Encouragement – the action of giving someone support, confidence, or hope.
This also applies to writers, artists, poets, performers, photographers and so on… Let’s build each other up instead of competing with one another. Once you’ve reached the next level, reach down and lend a hand to everyone still striving to get where you are. Be thankful to each and every person who encourages you and GO OUT OF YOUR WAY to support and encourage others.
I was nominated for the Creative Blogger Award by https://toniumbarger.wordpress.com (Thanks so much for the kind words)
Here are the 5 Random Facts About Me:
1) Before working at the music store, I worked for a Toyota dealership and sold – wait for it —– Used Cars!!!! I even sold a used car to my future wife. I knew and still know nothing about cars other than how to drive them. I was quite successful and my strategy was not to overwhelm customers with specs and technical jargon. I just found out what they needed and suggested a couple cars they would like. I loved the work but hated the tactics and methods used by the managers, finance department and just about everything except the money. It was not worth it to me so I quit selling used cars and started working at the music store for a lot less money. I also sold a car to my future wife.
2) In my last count including technical schools and college I have attended eighteen schools. I did this count so long ago I can’t remember all the schools now! This is why I’m bad at names and good at getting to know someone very quickly. I have a difficulties remembering names and places. I knew family, but unless you were around for a long time, I simply didn’t try to remember names of kids at school, or teachers, or buildings, or neighbors. But I was good at making friends and connecting with customers. I can tell you every piece of equipment my music store customers owned, where they played (not by name… but location), and know what style of music they were into but could not remember their names. It is a real challenge in the sales and music industries! If I could remember names and network, I would be dangerous!
3) I have studied Martial Arts for years. My choice to pursue Tae Kwon Do came from the name (I was told it loosely translated to open hand – open fist, meaning no weapons). The other thing that I liked is they start teaching defense postures rather than attack moves. If you were challenged and the ‘attacker did not play fair’ we were also trained how to incapacitate them or simply take them out if needed. One of my songs has a line – ‘I am a pacifist that just loves a good fight’! I have never had to use it against an attacker but the training and philosophy have lasted a very long time.
4) In reality, with all my posts on musical theory, I do not read sheet music! I know how it works and if I had to I could, but I learn and play by ear. (I have to work at it but I get there) If I need to use the sheet music to learn a piece, once I have learned it enough to play, I never use the sheet notation again.
5) Speaking of cars, I guarantee I can teach any licensed driver how to drive a car with a standard transmission in less than ten minutes……..
Instead of tagging a few of you, because I really do enjoy so many of your blogs on a daily basis, I’m encouraging you to share a few random facts about yourself with me – Anything you want to share is welcome. I love getting to know you all and I’m thankful every day to be a part of such an open, welcoming and diverse community.
With your help and a lot of other social groups and individuals, we have helped raise money to help my friend John try to recover from the house fire that happened while he was away. He still has not been able to get home to see the damage and to make plans for the immediate future. I really want to thank all of you for great comments, spreading the word and financial support. My guess is a number of people that do not know him offered support in a number of different ways. I am frankly proud and grateful of the way this blog community responded. Thank you again!
As many of you know I have been a musician for many years and met John when he was hired to work at the same music store I worked in. It is kind of funny as you get older you can talk of personal experiences in terms of DECADES!! Just saying.
Back on track, I wanted to give you an idea of the damage from the fire and the amazing group of local friends that organized without instruction and worked extremely hard to recover as many personal belongings as we could – and the restoration work that continues; and frankly, is really just at the beginning of that phase. I wanted to give you a picture. But we all know that is impossible. You cannot describe the lobbies in Las Vegas hotels or what it feels like in the middle of the ocean to someone that has never been there. We try. We get close. They get the idea, but until you have similar experiences it can be hard to know what those and many other things in life are truly like.
I have been to his house but I still do not have the big picture. The closest I can get is reliving the feeling I had when I came home from one of those rescue missions….. I walked up to my front door and as I started to put the key in the lock I thought; what if all of this is gone? In the difference of a day……. Memories gone. Pictures gone. Music gone. Furniture gone. Everything. Gone.
