Newsletter
August, 2010

Wow!  July and August have been incredibly hot so far.  Temps in the high 90s to low 100s (F) with Heat Indices between 106 to 110F are not usual for this area, nor pleasant to be out in.  This week is a little cooler, but it's going to heat back up next week.  Not looking forward to that!  But even though I'm sitting here writing in Niedlov's Breadworks where it's cool, I'll get on with it because the sun will show through these large windows soon, and it will heat up in here, too.

Newsletters:
Cute Dog Music Newsletters are posted here on roughly the 20th of each month.  When I post them, I also send out an email saying that the new newsletter has been posted on the website, and giving the URL for this page) in the email so you can go right to this page to read the newsletter online.  So each month, you'll get an email, if you're signed up for it.

If you're just now finding us, you can see what we've been up to musically in the past, and what we'll be doing in the near future through the newsletter and the archives.

The only other things I use this email list for is to notify folks in a certain area when I will be performing or giving a workshop in their area, and to announce such things as CD releases, discounts on CDs, etc.  So, if you sign up below, please include your city and state for me so I can let you know if I will be in your area.  I will not be inundating your email Inbox with emails.  And, being a hater of spam, I will never give or sell your email address to anyone for any reason.

If you wish to sign up for the Cute Dog Music Newsletter notification email, please
 

send the email, and I will add you to the list to receive the email.

Public Performances:
Here are the performances I had this last month:

• July 21 & 28 - I provided music for the Main Street Farmers' Market (4-6PM EDT).  It was way too hot for me to be out there for 3 hours for the other dates I had scheduled to do this in August, so I haven't been there the last three weeks.  Hopefully, it will cool off enough sometime soon so I feel I can go out there again.
   

I have some upcoming confirmed performances:

• August 24 - I will be performing with storyteller Finn Bille at Hickory Valley Retirement Center at 2PM EDT.  Finn will be telling immigration stories, and we will perform stories and music from our new CD, Marzipan: Stories with Music.
   
• August 25 and September 1, 8 & 15 - If it's not unbearably hot, I will provide music for the Main Street Farmers' Market (4-6PM EDT).
   
• September 04 - I will be performing during the Appalachian/Celtic Festival Ceilidh.  The Ceilidh will be held at the Ringgold Depot in Ringgold, GA, and will run from about 7:30 to about 10:30PM EDT.  In addition to myself, there will be Irish Step Dancers, Highland Reign (an Indianapolis Scottish acoustic rock band), and Ólta (a local Celtic band).
   
• September 05 - I will be performing on Sunday during the Appalachian/Celtic Festival and Highland Games.  The Festival is held on Saturday and Sunday (09/04 and 09/05), and runs from 10:00AM to 5PM EDT.  We're very excited about the festival this year.  For the first time in its 9 years, it is being held in Ringgold, GA, at the city ball fields.  Check out the website for details at:
   
  www.appalachiancelticconnection.org/page1
   
   
• September 11 - I will be performing with storyteller Finn Bille at the Trenton Arts Council Happenings.  (Widen your browser window if the graphics and the text overlap on the Happenings page.)  We will perform stories and music from our new CD, Marzipan: Stories with Music.  The event starts at 4PM CDT, and will be held at Pee Wee's Farm in Rising Fawn, GA.
   

Documentary:
Work on the Documentary resumed this last month.  Transcription of interviews is still where things are at the moment, and there are still more to go.  When I finally get to these, I'm always happy to have done it since re-hearing the interviews reminds me of the wonderful content in them.

During this next month, I will continue.

Recording Projects:

The Christmas CD project
Work on the Christmas 2010 CD resumed during the last month.  I am trying to get arrangements done, and have started recording some ideas for those arrangements.  There's more just below about the process I'm going through with this CD.
 

Getting used to creative work
This last month, starting work again on the Christmas CD project has been somewhat daunting.  For so many years, I worked as an engineer for several different corporations.  Engineering work has a completely different atmosphere about it, and has a completely different approach to work than music does.  Sure, all work has some similarities, but the core of working in a creative area like music is very different for me than working as an engineer.

For instance, the buck starts and stops with me.  I want that, but it brings it's own set of pressures and demands.  I am the only person on earth who is responsible for the creative content and the execution (hopefully not murder) of what I record, what I perform, what I do.  In engineering work, usually I worked in a department on a team, so I was not the only one working on the project.  In this way, the Marzipan project was more like engineering work than this new CD project.  On the Marzipan project, Finn and I were the main team with support by Jim Pfitzer.  I wasn't the sole person responsible for content or execution.  On the Christmas CD project, I am.

Another thing is that my imagination is fairly active.  I can imagine sounds and instrumentation easily.  Making these imagined sounds a reality is not necessarily easy.  It stretches me, which is good.  It challenges me, which is good, and both these are what I want.

I also want to live with the music more than I ever do.  And I seem to set very aggressive, optimistic schedules for my projects, which almost never work out that way.  One remarkable exception to this scheduling thing is the Marzipan project, which worked out very well from that standpoint, even with the glitch near the end.  I have set a schedule for the Christmas CD that is very optimistic according to my understanding of what I need to and want to do.  Marzipan was a different sort of project, since I was not the sole creative force behind it, and it was fairly easy to keep to the schedule.  But the Christmas CD is solely dependent on me, and that is a huge difference to me.

This new project requires me to spend more time trying things, thinking and praying through things to allow The Muse to speak in me and through me.  One has to spend time that would seem to an engineering type to be wasted time, but which is in fact absolutely necessary to the creative process.

There is, actually, a parallel to this in the software work I've done in that, sometimes, one has the straightforward task of implementing a standard bit of code to make the software do what it needs to do.  On other occasions, the engineer must try things, think through different approaches, and finally determine which one will work the best, as far as s/he can tell, and then implement it.

In thinking about music, though the process is the same as this just-described engineering one where the engineer tries things, and has to think about the problem creatively, it seems to me right now to be wasted time more than the engineering scenario is - and that's a perception I need to get over, and hopefully am getting over.

I guess I want this process to be more straightforward, but if it was, the resulting CD would not be nearly what I want it to be - or what you want it to be.  Quality creative work demands this be the process that involves more than a standard treatment of melodies, more than standard arrangements, more than what one might be taught in music school, but one that allows the time for me to live with the music, let it speak to me, and let the creativity to flow from my Muse.  It will come, and most likely more quickly than I can imagine.

I am working through these issues and their effect on the project.  And though it isn't easy to work through them, it is necessary and something I want to do, something I look forward to learning.  So, as helpful as this has been to write about, I should probably stop talking about it now and get on with dealing with these issues, and with working on the CD.

Until next month...

Past Cute Dog Music Newsletters