Category Archives: Music

20230130

Leave a reply

[As usual, two weeks lag here, if you aren’t reading this on my Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/blazeward). If you’d like your news fresher, and the monthly Anti-Stodgy/Redneck Chef newsletter, all I ask is a buck to help keep the lights on around here.]

I won’t say everything is better, but I am a glass half-full kind of guy, much of the time.

Counting backwards, October 27 was my last ^normal^ day until the heat finally got fixed late on Jan 18. Give it a week for the accumulated PTSD to start to fade, and things have started cycling up.

On that Friday, Oct 28, I was in the coffee shop, banging away on Musescore with a new musical composition for the punk rock opera. I’d gotten my flu shot that morning, so I was expecting to be hit by a bus at some point. Turned out to be COVID instead (whole ‘nother story).

One things led to another.

So last week, I finally got my musical hardware set up here again. Microphone, connection system (Scarlet 2i2), and software (Reaper) talking to each other. English Paul is outside of Los Angeles now, and I haven’t talked to him for several months save the odd email, until last Thursday.

Been working on new songs. Had been, but shit went too far sideways. Kinda back now. Between Paul and Katja, I’m learning more about musical composition, and what questions to ask to find the bits I need.

And I have three new songs at least partly done or first draft lyrics. Melodies are in my head, and need to be transcribed to Musescore, but that’s me and a piano plinking.

Better, a fourth song started bubbling up over the weekend, and I’m onto that. Expecting 8-10 to make up the punk rock opera. And long-timers around here have met both Nigel the bass player and Owen Castle, so you are familiar with the world. (There will be more stories, as well as the opera story itself in ‘23.)

I’m working from a rough storyboard, so filling in slots with music, to make things easier for Paul to compose against.

Kinda exciting.

On the writing front, I have mentioned that I am dialing back from Pulp Speed Three (1.4/yr) to Pulp One (1.0/year), so I took the weekend off and didn’t write. More importantly, didn’t stress. Don’t have to play catch up this week. Probably won’t finish Heather, but will get close. Not sure what’s next after that. Got a few days to think.

Monday, and I am writing this first instead of last. Too flipping cold to shoot (18F) but I did get out and have breakfast, listening to my own lyrics form into songs, so that’s lovely. Busy finishing up reading for the next issue of Boundary Shock Quarterly (Cyperpunks) and doing the editing there. Also read a novel for one friend and a short story for another to give them a First Reader pass through each.

And now, post this and back to Heather.

What’s your Monday looking like?

Shade and sweet water,

b

West of the Mountains, WA

—————————-

Thank you so much for being my patron and for funding these essays!

If you’re reading the free version (which is published two weeks after the Patreon version), please consider joining the ones who do pay at https://www.patreon.com/blazeward. It’s only a buck and helps keeps the lights on around here.

20221024

Leave a reply

[If you aren’t reading this on my Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/blazeward), obviously, there is a two week lag. If you’d like your news fresh, and the monthly Anti-Stodgy/Redneck Chef newsletter, all I ask is a buck to help keep the lights on around here.]

Fall has finally made it to the Pacific Northwest. Rained like hell on Saturday. Sunny and cold yesterday. Monsoonerating this morning when I got up. Went and got food. Skipped shooting. Will do Tai Chi and Cane form later. Came home and wrote.

I have been exhausted. Just worn down to a nub. Not sure why. Have had a hard time braining some lately, so I suppose a touch of mental instead of physical. Feeling old somedays, but that’s friends, not me. Know a writer who is just about twenty years older than me. Early seventies. Heard him talking about how he had reached a point where he had slowed down, mentally. Wasn’t as certain that he could write a full novel and have it all work. Have it all in his head and get it down on paper.

That he might have to finally retire from that thing that had been his joy for more than thirty years. Hope not. The man’s awesome, both as a writer as well as a person. We need more of his art in the world.

And it’s part of the reason I write at the speed I do. As I explained to someone a while ago, the only person I’m competing with is death, and he’ll be along for me soon enough. I’ve only got another forty or fifty years, and I’d like to be mentally productive for as long as I can.

David Drake finally admitted defeat and retired recently. Another one that the years had caught up to.

Like Elton John, I plan to have a lot of product in the trunk, ready to be delivered, if not already out somewhere.

Writing: finished the fifth Stephanie Machesky erotica and set up the sixth. Then I wrote a story for my upcoming Cyberpunks anthology (Boundary Shock Quarterly 022. Spring 2023). Less a gun fights and car chases story and more a meditation on the nature of wealth in an uneven future, where a few folks will control most of the world. (Worse than they do now.)

After that, I started the eighth Last Stand novella. Its all done but the epilogue at this moment, and I’ll write that tomorrow.

