FAWM: Day 7

People are really moving along with song creation during FAWM: February Album Writing Month.  If we don’t have songs, at least there are many with the concept or image for their album.  You can listen to the songs as they are posted at the FAWM jukebox.  If you’re interested in ukulele songs, you can type “ukulele” into the jukebox and about 3 pages of songs will play for you.

I know two ukuleleists (new word denoting one who plays ukulele) who stop by Ukulele Perspective Blog have joined FAWM with me:  Gwynthesizer from Australia and Ukulelear from New York. The covers featured above are (l to r): Great Blue Heron, Ukulelear (are those the ukuleles of the students hanging across the blackboard), Gwynthesizer (all the excavated objects) and  JJ from Tennessee.

Congratulations to Gwynthesizer  on his two songs thus far.  He is writing an album called “excavations ” inspired by objects he found while digging a sandpit for his kids. The first song, called “Hatchet” has a beautiful progression of uke chords, but I guess it’s the eerieness of the words,

see, I’m a hatchet, I’m a hatchet right?
you’d better barricade yr door and huddle out of sight
I’ll use whatever metaphors I’ve got
to show that I don’t just break hearts I chop

that make the progression, well, eerie.  But there is truly something about the music that stays with you.  Nicely done, Gwyn. I look forward to hearing more of his songs.

As for Ukulelear and I, neither of us has posted a song yet.  It is tough, though, to think of a song a day, or in 7 days.  If you’re reading this and think otherwise, then it’s not too late for you to join FAWM.  It’s free.

I have a song I’ve been working on, but need to get the lyrics written (they change every time I sing the song) … well and then record it.  Although I started out with an idea to capture the sights and sounds of nature in Florida, specifically the bird life, my first song will be about work.  So I guess you take what the gods of Inspiration give you and work with it.

Note: apologies to Gwyn; corrections made.

Mighty Uke Documentary

I stumbled on Brenda’s (from Portland) post about her viewing the Mighty Uke Documentary.  This in turn led to checking out if I could buy the DVD to see it or what it would take to get the tour to come south to Florida.  Truth be told, I’d rather buy the DVD and watch it in the comfort of the couch and good company.  That’s because I would probably want to play the ukulele immediately after the viewing or just cast a glance slyly at some of my favorite ukuleles that would be gathered to watch the DVD with us.  The trailer is peppy.  I want to see this.  Has anybody else in addition to Brenda seen this documentary?

Back to Brenda’s post.  She expressed so well what so many of us know, “The thing that really struck me was how happy everyone seemed to be playing the uke. It doesn’t seem to inspire the kind of angst you get with music lessons on more traditional instruments — it just seems like fun.”  She continues, “In fact, that enthusiasm was the striking thing about all the groups and performers — the uke seems to inspire it.”

I hope Brenda gets a ukulele.  She would like it and all that she has observed is true.  The ukulele bestows to its players a perspective that is different. Of course, I call it the ukulele perspective.

Can a cat play the Ukulele?

In response to Humble Uker’s post with the cat photo, I cannot help but mention the most amazing, unbelievable and musical cat I have ever seen — Nora.  Her fame is unrivaled.

Nora, yes the cat, has recently released her own iPhone App so you can follow her blog “Nora’s Mews“.  You can follow her on Twitter, check out her Web site, buy Nora t-shirts, watch numerous Nora performances on YouTube videos, or watch her perform the CATcerto with Mindaugas Piecaitis, Lithuanian conductor.  If you have not watched the CATcerto it is a treat. I guarantee you’ve not seen or heard anything like it before.

Nora’s story, written as only a cat can write, is a great read.  I would imagine by now, after seeing her growing list of awards, accomplishments, and performances that she may be close to becoming independently wealthy.  She has likely always been independent, but the latter is a bonus.

To that end, I have wondered if a cat could or would play the ukulele.  Imagine the future of a cat with a ukulele perspective!

Ukulele Motion: Perspective

Stefana Fratila’s Ukulele: What should she call it?

Stefana Fratila’s latest ukulele song, "Vista Voyager" is refreshing.  Both the music and the setting for the video make you want to take a walk outdoors. And maybe shoot some video for a ukulele song.  Her video features a cat too. A bonus.

(Thanks to photographer Leigh Eldridge. Click red umbrella photo to see Leigh’s photoshoot of Stefana.)

Stefana was born in Sibiu, Romania.  She immigrated to Canada when she was about 4 years old and has lived in Vancouver, B.C. since.  She has gone back to Romania most summers to stay with her grandparents.

