that prominently feature mallet-based instruments:  vibraphones, marimbas, etc.

The first piece is the title track, “Ringtone Circus“:

“Ringtone Circus” is a trio for marimbas. It sounds like a lively cell phone ringtone!

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

 

Phone it in Friday XCV: YouTube Roundup LCV: Brass to the Future Plays “The Stars and Stripes Forever”

The Portly Politico4 Comments

Fifteen years ago today, on 4 July 2010, my old brass band, Brass to the Future, played an outdoor concert in a park in my hometown of Aiken, South Carolina.  It was a bit of a “guerrilla” concert, in that we did not ask permission, but just showed up in the park and started playing for our fans.

In the spirit of Independence Day, I’m featuring rare footage from that concert today.

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