Not sure what comes after that. I don’t currently have a short story in mind that you folks haven’t read yet, without going back and looking through the stacks. Easier if I just wrote something new. Watch this space, because I’ll have one more blog post next week before November’s story goes out.

English Paul sold his house and is in the process of moving to SoCal. Somewhere in the Temecula/Hemet region, though I don’t think they actually have a new place lined up yet. It does mean that music gets a little weirder, but I did get all the equipment set up and now I need to learn the software. (Reaper is what those folks use to capture vocals and mix things, so I get to figure out how that goes together and record a few things.)

Also teaching myself new things musically. I never learned an instrument that could play chords, so this is all new to me. Slowly getting there, but that’s fine. I have some awesome friends I can ask when it comes time to make real songs, instead of the melody and lyrics I can kinda do now.

What are you folks up to? And what crazy new thing have you done lately?

Shade and sweet water,

b

West of the rainy Mountains, WA

—————————-

Thank you so much for being my patron and for funding these essays!

If you’re reading the free version (which is published two weeks after the Patreon version), please consider joining the ones who do pay at https://www.patreon.com/blazeward. It’s only a buck and helps keeps the lights on around here.

20221017

Leave a reply

[If you aren’t reading this on my Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/blazeward), obviously, there is a two week lag. If you’d like your news fresh, and the monthly Anti-Stodgy/Redneck Chef newsletter, all I ask is a buck to help keep the lights on around here.]

Monday. Went and got food. Skipped shooting. Wasn’t sure why I didn’t want to until just now. Freaking exhausted. Then Fabulous Publisher Babe™ pointed out that I’ve been going like hell for more than a week now.

And I have.

Last Tuesday, recorded vocals for the next song. Had to kind of crash that into the schedule because English Paul is going to be moving to Los Angeles in the near future, as his wife got a fabulous new job down there.

Which, in turn, led me to ordering a lot of hardware that I will need, to record such things here in the future. Will be headed to the post office box later today to pick everything up, as it should have come in over the weekend in various dribbles.

I have a song I want to work on, as I teach myself music. The only instrument I ever learned was voice, so I didn’t get exposed to all those other things that instrumentalists take for granted. (I had to stop Paul and back him up several times when he lost me while explaining his processes. And he did that a lot.)

For you, what book might you recommend for me to learn the basics of music theory and composition?

I don’t learn visually, so please don’t suggest I go watch 70 hours of youtube videos. (Seriously, I had a question once and some jackknob suggested that somewhere in those 70 hours would be the answer, because he was a busybody and intellectual bully who didn’t know anything about astrophysics, but was unwilling to admit it. I don’t talk to him anymore.)

Slight off-topic grumble. Sorry. Really BAD coffee at the place. I mean, the worst you can get around here. The asphalt I drove in on probably tastes better. There is a reason I drink light roast, freshly ground beans I pull out of the freezer.

After this, I will also write the Anti-Stodgy/Redneck Chef newsletter and send it out. As noted, the last week has been kind of a blur of rolling gators, so today is going to be at a somewhat slower pace.

Doesn’t help that I’m Gamemastering a group of lunatics tonight, so I have to save up spoons for that, too.

Writing side, I finished the fourth of the Thriller Shorts for Buchman’s new Thrill Ride magazine he’s hoping to start next spring. Had a lot of fun. Introduced an entirely new character set, and played with the theme of Betrayal in a couple of ways that hopefully none of you will see coming.

Then I and Cole wrote the fifth Commander Stephanie Machesky space erotica novella. #4 should be out December. The goal is keep these going every other month. #5 is actually a part-one, so I already know what shape #6 will take.

Figure one of these days I will have enough mass over there to have fans. A few folks have been reading them, but not nearly enough to quit the day job.

With Stephanie done, I pivoted back over to the cyberpunk future.

Owen mentions his buddy Geoff in a flew places. This is the first Geoff story, and will come out as part of Boundary Shock Quarterly in the spring. (Deadline at my end is Jan 1. Pub in April) These are all part of a larger, richer universe that will form the background of the rock opera Paul and I will be writing. (I’ve already started the lyrics to a couple. And I have the love triangle story in my head that will come after this. Owen and Nigel (and Bash) will be there. As will Xavia, Djinn, and Rutger.

Gonna be fun.

I have a stack of things on my To Write list that will keep me busy for the rest of the year. A short story prequel to the Corsac Fox series, that will go out to everyone who backs the kickstarter when it comes in December. More Last Stand novellas. More Stephanie erotica. More Marrakesh. More Science Officer.

And more stuff for you folks.

