This morning was hot. Hot mornings are a warning sign of stranger things to come in my life…and I decided to paint the rest of my bathroom in non-paint clothes, and guess what? They are now the color of my bathroom.
I have moved. My new neighborhood is Loud-Quiet: the kind of quiet that is usually loud, but sometimes it’s quieter than it is loud; hence, Loud-Quiet. Yesterday was no exception to this general rule, however, among the rap that often blares from open home doors or cars, I heard a sample of Amelie soundtrack (one of my favorites) mixed among yet another rap song. My curiosity was piqued. I ran out the door and across the street to the group of guys (and one girl) sitting in their front porch. “Hello,” I said. They looked surprised. I wondered if they thought I was going to ask them to turn their music off or something. “My name is Emily. Do you know who this is?” They were friendly and informative: Kid Cuti was their answer.
“We saw you moving in. Where did you come from?”
“I moved here from Washington Heights.”
“You moved here from Washington Heights?”, they sounded surprised. (Wow… how do I answer that?!)
“Yes. I like it here.”
“Well, you’re welcome over any time.”
And now I have some new friends. Thanks, Kid Cuti.
(Of Note: A lady from the 4th floor of her building was just arguing with a guy on the sidewalk and threw a couple of bottles at his car right before he shouted some threats at her and drove off… home sweet home.)
Started it in the wee hours of the morning today (during the quiet part of the day). This is in its first phase: I thought I could clean it up, move stuff around, add some more stuff, make it longer, add some vocals…but I may not end up finishing it as I’m ho-hum about it generally. I had all my recording equipment boxed away, so I used my ear buds to record the voice and bells. Ear buds. Never a solid way of capturing sound. I slowed everything down once it was recorded. Garageband samples filled up the rest of it.
Also, The 80s. You may not know that I love the 80s.
I have been working on several pieces that I can perform entirely live without the addition of several tracks. I find many of these 365 songs of a particular genre have been over-dubbed in a way that make the more bigger sounding works hard to perform live without a parade of musicians and a computer in front of me. I have been experimenting with the pick-up on my cello to do live vocal looping using the f-holes in my cello. I am including one of them as a 365 song. I have made several attempts at it in the past never being happy with the result at all, however, I really feel it’s getting close. There are a lot of kinks, but I wanted to show you the idea before it’s even really processed.
Writing: It’s a mix of prepared ideas and literal improvisation actually. The chord changes are prepared, the number of times it passes is prepared, but everything else is improvisation.
Recording: I have a live mic in the room and my loop pedal is plugged directly into the computer which results in a slightly cleaner sound than recording it live from my little practice amp.
The first vocal with improvised words is sung into the room mic, but all the remaining chorus vocals are looped through lifting my cello up and singing straight into the f-holes of the cello, letting the pick-up get what it wants, not what I want it to get. I also experimented with different vocal dynamics: how does it react when softer? Louder? I’ve tried this idea out a few times in the practice room, only in principle, but never really applied it in real time. I think it has potential. This is a posted exercise song. I’d like to break something much more polished very soon at a live show and see how it goes.
A word on lyrics: I’ve had a real block lately. Some will say that writer’s block is all in your head, that it doesn’t really exist. I don’t know. There are a lot of lyric exercises one can do to push through it. To be frank, I’ve been a bit lazy. Lyrics take a lot of energy out of me… and I’ve wanted to watch movies (The Saint is on instant play on NetFlix! Yesss! Best acting ever!)
Disclaimer: This song is a posting of a sketch. My silent ego shudders at the vocal performance of this song, but I have confidence that you will hear what you need to get out of it, as have I!
Live at Webster Hall (Photo credits Isaac Gillepsie)
This has been quite a day. I will just paraphrase for you:
Woke up at 6:30 am.
Ran to airport to arrive there at 7:30
Rushed to our plane at 8:30
Gate checked my cello
Sat on the plane for an hour to de-ice
Watched It’s Complicated with Alec Baldwin and Meryl Streep (not at their best, mind you. I regret I had earphones on me.)
Also watched 2 episodes of Jason Schwartzman’s HBO series Bored to Death. (Was glad I had earphones on me. It’s silly stupid, and I liked it.)
Landed at 3:30 and sat on the plane for an hour in a line of other planes.
