Song-A-Day 2023 is Now Complete
But there’s still plenty to read about. Get lyrics, production tips, and
see the seamy underbelly of what it takes to write a piece of music
every day for a month!
I help people discover they can do more than they thought they could. I write music. I think Excel is the best thing Microsoft ever produced. I speak executive, nerd, finance, janitor, design, code, and process. I meditate underwater in sixty-minute sessions. I know that “I” and “We” are required at different times for different things. I’m the quiet dude you’ll tell your life story to at a party. I love finding possibilities and putting old things together in new ways. I ride a GSX-R750 when the weather’s nice.
- Mid-brained, multi-disciplinary, servant-leader.
- Artistic geek or geeky artist, your choice.
- Corporate jester, experiential designer, and change agent.
- Coach. Mentor. Mentee.
- Perpetual student and explorer. Aspirational polymath.
- Speaker, listener, cheerleader, and organizer.
- Writer, editor, composer, remixer, synthesist.
- Avid reader, gamer, and purveyor of pop-culture references.
Let’s work together on something cool.
Recent Articles
Mare Tranquillitatis
Having finished yesterday’s track relatively early in the day, and with just one song left in the month, I decided to take the night off and enjoy the evening with Mary. As a result, this is the first day all…
Theme from a Sitcom You Never Saw
Because I write in a wide variety of styles, I get a lot of “you should do a [$GENRE] song!” Sometimes these are intriguing challenges, and sometimes I have to politely say, “hey, yeah, maybe,” while internally knowing that it will never happen either because I don’t have any clue…
I Cannot Breathe
To really go into where this song came from would require me to be very overt about explaining its meaning. Because I feel I was relatively successful in creating lyrics that had multiple interpretations, I’m not going to go into it, but suffice to say that my emotional state was…
Be Home Before the Streetlights Come On
It’s hard to believe the month is nearly over. I mentioned at the beginning that this year felt somewhat like a treadmill. And similar to the experience of an actual treadmill session, I started out with energy, settled into the pace, and all of a sudden am almost finished. I’m…
Mare Nectaris
As I’ve mentioned previously this month, I do worry about these ambient pieces being unenjoyable for others, but two comments on the Song-A-Day site made me feel a lot better about it. I think my favorite track this year is Mare Imbrium. What could be more beautiful, more emotionally satisfying?…
Dirty Fingernails
One of the things I’ve used Song-A-Day for is to experiment with producing styles of music that I like but haven’t tried before. These are often things that I wouldn’t do on my own outside of the challenge, like a country song, but since I’m getting to check off another…
Small (Esme D Cover)
Cover day. Many Song-A-Day folks really enjoy this day. I normally find it to be a huge source of stress, and am normally disappointed in my results. The stress comes from trying to sift through the hundreds of tracks that have been posted and choosing one. I wrote about all…
Mare Insularum
Ok, at this point, I’m increasingly sleep deprived. This isn’t entirely Song-A-Day’s fault, I’ve had to be up earlier than I typically am for various reasons. I’m also procrastinating the start of new tracks until almost midnight or later, then working on them in the morning. It’s not exactly the…
Hypnos
After posting Tori’s Reef, I looked back at the genres I’d been writing for the previous week: Classical, Chill, Deep Ambient, Big Beat, Synth Wave, Classical, Chill… I decided that it would be fun to do something a bit more dancey, but maybe not as adventurous as Mind Your Own….
Tori’s Reef
With the bombast and majesty of Hymnos behind me, and being increasingly deprived of a good night’s sleep, I decided to do a more laid-back track. I’ve been listening a lot to what is now called “lo-fi,” but which used to be known in a positive sense as “chill” or…
Hymnos
The last four days have been electronic or beat-based, so I was in the mood to go back to some orchestral instruments. My sample library acquisitions over the last couple of years have been as much of an expansion for me as when I got my first sampler in the…
Slow Light
I’m not sure what I intended to write for today’s track. After the mid-level bombast of Mind Your Own, I was hoping a song would show up, but not chasing after one in earnest. I did want to start with the rhythm of it, though, so launched BT Phobos. Created…