Anybody have a sub-genre of SF that they’d like to see me tackle more of with these shorts? Happy to oblige. At some point, I’ll be putting out a lot of short fiction, about half of which none of you have seen yet. (heh)

More words today. More words tomorrow. Cruising along towards the end of the year.

Hopefully, your Monday is more energetic than mine it. (Or not, depending on your needs.)

Shade and sweet water,

b

West of the foggy Mountains, WA

—————————-

Thank you so much for being my patron and for funding these essays!

If you’re reading the free version (which is published two weeks after the Patreon version), please consider joining the ones who do pay at https://www.patreon.com/blazeward. It’s only a buck and helps keeps the lights on around here.

Anti-Stodgy and Muppet Flailing

Leave a reply

I’ve talked elsewhere about Fabulous Publisher Babe™’s Anti-Stodgy campaign. It arises from research showing that between about ages 14 and 24, your tastes tend to lock down.

Same food. Same music. Same clothing. Same routine.

Humans are creatures of pattern, so they get into something and stay. That’s how mid-life crises come about, when someone wakes up one morning wondering what the hell they’ve been doing with their life for the last twenty years.

Or, to quote one of my favoritist characters recently (Kohahu Kugosu): Comfortable kills.

I try to keep myself uncomfortable. Simple as that.

Stay out of the rut.

A good chunk of that gets wrapped up in my own Anti-Stodgy campaign.

In answering “Yes” to new experiences when something comes up. Done some stupid shit. Made some mistakes. Learned some amazing new things.

Until recently, I did two monthly newsletters. One dedicated to Publishing news, and the other the infamous Anti-Stodgy/Redneck Chef newsletter. Combination of new experiences I’ve tried and new recipes I’ve come across. (Redneck Chef is now exclusive to my Patreon for folks at the $1+ level but still happens monthly.)

Same food? Nope. Want to try new things. Might not all work. Not get added to the repertoire.

New.

About eighteen months ago, I got interviewed by the local newspaper in Enumclaw, WA. Gave my usual spiel about “Do you want to be famous or rich?” by talking about Bernie Taupin.

Nobody knows who Bernie is, except fans. Man’s got more money than he knows what to do with, though.

Usual spiel. Given it dozens of times. I’d rather be rich.

Weirdly, though, I got an email right after that. Fellow in Enumclaw who was a composer. Asked if I wanted to be his Bernie.

We call him Elton, because he’s absolutely nothing like the original. (It works, just run with it.)

So he and I started collaborating on music. I’d never written lyrics, but I’ve written poetry, drama, non-fiction, and make a living at fiction.

Shit, yes. Let’s do it.

So I taught myself what lyrics looked like. How they worked. Not an expert. Not even the instant expert that writers can do.

But wrote a series of lyrics for Elton. He turned one of them into a song.

Then he looks at me one day and says “We need a singer. You sing?”

Well, technically yes. Have been known to crank the CDs to stupid and sing along. Used to be pretty good, once upon about forty years ago when last I had formal training.

So I recorded all the vocals. He played all the instruments. We’ve gone back and forth for a while getting the sound right because this is all new to me, and a new genre and art form for him.

He usually writes music samples that get picked up for television shows or movies. Incidental or introductory music. Nothing where you’d know his name unless you were the Music Director of the project who heard his stuff and decided that it fit what they needed.

Until now.

This last Friday, he pushed the launch button.

Ward & Rogers are in the process of releasing our first single. “Left It All Behind.”

Lyrics by B. Ward. Composition PJ Rogers. Vocals by B. Ward.

Sometime in the coming week, it will get out everywhere and I’ll share a link to Amazon and iTunes (along with a lot of muppet flailing, because muppet flailing) so folks can see what we’ve been up to. LIsten along. Even buy it and help me expand into my new multi-media empire.

First song. Already working on a second, as well as writing more and teaching myself how to use the MuseScore software in order to get down the melodies I hear so he can turn them into awesomeness faster.

And (this is the utterly cool part), I will have a Freddie Mercury Number of TWO. Somewhere, on some project that might never get released, the lead singer of Queen took some of PJ’s music and did something with it. And did it officially so that you see both their names when you look in the right database.

How awesome is that?

Worse, I’m already talking to some folks to see if PJ and I can create something like our own Alan Parsons Project, where I’m not necessarily always singing. (Got a couple of things that work far better with a female voice, so I’ve talked to at least one friend to see if I can blackmail her into playing along. TBD).

Anti-Stodgy.

Doing something new, for the sake of newness, rather than spending the rest of your life in the same chair, eating the same food, watching the same tv shows every night after a job you hate, but not enough to strike out and try something entirely new.

For me, it has included making music, weird as that should sound to anyone who knows me.

But it’s happening.

What have you done to introduce newness into your life?

Why aren’t you smiling more and occasionally muppet flailing?