Learned that, without surprise, they took my cello to baggage claim despite having a pink “gate check” tag on it. The whole point of gate checking my cello and expecting it back at the gate upon arrival is to save me and them a lot of hassle, but they get all ornery about strollers vs. instruments and often take it to baggage claim anyway.
Found my cello disappeared somewhere between the plane and baggage claim and spent three hours in Delta’s lost luggage department seconds away from tears or a heart attack as they continued to tell me they had lost it and didn’t know where, not only my cello, but all of the oversized baggage had been taken.
I also learned, while waiting, that they had put the oversized baggage on the carousel and it had jammed somehow. The jam had caused the delay. Now, imagine Emily Hope imagining her cello the cause of the jam, and it being crushed and pulverized, despite her cello encased in blankets, clothes, and Karen Poleshuck’s awesomely strong cello case. Panic increases.
Three hours later they wheel my cello out, in fine condition, apologizing and telling me they will give me more mileage for my trouble. I’d rather just be guaranteed a free cello seat every single time I fly, but our relationship hasn’t reached that stage of intimacy, obviously.
Sigh.
I attempted to post a song this morning but with all the running about, I find that I had to wait until now to post the song for the day. I simply had to forego my original plan and write an Ode to Delta, since, on my trip to and from Utah, they were so wonderful as to lose my cello TWICE.
There is an omnichord in this song.
There are three Emily vocals in this song.
Jonathan is singing very quietly in the kitchen while he makes us our first meal of the day: at 7:14 pm.
Ode To Delta No. 2 (or Delta, Delta, Delta)
Delta delta delta
Can I help you help you help you
Once is twice as nice to lose
The things that mean nothing to me
But twice is twice as nice
And I’m so glad to be the reaper
Won the card and played the game and
Now I’m three times as thankful so
Delta delta delta
Can I help you help you help you
Delta delta delta
Can I help you help you help you
Love, I love you
Love, I love you
Ease, it’s easy
It’s easy to love you sooo
Delta delta delta
Can I help you help you help you
Please…
(whisper: Delta, I love you)
I thought I’d try something a little different: Showing with sound how I feel on the inside. I’ve been talking to an artist friend about Dada and art. I took a Degenerate Art class in my master’s degree study, and we addressed the whole art for art’s sake idea. I still don’t know how I feel about it personally, and honestly, sometimes it is frustrating when I don’t understand what I’m looking at or hearing, but I try to appreciate it. It’s a really fascinating conversation to have with an artist or art history professor, which is what my friend happens to do for her job. Of course, she knew more about it than me, and ripped me a new philosophical new one. Oh well, it’s still fun to banter about it.
How do you show someone how you feel on the inside with sound? I’m not sure, and I guess that’s why I tried it. It’s interesting because you can hear my cello pop as I turn the pegs down low, low, low, like it’s going to break. I love sound that is disintegrating and popping of its own accord with very little or no help from me.
I talked about Tom Waits last night at my first SLC show, so I suppose he had some kind of influence stylistically, but he’s very melodic, so the influence is very small. I understand this won’t make the cut for a CD, but that’s not necessarily the point of the 365. I mean, a song worthy of more attention and perhaps future use is nice, but exploring is important, too.
A show tonight and then I’m done and back home to New York!
My, You Are A Pretty Thing
I’m going back
I gotta claim on mine
I gotta climb in my heart, climb in my heart
Gotta climb, Gotta climb
Gotta climb outta my heart, climb
Gotta get out of her heart
Gotta get out of her
Gotta get out, gotta get out
And mine’s the way
I recorded this song live in 2008 at Sidewalk Cafe. Funny enough, it was recorded by Bryan Speaker, the very same friend who inspired the 365 project. I re-edited it and sold it on a live EP for about two seconds and then took it off because I thought it was a horrible performance of it. A photographer friend of mine used it on a video she did which I will try to find for you to see; it’s really moving.
It is all done with a single Boss loop station. In the middle of it, once the loop is set up, I got up from my chair (I sat and played then), and used another vocal mic that was set up with a bunch of reverb. Listening back to it, it’s not nearly as awful as I thought it was, and I’m actually surprised it worked as well as it did. Many good thoughts to you on this very cold March day. Good will and good thoughts.
Pearl and the Beard is leaving for tour TODAY (Monday, that is…) Philadelphia show tonight! Leaving Jonathan lots of food in the freezer… oatmeal cookies, and Green Tea Ice Cream (don’t know why, but he likes it… bleck…)
Title: I am not clumsy. I am “careless”. Or so Jonathan says. Or so Jeremy and Jocelyn from Pearl and the Beard say. I take things apart or they just magically break. And why not, I say?
