 Me and my bro. Today's sixty seconds of sound is the first part of a mini-series I call There's Something About Blood. I was thinking about my older siblings and how much they mean to me. They're all in Texas and I miss them every day. And now my sibs all have kids! I see photos of my nieces and nephews and I love them so much I think my heart will burst. This led me to think about the uniquely unifying force of shared blood. No matter how far away my family lives or how much time passes between our visits, I know that as soon as I see their faces... I'll feel at home. This is nothing short of a miracle given that I only lived with my siblings for eight of my almost twenty-eight years on this Earth (yes, I am turning 27 in two weeks!). I find that my siblings' love for me manifests itself most strongly through seemingly insignificant acts. I have all these distinct memories of silly little things that they've done for me that, though admittedly small, taught me to trust in our relationship. So I'm sharing one story per sib, starting with the oldest... my big brother David. THE SUNDAY SOUND: May 29, There's Something About Blood, Part One For those following along in an RSS reader, click through to the original post to hear today's piece.
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 Lately I have felt so apart from everything. I believe (and hope!) I am in a period of growth. I change every day, caring less and less about certain things and more and more about others. Maybe all these feelings of apartness (is that a word?) are simply the manifestation of associated growing pains? No sé. All of my church responsibilities ended early today (due to Stake Conference, my meetings were only two hours instead of three!). This is sensational news for The Sunday Sound series because it means I actually invested real time in composing, recording, and editing a new (artistic! meaningful!) piece. Today's sixty seconds is a sparsely layered acoustic composition that proves for the umpteenth time that I am an emotional creature. Also, I am auditioning a new audio player today from SoundCloud. It looks fancier, but it means my audio is not hosted on my own site. I can't decide if the benefits of being fancy outweigh the benefits of unlimited uploading and a permanent link. In other news, a very happy birthday to my resilient and effervescent sister. THE SUNDAY SOUND: May 22, Splintered For those following along in an RSS reader, click through to the original post to hear today's piece.  Finding the time to make a new piece every week has been a struggle lately (I'm not quite sure how I once made a new piece every. single. day.??). At 9:30pm, I still hadn't come up with anything. I realized that if I wanted to go to bed at a normal hour, I could only spend about 30 minutes on this week's piece (which automatically meant it was going to be terrible).
To go along with the "where does all my freaking time go??" theme, I gave myself a timed challenge. I would teach myself a new song in 15 minutes and record it twice. Pick the best of the two takes and move on with my life. NO EDITING ALLOWED. I soon realized that my microphone wasn't set up, so I decided to use Photo Booth to access the internal mic on my Macbook. Yikes. You hear that awful buzz? That's the sound of a lazy producer. I promise I haven't given up on life, guys. You'll get a good piece with good sound next week, I swear. Probably. The experiment I chose: The White Stripes - "You've Got Her In Your Pocket"  Mama and I on her birthday trip to Boston in 2008. Happy Mother's Day! I adore my mother. I cannot describe my deep affection for her. She is the only person that has physically been around throughout my entire life. She is so proud of everything that I do (even the lamest, most insignificant things) and I love her for it. And now that I'm an adult (almost 27! How?!), I kind of feel like her protector. She's put up with enough crap in her life to not have to deal with d-bags. True story. So, in honor of the day, I secretly recorded my Mother's Day phone call. (I realize this calls into question that whole "protector" thing as well as my ethics as a producer, but let's ignore that for now, shall we?) We spoke for about 10 minutes; the essence of our conversation is captured in today's sixty seconds. My favorite part is her encouragement of robbing the cradle. Thanks, Mama. I'll take that lesson to heart. THE SUNDAY SOUND: May 8, A Conversation with Mama For those following along in an RSS reader, click through to the original post to hear today's piece.  Right Round, storage for an LP collection by K.M. Elliott Only New York has more artists per capita than the City of Somerville, and I am happy to be among the hosts of artsy folks crammed into our quaint four square miles. I love my town and I love its Somerville Open Studios. Every year, roughly 400 local artists open their homes and their work spaces to the public. The adoring public then wanders around the four square miles looking for the orange balloons marking a mini-gallery (or, if you're like me, you compulsively highlight the SOS map to be certain you don't miss anything you REALLY want to see! For example, those LP cabinets to your left). One of this year's personal highlights was a sound art installation (of course) at Miller Street Studios. David Durlach of TechnoFrolics created Dancing Trees (64 magnets covered with iron dust respond to changes in the magnetic field produced by 16 computer-controlled electromagnets which are synchronized to a musical selection). Lucky for you, my talented fellow media artist pal Mike McVey captured the essence of this awesomeness in the video below. Not so lucky for you, my crazy laugh has a prominent place in the beginning of the piece.  You can check out some of the other artists that were featured (and the pieces I specifically liked) via my "I love Somerville's Open Studios" Pinterest board. As an aside, Pinterest is a sensation. The best part of this virtual bulletin board: you can perma-link to images. One click brings you to the image's original context. While used mostly for wedding planning so far, it has a ZILLION potential uses (like planning out your dream equipment purchases for your future home studio!). Check out my boards by clicking on the screen capture to your left. Enjoy.  My niece Alexa would have been SEVEN on Friday had neuroblastoma not been such a d-bag and taken her when she was only four. So for this week's Sunday Sound, I've gathered a bunch of little kids to sing to her. The videos below accomplished three things: 1) provided audio material for today's sixty seconds. 2) made me even more baby hungry. 3) reminded me to always cut out my own voice when I post cute videos of my future children. Miss you, Lex. Special thanks to our singers: Little boy sings Happy Birthday to his sister 18 month old baby girl singing happy birthday Happy Birthday baby sings happy birthday... Happy Birthday to you Happy Birthday!! Happy birthday to you happy birthday sophia sings happy birthday HAPPY BIRTHDAY Baby Chad singing happy birthday Singing Baby - "Happy Birthday" From a Two Year Old.. Happy Birthday to you Song by our 2 year old The kids singing Happy Birthday to Alexa... THE SUNDAY SOUND: May 1, Happy Birthday, Alexa! For those following along in an RSS reader, click through to the original post to hear today's piece. |