The CBC reports she likes to play small instruments. She will tell you those smaller instruments are the kalimba, harmonica, recorder, melodica, glockenspiel, and kazoo.  Along with the ukulele.

She claims the ukulele is, “definitely an instrument I am very comfortable writing songs for because I feel I’ve found a way to write ‘full’ songs with just a ukulele whereas  with a number of those other instruments, I play them solely for accompaniment on my recordings.  I really love the size and the feel of a ukulele but I don’t know what to call my favourite instrument right now.”

Although she doesn’t really remember how she got into the ukulele, she wrote, ”It may have involved me seeing a green one in a music store somewhere and then probably I justified my desire for it because it was green (which has always been my favourite colour).”

Fratila says of her ukulele background, “Apparently I was ‘taught’ ukulele in elementary school — and I must have been bad because I remember my dad going in to talk to my music teacher.  I had gotten a B and I was enrolled in piano lessons at the time and I guess my dad couldn’t understand why I wasn’t doing far better than other students who weren’t particularly musically inclined.  Of course, my dad thought that the ukulele was a tambourine and he sometimes recounts the expression on my music teacher’s face when he asked her, ‘I don’t get what could possibly be so hard about playing the ukulele.  You just hit it.’”

Fratila said people are her inspirations for writing her songs and, “what they say when they really mean things they can’t say.”

She said she has been, “very lucky to travel at a young age — that has transformed me into a fairly self-aware person and allows me to know how to regulate my feelings  in a way that produces music because that’s just how I deal with happiness or dejection or neutrality.”

Her advice to ukulele players who want to write songs is, “to be sincere and to try and not become too hyper-critical about what you ’should’ do. Writing songs has to come naturally.”

Thanks for the music, Stefana.  Good luck to you on your musical journey.

Don’t forget the ukulele and how much fun it can be.

February Album Writing Month: What have we got ourselves into …

Three of the Ukulele Perspective readers have signed up for FAWM – February Album Writing Month. Maybe there are more of you.  All of us are wondering what we have ourselves in for.

One thing to note are the interesting fora/forums to read on the FAWM Website.

If you are looking for ideas for songs, one thread suggests that taking headlines from the newspaper can inspire songs.  Afterall, some argue the Beatles gleaned a few songs from this technique.  As examples,  ”Happiness is a Warm Gun where most of the opening portions of the song are based on stories Lennon and McCartney read in the news”  or  ” A Day In The Life.”  As Tay writes, “All of John’s sections – ‘I read the news today’ – are from two stories in the paper – one about a socialite killing himself in a car accident, and the other about a council survey of holes in roads in Blackburn, Lancashire.”

Someone recommended Joe Jencks “Songwriting as Journalism” Workshops.

The FAWM wiki has an array of terms developed over the years.  A feast, for example, is the writing and recording a large number of songs (possibly even an entire album) in one sitting. The results are often titled [something]feast, after thePigfeast album which started the trend in 2008.

Or how about  Telephono – A songwriting equivalent of the classic game. TC Elliot explains: You listen to a song once and then you have to record your version of the said song. Compare the first to the last and you’ll be mightily impressed with the difference… much like the school bus game where one person whispers a word once to the next and so on till it gets back to the first person. Usually VERY different from start to finish.

I guess once we start February, we will all be grasping at rhymes, t-shirt slogans or any inspiration we can see or find.  A friend said to me after offering an idea for a song, “Just you wait. You will think this idea is gold after the first week.”  No doubt.  The pressure is mounting.  I have only one idea in my head on this very day.

We are told, on reading the Twitter-thread in the forum that ideas for songs will be tweeted daily.  Another thread suggests that everyone take a common first verse (I wonder who will write it) and then all who are interested will create variations on the theme.  That could prove to be very interesting.

There was, yesterday, a thread in the forum that someone started encouraging all the ukulele players in the FAWM to unite and write ukulele songs.  The thread in the forum had an acronym that I see has been removed today.  Wonder what happened to the ukulele players who were gathered there.

Best of luck to all who are in there: Ukulelear, Gywnthesizer, and Greatblueheron.  And if there are more ukulele players in FAWM perhaps we could generate a 4 string concert.  Maybe?

Pocket Ukulele or Sopranino?

Kala pocket uke beside soprano

Apparently there’s a new size ukulele that appeared at NAMM this year?  Kala has a pocket ukulele.  Is it smaller than the Ohana sopranino or is it Kala’s answer to the sopranino?

I love my Ohana sopranino, although I have loaned it to my sister right now.  Hopefully she will enjoy it as much as I miss playing it.