Recording: My parents are funny and buy me funny awesome things. For Christmas, my mom bought me an Edward Cullenlunch box. It came with a thermos! (It leaks.) Tonight, I found some rubber bands hanging around the house. I took my lunch box apart and strung rubber bands on it. You can hear them break and snap and fly off in this song.
Do you remember Olive’s bells from a few days ago? They take a prominent role in this song. Olive’s bells are super cool because they are just colored bars on a wooden frame that aren’t held down by anything, so you can pick them up and put them in any order or whatever. You can hear me pick them up and put them down again, then pick them up into a little bundle and then put them down again. You can also hear me rub my hands in circles on them. I like this sound.
My bells: I first recorded them clean, but after listening a few times, I tried some effects and loved it. They have amp simulation and vocal transformer on them.
Vocals were a choice I wasn’t sure I should make actually, but I put them in any way. Since this was a deconstruction, I bent over, squished my diaphragm, crooked my neck up and shut off my throat for the first half. I used the vocal transformer on a second vocal track. I have been using this on my vocals lately, and I’m finding I really like the ease of this tool and what it allows me to do… though I feel it’s a little bit of a cop-out. In the last few seconds there is a tiny melody the vocals take on. I wonder why it’s there when this is a deconstruction? Maybe there is some light at the end of the rubble? I don’t know.
I recorded this song at 120 bpm and after all the tracks were recorded I raised it to 150. I did this because it was 1) getting too long and I was afraid you wouldn’t make it to the end of the song – maybe you still won’t, but I hope you do. 2) It needed that special something. It always freaks with the sound to try this. I’ve done it on one other song: I like it.
The frequencies were screwing with the mic, and it was peaking: both problems of which I am extremely annoyed, but it’s totally my own fault, but I didn’t want to go back and re-record stuff, so I’m going to deal with it.
You doing alright today? I hope so. If green tea ice cream isn’t your thing (which I totally understand), might I suggest a dreamcicle?
I realized I didn’t have you hear this…it is a part of the RPM Challenge I did with Guy. This song was written by Mike Wolcot. He did guitar and vocals, sent it to Guy Capecalatro who added 2 tracks, then I got it and added two tracks.
I feel this song is appropriate for a Saturday morning, as you may have experienced this event even last night: who knows! (*Those of you with sensitive ears- there is one f-word in this song. If you’d like, you can master the art of censoring by using your mute button with a quick hand…or cough on cue.)
My favorite line? We both have opinions and both of them stink…
I hope your weekend is shaping up to be a tremendous one! Working on multiple songs can make you forget what you’re really working on… but it’s a good mental workout. Have you seen Tim Burton’s Alice and Wonderland yet? I can’t decid whether or not to see it. I’ve got some mixed emotions about the trailer, but I felt that way about Avatar’s trailer and loved the movie… But, man, that Johnny Depp…
EHP
Get Out Of The Car
Get out of the car, let go of my hand
On the hook forever
For every mistake that I made in the past
You’re stalling for time now
Taking cheap shots trying to cover your ass
Our place is like quicksand
The harder we fight here the lower we sink
You never listen
You’re talking so much I can’t hear myself think
CHORUS
I’m so fucking angry
I’m trying to leave without working this out
In less than a week’s time
I won’t recall what this fight was about
When something’s on fire
We both have opinions and both of them stink
I never listen
You’re talking so much you can’t hear yourself think
Whoever said best friends can't be purple was totally wrong.
I have a friend named Bea. She has a beautiful little girl named Olive. Is Olive five or six? I can’t remember right now. Olive plays the violin and ukulele. She also has some really cool multi-colored bells that are from the Lilian Vernon catalog in 1984! She has kindly let me borrow them to write some songs! I have been working on a few songs that have these bells in them.
I used them for this song on the RPM Challenge. Mike Wolcot started this song with 2 tracks (he who starts it, names it), Guy added 2 more and I added vocals and bells. I recorded both in my bedroom very comfortably, so it went quickly. I feel like this song should go into a movie. No? I liked this project so much because it helped me think differently about instrumentation. What do you add to a song? What does it need? What don’t you add? I also liked it because I had to wait for my song at the other end of a production line. I had to give free reign to what might happen to my song. It was a really great exercise.
