Music in the Forest

The Hills are Alive...With the Sound of Music:

3 songs completed
1 song on the way

Lindsay and I are on a roll!

I'd mentioned that I wanted to practice playing guitar with others...not just strumming by myself.  She was inspired by this, and came back from Christmas break with a harmonica.  And so it begun.

The first song was made after work one day.  I decided to play guitar.  She decided against a nap and brought her harmonica out to meet me.  Song number one, her lyrical baby, was based off of a text message in her inbox.  I threw some chords together that fit in the key of her harmonica, and the rest just fell into place. 

Well, it fell into place with a lot of late-night coffee and an inspirational setting that helped us.  We decided that going out into the forsest to write our music was a good thing for two reasons:  1) inspiration  2) we would hopefully not drive the rest of our team crazy this way.

We decided partway through writing this song that we needed to get more coffee.  Also, we were a tad bit freaked out listening to the wolves not too far off on our left.  As we started walking down, guitar in hand, we heard an animal barking/howling back on our right.  This was not okay.  Naturally, we took off running.  Let me say that it is not easy to run with a half cup of coffee in one hand and a guitar in the other.  If I'm being honest, I'll admit to the fact that I almost peed my pants, as I imagined the spectacle of us trying to run in this state, screeching and hollering all the way, terrified of our impending doom. 

Song #2:
Song number two branched out of the key of G.  One could say it was a slightly more joint effort on the lyrical side.  Partway through making this one, we once again decided that it was necessary to make another pot of coffee.  We went back to the cabin, made another pot, warmed up our cold hands, and then started to head back to where we left our instruments and notebook.  It's much scarier walking into a dark forest, than sitting in it as the sun set.  Well, we found our spot again, and lasted about another 20 minutes until we got too freaked out.  We decided to head to a spot infront of an unused cabin that had a flood light out front.  As we worked a little longer in this location, a mysterious car pulled up directly infront of us.  It then backed up next to another cabin, and a man emerged.  Now, it's late at night.  He had to have seen us, but didn't greet us in any way whatsoever.  Thus, once again, we were freaked out.

We decided to run (more gracefully this time) back to our cabin.  Then we got curious.  We decided that spying on him was a good idea.  Unfortunately, we're not very good spies.  He spotted us, most likely heard us laughing, and then watched us run away from the trees we were hiding behind.  We decided to end our night in the music hall, with only socks on our feet, sliding on the wooden floor.  The windows we skidded towards reflected our jittery, caffeinated excitement.  There's nothing like feeling like you're in middle school again.

Song #3:
The third song was a much more somber activity.  We decided that since we've both been to Ireland, we needed a song that reflected our time there.  I'm not quite sure that the storyline behind behind the song has anything to do with our experiences there, but it does have an Irish feel to it.  A bit of a haunting, Irish feel.

Last But Not Least:
Our next creation will hopefully be more nature-related.  We're thinking that living in a cabin in the woods, and doing our detox will help us tap more into our natural/earthy side.  We'll see.

The Excitement Spreads:
My teammate, Lauren, has jumped on the proverbial bandwagon of music as well, and decided to buy a banjo.  Yep.  No experience with one, but don't worry - the banjo she bought off ebay comes with an instructional dvd.  I need to tune it for her soon...  The goal is that by April 16th we will have a few songs put together for the whole team to play.  April 16th is the date of the local "Fiddle and Barn Dance Competition."  Once we heard about this, there was no turning back.  We have people on the banjo, harmonica, vocals, guitar, and spoons currently. 

The Cherry on Top:
Orpheus, one of the guys we work for, is a composer.  As of recently, he is the composer of music for video games.  Over the years, however, he has done just about everything.  He caught wind that we are a musical team.  And just what does he have at his house...the house that we're visiting this weekend?  A recording studio.  Yep.  And he's gonna record our music.  Haha.  We're kinda excited.