Hello everyone! Time for another update from curtsiffert.com.
It's been a fun month. It's difficult to balance all the musical goals with the rest of life, especially when the musical goals aren't clear yet. But in the meantime, the exploration is quite interesting. It's like finding clues along the way of where the best future directions are.
In March I put together a quickie recording session and jam session to work through some song ideas I had. One of the songs we worked on was All Aboard, a song I wrote a few years ago while visiting Nashville. Check it out at the website to listen or download. My previous recording of the song wasn't a live recording, and was missing drums - this was my first experience of truly performing the song with multiple musicians and it was such a blast.
Incidentally, the two musicians helping me out on the recording are Steve and Ken from Quoting Napoleon, a great band based here in Portland. Check out their website - they're playing out a lot and they have their first cd coming out in the next few weeks. Special thanks to them for helping me out.
I was happy to have a new recording of a song, but wasn't sure what to do next. Then I heard about a local songwriting event involving an A&R representative coming to town. I wouldn't have considered it had I not had the recording, but I signed up. The event was to present the song to the representative and a room full of other songwriters. I was of course completely tense about it and almost didn't go, but it ended up being a good experience. You can read more about how it went on my website. In short, I got a lot of good comments and encouragement. I was particularly encouraged to start my own band.
I'd like to present my latest song. Last November I wanted to see if I could write a song in less than an hour, and I came up with Balancing Above The Air, which I just recorded and uploaded. Check it out, it's a simple little tune and I like how it turned out. I wouldn't have come up with the song if not for all the piano improvisations I've been doing in my Piano Musings podcast.
Speaking of the Piano Musings, I have a backlog of improvs that I am going to start uploading to the site again. I've uploaded The Interrupting Sister, which I'm hoping my two small nieces will get a kick out of. I've also just now uploaded Eidolon. The podcasts are going well - remember you can subscribe to both to have my songs automatically downloaded to your computer or iPod.
I've also finished posting the series of collaborations that Kasey Baker and I did. Check them out - the paintings are fabulous and bring a new dimension to the piano pieces. I'm hopeful there will be more in the future.
There is more podcast news. We've completed a new episode over at Acoustic Conversations. The Bart Ferguson Band (aka Kerosene Dream aka Nine Days Wonder) sat down with us, performed several of their songs in my living room, and shared their thoughts on what it means to "make it" musically. It's a great episode - go to the site to listen and to hear the songs we recorded.
I've also had an idea for a new podcast - I would like to host a songwriting workshop with a few other Portland-based songwriters. We'd give each other comments, but also open it up to our listeners. If you know of songwriters in the area that might be interested, put me in touch with them.
Finally, for those of you who are interested in Deja Nu, it's going quite well. We're through our membership changes and have added Steve Morgan, a great bass player new to Portland who is already playing out a fair amount. Deja Nu's repertoire is building and we're in the middle of finding gigs. I also have a fun recording of me singing "You And Me And The Bottle Makes Three" - if anyone would like to hear, click reply since I can't post it on the website for copyright reasons. :)
So there are several possible directions currently. I'm thinking about forming my own group, I'm hoping for it to go in a jazz-influenced direction, but I'm also continuing with the more introspective and classical style of my improvs. I'm hoping that over time, the jazz, classical, and songwriting impulses will converge into something really cool.
Until next time! Stay tuned to the website to keep up. And if you know of others who might want to subscribe, please send them my way. Thanks for your support!
Curt
curtsiffert.com
