Songs Are Often Sunny

Bandcamp link

Here’s a happy uplifting instrumental song I made (a while ago – don’t know how this didn’t get posted) over a few weeks on GarageBand iOS. Cheerful and upbeat? No idea where that came from, but like a puppy it crawled into my lap and stayed.

For those that don’t write or play or paint or (insert some art), it often seems some sort of unattainable magic to create something out of the ether. For those that do, it can also seem like work, or commonplace, or even an interruption to other projects … but sometimes it’s still magical.

But “art” is really a work task drawn or triggered through the inspiration and experiences we get from our daily lives — or sometimes, away from our daily lives. From the outside you don’t see the hours of learning and straight-up work that goes into putting things together from the tools and raw materials at hand… just like raising children, or quarterly reports, or driving an 18-wheeler across the country.

There can be an artistry to anything, and it’s no less amazing to perceptive people on the outside with more than a passing interest to what you’ve made. Don’t forget that.

(A YouTube video I made, since we don’t often like to close our eyes
and just listen these days, nor do we want to read things!)

Difficulty levels vary project to project, but it’s all built incrementally: the life making a person who they are, the skills, and then the current project, whatever it is.

And don’t forget that you can’t please everyone, so don’t worry about it so much, as long as you have done enough to meet your own bar. (Sometimes that’s already higher than we want it to be. Don’t bang your head on the bar if you are in that group.)

This song came easy. It stuck with me and then it asked for more. The fine-tuning was more complicated, but not “hard”. Editing usually takes more time, and it’s worth it. Because it makes it easier for the next task, whether the current one turns out well or not. I think this one did, but there is a pile of experience and learning that lifted it up. And if you look around, even in the darkest times, it’s often sunny.

–David.

P.S. The song’s thumbnail image is from a painting made by an Oregonian relative-in-law who actually lives in that farmhouse that I believe has been in her family for generations. The surroundings are a bit of imagination of past years as civilization has crept closer, but that doesn’t it make it less real when you are there. It’s a time machine, like so many antiques big and small, a way of transporting yourself to a different space, either physically or in your head. Like art.

P.P.S. Initial improvisation played on a Yamaha digital piano MIDI straight into the iPad, with layers added as I realized it DID want to be an instrumental. Produced on the iPad, mastered in Adobe Audition, video from iPad screen captures and edited in Adobe Premiere. Enjoy! Subscribe! Like! Thanks! “Often Sunny” music video – David Watson “iPad version”