In any case, this is a bells song… I have been working on several others and will post them soon! This project has become very automatic for my brain. It’s become a constant companion: one that I know will always be there when I wake up no matter what happens the night before. It’s a good and bad feeling, actually. Sometimes accompanied with dread, other times excitement. I write every day even thought the songs I’m posting might be a few days old.
I had a show last night at Mercury Lounge. I was the only female set the entire night. Everyone following me was male with guitars, guitars, guitars. I only mention it because there was as slight feeling I had of being out of place, but I played my set with Abbie Gardner and felt better. We had to represent the Boobs! So, all went well. I had a really nice chat with a big touring band out of Austin called Wade Bowen. Since Pearl and the Beard is leaving on tour next Monday, we chatted it up about touring life and such. This band tours 200 days out of the year, has INTENSE merchandise (girl’s boy-style underpants and $400 guitars with Wade Bowen’s face on it). One member we talked to was 30, married, with two kids at home. It’s an interesting look into the way life is for some musicians. This is their job. They play music and live out of a bus: and they love it.
Until tomorrow! Hope things have been going well this week for you…
7 pm. 365 Songs! and Abbie Gardner is singing with me!
Opening for Dan Torres!
$10. Be there or Be absent and squarish.
This is a red barn. But not at dusk. But I think it’s okay that way.
Red Barn At Dusk
Am I the talk of the stage? No.
Am I the bride or groom? No.
Did you leave me? No.
Am I the talk of the stage? No.
Did you see my name in lights?
Like they foretold?
I liked you then more.
Liv, come back!
Liv, come back!
Don’t you know I have your shoes on my back porch?
Am I the talk of the stage? No.
Am I the talk of the stage? No.
Did you show your age for my back?
Oh, every time.
Every time.
Every time.
This is the last song I completed for the RPM project. It’s over! Guy Capecelatro started the first two tracks of this song, then sent it to Mike who added two. I got it yesterday and worked on it last night. I added two tracks of vocals. These lyrics are improvised. The crying in the end was a weird glitch in my brain that said to me as I was singing, “Hey. Cry here.” Ha! It was funny and when I was done I thought, “Can I really send this?” It was the first take of those vocals and the eleventh-hour was drawing nigh, so I didn’t do them again. Guy wrote back after I sent it to him, “This is so very awesome and unexpected. I’m entranced by the singing. Have you heard Cocorosie? Has a little of that going on, particularly in the near sobbing ending.”
I had not heard of CocoRosie. I LOVE IT!!! And now you can know about CocoRosie, too!
I am tired. I have a show tonight! Yay!
Once again I am feeling great, huge heaping amounts of gratitude for you. Thank you for coming over. Have a spectacular day.
I have a friend named Jesse Patrone-Werdiger. He has been talking to me about his grandparents recently. While I was stuck in the Miami airport, we talked online about his grandfather, Manek, and his grandmother, Ilona and their lives in Long Island, but also that they are Holocaust survivors, Ilona in Auschwitz for a little while and Manek somewhere else. Originally from Poland, they are now 80 or so and have led a wonderfully full life. In talking with Jesse, he showed me this video (Jesse is a filmmaker and used his grandparents for one of them.)
I instantly crushed in his grandpa. So cute. In jest, Jesse said this “hahaha: you and manek. love at first sight. there’s your song for the day manek!” Well, I have written a song inspired by Jesse’s grandparents. I spend the next several hours talking to Jesse intermittently, asking questions about his grandparents, hearing little stories and small bits of information. An aspect I hear a lot about from that time is how so many people came to the states (and still do this) and would feel the need to change their name or their names would be changed for them by officials at the border. Jesse: “When they came to the states they changed their name. Werdiger’s not my real name. My grandfather stole medicine at the end of the war because one of his friends needed it, and I think he was worried about not getting into the states b/c of it.” This prompted the first verse of this song. I feel such a connection to my name. Names are a way of identifying you, placing you in a moment in the past, present and future. Millions of people have changed their names, and I personally feel a sense of personal loss for them, though I understand it’s a matter of life or death in some cases or that others may not hold such weight on a name.
And the chorus? Jesse said, “My grandma says beautiful all the time. It’s her adjective of choice for anything positive. “It was so beautiful, we had dinner, the whole family was there. It is such a beautiful restaurant.” Everything is beautiful.”