With those thoughts in mind and my keys in my hand, I wrote this song. I thank all of you for sharing, in so many ways. And while I am at it, thank you for allowing us to share with you.
http://www.gofundme.com/johnvaneaton
https://midimike.com/2015/07/11/please-help-spread-the-word/
It may take a few times through listening to this one. A number of my songs might seem quite alien at first. I hope you let them grow on you. (OK, that sounded kinda creepy LOL!) This is a textured song where I did all the sequencing and drum programming. There are no guitars on this song. Most of this is Atari days using the Proteus 1 tone generator an the RX 15 drum machine. I also use sounds straight from the keyboard(s) I use as controllers. In this case it is the Korg Trinity V3. Other than the vocals, everything is recorded via MIDI and plays back live sounds from the keyboards and tone generators (along with effects and other goodies). From start to finish this is a dark piece. Sparse percussion with a rolling sequenced bass line. You have heard my wife before on “All Night Long” and “What I do at Night” and this is another one of her gems. The intro and break vocals are from Phyllis Ann, who toured with The Personal Touch and sang on “The Touch” and “Our Bodies Move.” As the song begins I try to use multiple melody lines in various instrument voicings to lay the chordal structure. Plucky guitar sounds come from the Korg. Slow trance – lulling you closer. Then the message; “Who’s Following You?”. But the subject quickly settles on the main issue; death. Too many of us are waiting for that dream.
“It’s Easy to Die” (@) MSK 1990
I wonder, I wonder who
Who, is following you.
It’s easy to die
You just close your eyes.
And then once the dream begins
It will never end. My friend.
Don’t put up a fight
Just follow the light.
It’s not too hard
And once the dream begins
It will never end.
Chorus:
It’s easy to turn
Your life into lies. My friend
And once the dream begins
It will never end.
After speaking with a number of people over the years I have gotten the impression that I have a few lucky and maybe rare experiences. One of the common conversations revolve around dreams or rather nightmares. Some people have nasty dreams, wake during the night and other symptoms. Other than what I will describe below, I do not think I have EVER had a nightmare or what people would describe as a bad dream.
I do have repeating dreams or dreams with common themes. As a kid, going to the playground was always a treat. Some kids play harder than others. Our family used to compete on how fast you could get going on the swing so you could jump off and land the furthest from the swings! I wish I had some of that wear-and-tear back, but it was a lot of fun at the time! So we would swing really fast, let go and jump as far as you could and get back on the swing and do it again. The closest thing I have had to a bad dream is the dream of swinging as a kid. Everything is the same. Sometimes lots of other kids (I had a big family so us and a few neighbors was a lot) sometimes I am swinging by myself. Beautiful day and I swing really fast and when I get to the fastest/highest point I jump. But now I can see that I am at the edge of a hill, and as I am soaring off the swing the ground below me is dropping off really fast and I am in effect getting higher and higher, even though the swing set is still right behind me at eye level. I am panicking at this point and cannot believe it. Before I have time to think of something to do I notice I am not falling at all but gently soaring, looking down at the valley below. The two seconds of adrenaline are gone and I am enjoying a beautiful view on a sunny day.
If you are brave enough….Give me an idea of dreams (or nightmares) that you have. I think it might tell us a lot about our blogging community.
I wanted to give everyone an update on my musician friend John (whose house was damaged in a fire). Lots of effort and a lot of good news, even in this sad event. John will be in town soon and will be able to look over the damage and take inventory of the surviving furniture and gear. Until then Alisa has organized the gofundme project http://www.gofundme.com/johnvaneaton which has raised $10,000 so far in less than a week. I think that is going to make a big difference in the next few days and weeks.
There are a number of people still working on cleaning and restoring items that were rescued in the search and recovery phase. Once John gets to look at the various projects, he will have a better idea of how to get back on his feet. We hope to have information from the team that is working on organizing a benefit soon.
https://midimike.com/2015/07/11/please-help-spread-the-word/ this is the original post about these events.
I’m also in the process of writing a song about the events using some guitar chords my wife was playing with recently and a little jam I was working on. Thank you all for getting the word out and helping as much as you can. I have come home from those salvage missions and realize everything that I have could be gone in moments. I am not rich, but the music and memorabilia would be irreplaceable. I will need them when memory loss really kicks in!
This song is for John, everyone who donated money and time to help him and all of you really cool bloggers. I’m going to post the lyrics first while I polish the song, but it will be up shortly.
