Articles about music, songwriting, recording and eventually putting it out “there!” (distribution), with a goal of using technology to create, edit and publish creative endeavors. (Or just enjoy playing your own music. That’s fun too!)
I’ve been writing songs since before I taught myself to play piano.
Oh, they were terrible, but you keep going and sometimes they turn out pretty good. Years later, you’ll be even better. I should have taken lessons or structured practice early on piano and guitar to improve my technical skills, but my sisters took lessons and don’t play at all. So… I think you have to balance early desire with that stubborn “don’t tell me what to do; forget attitude” that brought you.
But I’d have been a much better player, and sooner. That would be cool, too. Pete Townshend ruined me: in an interview he said he only learned to play well enough to express himself, so I aimed for that. But he expresses himself with lot more notes per minute than I. But I’ve enjoyed my path.
— David.
Always more tips and tricks and (musical) notes to come….
Some recent posts:
When By The Pool Is Not By The Pool - I’ve lived in houses with pools on occasion in my life, and unlike a house that is near the beach, lake or ocean, we don’t say the house is by a pool. Why is that? And stranger, why do we sometimes just forget that we have a pool or even look at it every single... Continue Reading →
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... Continue Reading →
Music: Gray Garden Rain - I often touch a piano with little idea that a new song is going to come out.It’s usually a pleasant surprise, and here’s another. From an improvisation into GarageBand iOS via midi. it ended up on my Bandcamp page! Click for a free listen. In the production process I ended up tripping on the echoing... Continue Reading →
Music: You Are My Present - You Are My Present, a song by David Watson. Performed live to tape. Well, digital. It’s my birthday so I put this relevant song on Facebook today, and thought I would share it here. I wrote this song years ago, shortly after my wife gave birth to our first child, but it really does apply... Continue Reading →
A Lullabye For Waking Up – Slept In - Click To Listen: Slept In – improvisation by David Watson Slept In by David Watson Sort of a reverse lullabye, for those times when you want to be awake, but not very, and the tendrils of almost-forgotten dreams are floating around you and you don’t want to turn on any lights or move fast or grab... Continue Reading →
Listen To This: NPR Music’s The Austin 100: Stream Or Download Our 2018 SXSW Mixtape - I am always on the lookout for ways to make things more efficient so that I can fit new things in my life, or maybe catch up on all the things I haven’t gotten to. Honestly sometimes it’s to give me more time to goof off, but so what. So I have this habit going... Continue Reading →
Capture Creativity Quick - So one of the difference between successful people and — let’s say less successful people? — isn’t the ideas. It’s sharing them. It takes a lot of work, but we can take the first step very easily. If your goal is producing creative content, jokes, stories, music, art, whatever…. the trick is to capture the... Continue Reading →
Fake It Until You Make It Is Terrible Advice For Artists - What does it even mean? Try hard until you succeed? No, that would be fine. Is it some perverse sexual wordplay? Well, art is art, but no. So, pretend that you can do something until you do? That’s great if you’re in an 80’s movie*, but really, if you are trying to make something…. Wait... Continue Reading →
Christmas In Your Eyes - Another holiday, another song… (well a new recording, anyway) with a little video to entertain you while you listen. From our Facebook page!* “Happy Christmas holidays everyone! It’s time for another song (not the one I planned, but it’s sweeter….) Your present is a song I wrote when my daughter was two. You can interpret... Continue Reading →
GarageBand IOS iCloud Bug trashes the local original file - Just a little public safety note that I discovered, and I am not particularly angry yet, because for some reason I had made a back up before I tried to upload my file to keep a back up safe. There seems to be a bug when using iCloud to backup a project file in GarageBand... Continue Reading →
“A Dying Man” Sings His Tale? - I believe in inspiration and I believe in creation and I believe in editing, but sometimes: You’re inspired to just put something out without any editing and that’s OK You create something without pure inspiration and you edit it and that’s OK. You have an idea and you put it down and it needs more... Continue Reading →
Storm In A Teacup - I always liked the phrase “Storm In A Teacup.” It’s British, but the Americanized version is a “tempest in a teapot”, which aside from being alliterative would allow for a slightly larger storm, or perhaps a copy of that Shakespeare play. I don’t know why it’s changed, we have teacups, too. In any case it’s... Continue Reading →
Good Luck on Sunday, Lin Manuel-Miranda! - I do think La La Land may take it, but “Where I’ll Go” is a fabulous film song. Not as funny as “You’re Welcome” and “Shiny” but critical to defining Moana. But I am really here (spoiler?) to finally say (now that everybody has had a chance to see it) how glad I am to... Continue Reading →
Music Making Needs Control: GarageBand iOS - I really like Garageband iOS on my iPad. Lately it’s been improved to the point where the annoyance of not being able to do something critical has been replaced by the smaller annoyance of needing to learn where they have hidden how to do some things. Did you know that if you long press on the... Continue Reading →
Free NPR Audio Training Online - A primer on audio issues with tips on preferably preventing them or trying to fix them after. This is fantastic if you use a microphone to record anything, for audio, video, music, podcasts, whatever. It will make you think first and have (less) problems later. At the very least, you’ll learn the vocabulary so you... Continue Reading →
Build A Better Mousetrap - “And the world will beat a path to your door.” That’s the saying, isn’t it? I don’t know why the mice-killers get all the foot traffic, but I get it. Who wouldn’t want to be able to mass murder cute little rodents? (I wonder what Walt Disney would counter with. I suppose he just made... Continue Reading →
I Make Music. I Simply Need To. - Usually I just fail to record it, or I will make a simple demo that I don’t share. But my wife deserved a love song and I thought I would be grand about it, instead of quiet. So this time it ended up on my Bandcamp page! Click for a free listen. As I said on her... Continue Reading →
Happy Holidays Bring A Musical “Change Of Season” - Change Of Season instrumental on BandCamp I was a huge George Winston fan on discovering him in college (in addition to many other influences in very different genres) and always felt I didn’t play piano as well. That’s probably still true, but I can play and this song certainly touches on some of the same reflective feelings... Continue Reading →
Hey, Mr. Spaceman – The Musical - I decided to finally record the John Glenn parody song I posted lyrics for the other day. Here’s the YouTube blurb as background: Honoring astronaut John Glenn’s passing: in 1998 there was some controversy on sending John Glenn on the space shuttle at 77 in an expensive mission instead of other qualified candidates. I wrote this... Continue Reading →
Hey, Mr. Spaceman - So back in 1998 when there was some controversy about sending John Glenn up again at his age and in an expensive mission, I wrote this parody to David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” Thanks for bookending the inspiration, 2016. Now quit it. I thought he was great even if Shepard beat him up, he took the... Continue Reading →