I realized well into it that I didn’t know his grandparents well enough to really do justice to an entire song about them, so I took some time away from it to think about what I really wanted to say. My friend Rachel Lord’s (Ugly Purple Sweater) grandfather recently passed away. A few weeks after he passed, Rachel posted a link to an NPR article about her grandfather. “Rather than fight in World War II, conscientious objector and Quaker Charlie Lord was sent by the government to work at a mental institution called Philadelphia State Hospital. He secretly took photographs to expose the horrors of the institution. These are his photographs.“ They are so moving. The photographs he secretly shot were shown in Life Magazine in May 1946. I encourage you to read about and visit these photographs. They even have audio of Charlie talking about each photograph. You can read the most recent NPR article here. I love this picture of him. I looked at it for a long, long time, and decided to write about him. Charlie is the second verse of this song.
Charlie Lord
How should I end this song? This is my grandmother and my grandfather: Hope Thomas Price and Ralph Price. My grandfather passed away very soon after my birth, so I never knew him.
Hope Thomas Price and Ralph Price
I am named after my grandmother. (Another name reference.) She is still living in Malad, Idaho. I wish I had a closer relationship with her, though we are very friendly, and I love her very much, I think it’s just that we are far away. She is a beautiful singer and a great organist. I spent my childhood visiting her home and playing on her Thomas organ, improvising the afternoon away until she would bring me a rhubarb slushy. She is a determined, hard-working and stubborn person, and she tells stories really well. This is my grandmother, Hope.
In talking with Jesse about his grandparents I said, “That’s so cool that you have that stuff in your blood, you know? Such a dramatic history is a part of YOUR history. I love that thought.” Jesse: I know, it’s really amazing. I’ve tried talking to them more about it, and they’re such AMAZING people.” Me: “I think you should feel really special.”
It makes me think of Rachel, that she has that history in herself, too… that I also have a history that goes through people who have experienced dramatic wonderful things and dark and scary things. They have lived and existed and make up a part of me… It’s the same for you as well.
Writing: Took a long time. A lot of thought and gestation time. I didn’t concern myself with being cliché or if I was inappropriate. I wanted to be sincere. That’s all. I included a bridge with no words. I’ll reserve the right to add them later if they come. I have included two choruses which are in red that I changed to tie them together with a more similar thread. I’m including them because the change in meaning was so drastic, I wanted to show you both to see what you might think, too.
Recording: I’m coming down with something so, the vocals aren’t in top shape, but it’s okay. I recorded the uke and vocals simultaneously though I attempted to track it and gave up. I really wanted to arrange cello parts and bells, but just didn’t have time as Pearl and the Beard are braving the snow to play a show in Portsmouth, New Hampshire this weekend, so I had to get ready. I think this stripped down version is okay and appropriate at least for a first draft. I also feel like this song, mainly because of color and instrumentation is a sister song to “Headache for a Heartache”, but I’m not sold on that thought. I can only hope they have their own identity and can stand alone.
Manek and Ilona
Manek and Ilona
We designate you by a name though changed
From there, there to here
Lost in the survival
The anther sure will sting until it’s down and gone, it’s done.
And why not?
And why not say everything is beautiful
Cause it is
Cause it is
Cause it is
Pictures of a watchman
Who meant the best but saw the worst
It was done, done to men, fragile men
Hearts they will be broken
No matter what the doctors say
He will sleep, then awake and ask to go
Changed chorus lyricsAnd why not?And why not?Say it’s an image that’s hard to bear?Cause it isSometimes it isUsed chorus lyrics And why not?And why not?Say everyone is beautiful?Cause they areCause they are Cause they are
Me a living namesake
A stranger living side by side in a mirror
I am you, You are me, we are one
Will you not remember?
And forgive all the battles lost
And even those, those we thought had been won
Changed chorus lyrics And why not?And why not?Say that we will persevere?Cause we willCause we willCause we willUsed chorus lyrics And why not? And why not?Say that we are beautiful?Cause we areCause we areCause we are
And why not?
And why not say everything is beautiful?
Cause it is
Cause it is
This uke has gotten some mileage. It’s brought out quite a few ballads. Maybe a Ramone’s inspired song is in order soon. You can’t do ballads forever…
This is a red barn. But not at dusk. But I think it’s okay that way.