“A Very Long Night” © 7-13-2015 Lyrics MSK Music MSK/ELK
Traveling for business
He is often out of town
From country to country
One city becomes the next
It wasn’t until he got the text
With pictures from the news
That he knew this was the beginning
Of a Very Long Night
He wasn’t home when the fire started
Everyone says it could have been worse
As we watched, broken hearted
Each tear became another verse
Unable to return any time soon
All my friend could do was watch
Phone calls and e-mail
The news from home was grim.
Some say it was best for him
Being out of town.
Some say it was best for him
He didn’t see it burn down.
Some say it was best for him
Not to see the damage from the flames
Some say it was best for him
As all that water did the same
It was a good thing he wasn’t home that night
It was a good thing he wasn’t home that night
It was a good thing he wasn’t home all right
It was just the beginning of a Very Long Night.
Hey everyone! While the question is open and I still hope people continue to post their most influential artists and bands at https://midimike.com/2015/06/29/who-do-you-love-influential-musicianbands/ , I want to thank everyone for participating. I have listened to a ton of new music. With some I was familiar with the artist and others I was not aware of at all! Even the bands I knew of, the suggestions were songs I had not heard before but were probably the best the artist recorded. I would like to summarize the lists you posted and make a condensed suggestion article once I have listened to each suggestion a few times. What music and band we like tells a lot about us in many ways. This is a good community and we share a number of qualities and talents. We have our own pulse. A common foundation that is very cool.
As a member of a cover band, I was given the opportunity to add something to my personal profile on the band web site. I added a statement that went something like this; “we will play anywhere for free…..we just charge to move the equipment in and out”!
If you think about it, you would have to pay an awful lot of money to have ‘professionals’ move that much equipment. Then they have to pack it all up and take it back at the end of the gig. I have played keyboards, guitar, percussion and back up vocals in most of the bands I performed with. Sometimes I also ran sound at the same time! I was carrying so much gear for myself that I probably had more than the sound guy! Once you haul equipment out of your house (I did not have duplicates, so what I used in the studio I had to tear down and take to the gig, set it up, tear it down, take it home and set it up in the studio again) and set up the gear you are all hot and sweaty and exhausted and now get to play for 4 plus hours, pack it all up and take it home. Ahhhh, the glamourous rock and roll life. Knowing all that, I think most people would be amazed at how little the local band playing the bar scene gets paid for all that work. Maybe it is confusing because we call it ‘play’. If I figured out an hourly rate I would probably get really depressed!
We also had to practice, individually and as a band. No weekends free…. you get home at 3 or 4 in the morning and have to recover most of the day, then you play that night and do it all over again. I always worked at a day job and still do, so this was about all the free time I had. Now time for family, writing and recording projects and hopefully a little time in the sun.
Is it fun? Absolutely. I am an introvert and very shy in public, but it is a thrill to perform with great musicians and have the audience appreciate what you are doing. I would not give it up, and if I were a bit younger I would still be out there. At one point I told the band members that I would quit gigging out when I turned 50 – or my van broke down, whichever came first. My van did break down first, but our light guy fixed it himself for free. So I kept playing out. Way past 50. I recently stopped because tinnitus (a ringing in the ears from long exposure to loud sounds) got pretty bad in the last few years. I only play out for special occasions these days, but it is still a blast.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/dark-energy/id962943592
This is another acoustic guitar song with me as the vocalist. This is a true story that I took creative license with and made into something more than it was for the effect. This song really is about me getting a ticket while driving around town. This was many years ago, so the details are always suspect, but I was driving local roads and might have been distracted but as the traffic ahead of me slowed and then rapidly came to a stop …… I didn’t! Unfortunately I ran into the car in front of me – at very low speed – but to fast and to late to stop in time. The police officer gave me a citation for ACD, which I suspect, most of you safe drivers might not know what that is! Around here that stands for Assured Clear Distance. It is the driver’s obligation to make sure to have enough distance between you and the vehicles ahead of you to stop in time to avoid doing what I just did. This was my first accident and it was all new to me. While I am waiting to get my citation and then reviewing the event afterwards I thought ‘how am I going to explain this?’. So I came up with a rather funny romantic embellishment and wrote a song about this experience. The song also has an interesting intro and break. A number of my songs will have unusual time signatures. For the musicians out there, send me a message if you know what time signature I used.
MidiMike 