The pocket uke appears playable but I wonder if it has the same volume of the sopranino.

According to the YouTube video, it isn’t going to be available for purchase until the end of February or mid-March.

Sopranino Cigarbox Ukulele

I wish I could see it beside the Ohana sopranino to see how much smaller it is, if it is.  You have to wonder what the scale on the neck is like.  Will frets 10 and 12 be so small that you can’t move?

I built a sopranino-sized cigar box ukulele. It is quite cute and has a pretty good sound for being so small. I am changing strings after changing the tuners on it, but here’s a pic at the moment.

FAWM: February Album Writing Month

You can buy these CDs for $14 at FAWM

Have you heard of FAWM?  One of my Facebook friends started posting a week ago about FAWM and has been working on his album cover art.  He blogs more details.

A cover of previous FAWM winner

The goal of FAWM is to challenge people to write 14 songs in 28 days.

The FAQ is most helpful because I am still wondering why one would sign up for free to FAWM.org and then write for free.  You own your own music, of course.

But it seems that the idea is to collaborate, celebrate and support each other.  FAWM.org becomes a kind of collective where everyone who has the same goal — to write 14 songs in one day — gathers, brainstorms, writes, and produces music.

The more I think about  this idea, the more ingenious it seems. At the very least, you focus on creating and likely find some friends to collaborate with.  If you win you get 14 new songs and some FAWM admirers. Cute.

If you play ukulele and you end up signing up for FAWM, let me know. You might inspire others to join up.  Maybe we could work together on a song or two.

But I have to admit, I haven’t yet signed up.  Fourteen songs in 28 days — whew, will I have the time?  But then, what a cool challenge! Imagine what this would do to your song writing perspective.

What do you think?

Hmmm…  I have to go back and start reading the FAWM forums.

Olympic Buskers: Any Ukuleles?

Uke Busker in Bath (2005)

How do you find out if busking is legal where you live, I asked.  My friend had not heard the word “busking” before.  ”Ah, you mean street performers,” was the response.

How interesting a development for Buskers in British Columbia with the coming Olympics.  The recent discussion is to increase payment the transportation line pays SOCAN so buskers can perform in the stations.  But the buskers pay a fee — $50 or $75 to be able to busk.

The range of online materials from how to be a street performer to Busker Central to the guidelines for performing in the subways of New York to busker advocates illustrates how much the Web can educate on a topic that was never in the “B” encyclopedia  I perused as a youth.  Imagine if the Busker’s Bible on Busker World had been available in our teen years!

I wonder about virtual busking. What happens when a busker such as the foot guitarist playing makes it on to YouTube — should he have a PayPal button for virtual donations?

There are always photos of performers like the ukulele busker photo from Bath (2005). Is that a real chimpanzee on the street?

But back to the olympics — isn’t it amazing how the Olympics will impact the busker’s life?

Bald Eagles, Ospreys and Ukuleles

Honeymoon Island State Park has an interesting history.  It was so named because in the 1940s couples were encouraged to visit the island for their honeymoon. Unfortunately the beach was rocky and not too idyllic looking, so lots of money was spent to bring in sand and cover the rocks.

You can see in the picture to the right what erosion does.

There are wonderful seashells on this shore.  Shiny olives, conchs, tulips, whelks and lots of turbans.  And there are trails in the park which are great to watch the Ospreys build their nests in December then have their young by January.

Osprey

A few stops in the park found me with my ukulele picking the songs that attract the birds.  Yes, I use the ukulele to attract song birds in parks (or my backyard).  There is something about certain songs, usually fingerpicked songs, on the ukulele that attract the mockingbird, carolina wren, and warblers such as the palm, pine and yellow-rumped warbler.  I can bring out the songbirds with the ukulele then take some great photos of them.  Some people use bird whistles.  I use a ukulele.

Osprey dining on fish. It will eat half then take the remaining half to its mate in the nest.

But it was far too cold today.  Only a puffy mockingbird turned its head sideways to listen.  But then it flew away indicating it was far too cold to sing. It was then I noticed how sluggish my cold fingers grew on the strings.

But the Osprey Trail was well worth the walk.  There were several ospreys in their nests, dining on fish, and flying overhead bragging about their latest catch.

Bald Eagle guarding nest

The treat was at the end of the trail — a bald eagle nest.  The parents stood guard over two eaglets.  I looked for the fuzzy bald heads of the eaglets but could not see them.  One parent stood on a branch and the other parent stood on the edge of the nest.