Yours portly has had a busy and exciting week, but I’ve fallen behind on the blog and my YouTube channel. As such, I have just one tasty morsel for your enjoyment today: my cover of a Don Henley classic.
Yours portly has had a busy and exciting week, but I’ve fallen behind on the blog and my YouTube channel. As such, I have just one tasty morsel for your enjoyment today: my cover of a Don Henley classic.
Yours portly has a rather toothsome edition of Phone it in Friday/YouTube Roundup for you today. No Murphy vids, sadly (but don’t worry—the old girl is doing well and will be back in more videos soon), but we’ll ease into Friday with a beautiful hymn and a bit of bachelor cuisine.
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.
On Friday, 23 August 2024, my friend Sarah and I performed a show to celebrate her twenty-fifth birthday. Sarah selected tunes performed by Adele and Linda Ronstadt, the two artists who have had the most profound influence on her own singing and musical tastes.
We’d been rehearsing all summer to play a small program of eight songs—four Adele, four Ronstadt, mixed up with each other—for the partygoers. Sarah wanted to capture a real 1970s piano lounge vibe, and even asked guests to dress up in cocktail dresses and suits.
Naturally, yours portly had to lean into this vibe with a pink velvet tuxedo:

It helped that I already owned that outrageous paisley shirt. Here’s me right after showering, my hair still wet:

I love how I look like a gay choir director in that second picture.
Questionable sartorial choices aside, the concert itself was a smashing success.
To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.
Yours portly has been hitting the open mic scene pretty hard lately, so I figured I’d dive into some actual open mic performances from the ongoing Open Mic Adventures series (which often features my instrumental electronic music more than my actual live performances). Not all of these are from this summer—I’m still uploading performances—but there are some tasty jams here for you to sink your musical teeth (your ears?) into:
As a bit of a bonus, here are the YouTube videos for two of the three pieces (the “Hipster Girl Next Door” medley never made it to YouTube, sadly):
Happy Sunday—and Happy Listening!
—TPP
Choose an amount
Or enter a custom amount
Your contribution is appreciated!
Your contribution is appreciated.
Your contribution is appreciated.
Other Lazy Sunday Installments:
I’ve been writing a lot about my composing lately, which might be wearing down my readers. However, I have two updates on that front to sweeten the pot:
I don’t have much more on #2 at the moment, but one of those commission will be paid, and involves composing for various flutes. The other commission will be for an online friend of mine.
As for #1, I’m quite excited for this release. It features some bold tracks, particularly the lengthy title track, “Epistemology.”
My latest bout of composing started last August (2023), but it was predated by a round of piano compositions dating back to February 2022. That resulted in Péchés d’âge moyen. I’m still planning to put together Red Tardy Slip Compositions, but I’ve tabled it for the time being to focus on more electronic works.
Here’s to composing!
With that, here is “TBT: Composing Humorous Miniatures“:
The Christmas season is technically still in full swing until Epiphany on 6 January 2024, but I know everyone is now looking ahead to the new year. Still, yours portly isn’t one to let a video go to waste, so here’s my rendition of “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”
Christmas may have been yesterday, but as every traditionalist wag will be quick to point out, it’s AHKTUALLY still the Christmas season, through 6 January 2024, Epiphany (it’s also Boxing Day). So, why not continue the fun with some Christmas carols!
This week, I’m featuring a short video of myself playing “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” on piano. It’s a jaunty and rousing carol. With lyrics from Charles Wesley and George Whitefield and music from a Felix Mendelssohn cantata, this carol was destined for yuletide greatness.
I’ve actually featured this piece in Open Mic Adventures before (“Open Mic Adventures XIV: ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’“), so we’ll see how this version stacks up to last year’s rendition.
We’re getting into the cozy part of the Christmas season, with plenty of cold nights spent bundled up by the light of the Christmas tree, sipping hot chocolate and wearing sweaters. It’s the hygge, and yours portly couldn’t be happier.
Naturally, all this cozy Christmas cheer gets me thinking about Christmas carols, and few carols capture the quiet peace of Christmas quite like “Silent Night.”
I haven’t been able to compose quite as much lately as I’d like, but I had fun with a little 5/4 composition that I wrote on 8 November 2023. It’s called “Orange Roll,” mainly because I wrote it with an orange gel pen, and I had fun playing around with the harmonies and variations on it.
I’m dipping back into the hymnal for this week’s Open Mic Adventure, from the same Sunday service as last week’s installment. This week, I’m featuring a short video of the hymn “‘Tis So Sweet To Trust in Jesus,” written by Louisa M. R. Stead and set to the tune “Trust in Jesus” by William J. Kirkpatrick.