Hey, remember this thing? You probably don’t and truth is I barely remember it. Life can be that way. We start something with great ambition and intent then an entire season goes by without us following through. The original intent of this was to document my musical interests and personal journey so let’s jump into what’s happened this summer.

I’d say the theme of the summer has been experimenting while trying to catch my breath. Between a couple trips to Disney World, which were amazing, I found myself diving back into electronic music, ambient guitar, and learning how to program beats (try not to laugh too hard). I wrote some songs and did a little recording but found these weren’t where my interests were at the time. I’m blessed to have a fun variety of tools for noisemaking. More of my energy went into learning how to better use them and have fun, which is supposed to be the point of this. Right?

One of the downsides of a traditional career is that it starts to color other parts of your life. The corporate world has provided a steady income, healthcare, retirement plan, etc. and these are the reasons I followed that path. But it can color one’s view of progress or success based on checking a box, filling up a report, and showing it all on some nice spreadsheet. Thankfully art isn’t this way. I found my summer of experimenting was refreshing for musical creativity and skill.

I did publish a couple of the outcomes of this experimentation. These are ambient instrumentals that more or less scratched on itch at the time. One is titled ii IV and was inspired by a Twitter interaction with one of my favorite musicians, Phil Cook. Phil plays guitar and keyboards. He is a member of Hiss Golden Messenger but has worked with Justin Vernon as part of The Shouting Matches, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Megafaun, and many other artists. His tweet comparing ii and IV chords to licorice and then life, lead to my little ambient jam using just the ii and IV chords. Since I had two and four, I figured it needed six and eight so I followed up with vi VIII. I would appreciate if you give them a listen when you have a few minutes.