Sesame Street Goals

My friend Mary pointed this out to me, and it is awesome: Feist put out a lovely record last year, and "1 2 3 4" was in one of the iPod commercials...but as a kid raised on Sesame Street, there's no cooler remake than something that involves Muppets and counting. I don't know what song I'd re-do. Maybe "paper beats rock and rock beats scissors" could turn into an order of operations math song about "parentheses beats exponents beats multiply and divide beats add and subtract." Hmm, not quite the ring. Oh well.

Chop Wood, Carry Water

The next phase of folk music grad school begins this week. Almost a year ago (next month, actually), I started a curriculum at Red Leaf with Dan to up my musicianship levels. In some respects it seems like 5 years ago and in some it seems like last week. But anyway...there's a Zen saying: "Before Enlightenment chop wood carry water, after Enlightenment, chop wood carry water." The point is no matter where you are in your development, little things matter. How attentive you are to your tasks each day. What you take from seemingly mundane things that are actually propelling your learning. Being present and appreciating the process. These are the keys to longevity. I feel like I have spent the past year arranging and re-arranging my schedule in the efforts to get it to a place where my wood chopping and water carrying can focus the most on my musical growth. Working at Red Leaf and the flexibility that offers seems to be the ticket. Today at 8 AM (feels luxurious compared to my government job 7:30 start time!) I will meet with Dan and we will begin a course of morning studies including writing, singing, theory, and guitar. Every morning, every day. Not that I haven't been learning and doing all these things a bunch this past year...but it's time to ramp it up. Phase II of Folk Music graduate school really means, as Dan says, that tomorrow we will chop MUCH wood and carry MUCH water.

The Last Time This'll Happen

It's always nice to have goals, and I'm going to go out on limb here and publicly state one. I got my ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) statement in the mail today. You know, the one where it tells you how much cash you've earned off all the times your songs are played everywhere (radio/TV/etc.) As you can see, I'm not exactly rolling in it. I'm rolling in nothing, actually. Which is not a shock as my previous demos are not registered with anything, nor have I tried to get them any sort of airplay. This next year, though...new music. New rules. Watch out, ASCAP. Get your number crunching digits ready.