Jam Session #1

Okay, so Jeff Russo and I jammed a bit last night. I showed him my laptop set-up with Sonar and the MobilePre USB sound card. Jeff just received a Roland E-600 electric keyboard. We fooled around a bit showing what our respective wares' potential is (mine for recording, Jeff's for live performances) and decided to try to tackle a song a week. Since we found some cool drum loops for one of my songs (Feel Like A...), we're going to work on that for next week. My homework is to lay the drum loops, rhythm guitar and bass, then Jeff can add a lead and vocals next week. I hope to be posting a link to that song in the near future...

My other homework is to try and figure out if I can save the digital audio to MIDI format for uploading into the Roland for live performances (to have drums/bass/piano back-up). I'm also going to look for a MIDI to USB cable for hooking up the Roland to the laptop for recording and/or transferring purposes. M-Audio makes the Uno, which is probably the way I'll go...

A plug for my buddy Jeff btw... He owns a business (The Edge Fitness Business Consulting) and you can see and read about him and his company at that link.

FYI, no reply from robins9944... would've liked to attend that Feist concert...

Feist eBay Auction #3 (email to winning bidder)

I've emailed the successful bidder (robins9944) through eBay's messaging system... I hope she responds, and here's my email:

Hi, I was the unsuccessful bidder on the Feist auction. Congrats, by the way! I had gotten very excited when I received a Second Chance offer, but it was just a phishing scam... so I'm glad that I contacted the vendor who assured me you were following through with the auction.

Anyway, I'm an unpublished songwriter and I'd love to know when the actual dream will take place, if just to participate vicariously by attending the concert and seeing you on stage... If this is an intrusion, I apologize... but if you don't mind sharing the dream (by that I mean, just attending the concert), please email me back and let me know when the big day will arrive!

Break a leg! (in the show business sense)

Lorenzo (from Toronto)

Feist eBay Auction #2 (Be careful what you wish for)

Well, a word to the wise... be CAREFUL with Second Chance offers on eBay. I missed out on the Feist auction and felt sad about it (my previous post). Then, lo and behold, I received a Second Chance offer 6 days later... but wait, then I received a second Second Chance offer... I sent these off to spoof@ebay.com and, yes, as I suspected, they were not authentic... In the meantime, I had also emailed the vendor (Feist's friend I presume) who advised that the winning bidder was a true bidder: "she honestly really really wanted to win the auction. she has been, apparently, taking singing lessons for years and has always dreamed of singing on stage. i didn't know her, but i've corresponded with her a bit since the auction closed and i can assure you she just wanted to win the damn thing." Well, good for her! I wish her all the best and I'm sure she'll do great...

I think I'm going to contact her (the winning bidder) and see if she can keep me up to date on when she's going to perform... maybe I'll go and think... 'ah, there but for the grace of God, go I'...

Feist eBay Auction

Well, I lost out on bidding for a chance to have Feist sing one of my songs at her concerts. This was auctioned off on eBay and I went up to $2,267.67 USD. Winning bid was $2,311.67. What kind of loser am I to miss out by $50.00?

My wife said I was just trying to do it (get my songs out there) the easy way. I don't know what's so easy about that... but, what the hell, I signed up for a songwriting course through the local school board... don't know what I'll learn, but part of the syllabus is the "business" of songs, so maybe I'll find out something about publishing.

Also, may plans with my buddy Jeff to start regular jams... I'm looking forward to strumming my guitars and trying to record them. Onward and upward...

Vacation

I've been on vacation... fooling around with a few drum loops in Sonar to see how they work and playing the guitar most nights (revisiting the old tunes). Having a great time with my wife and daughter... Vera & I have been married 3000 days now (as of August 9/06) and I'm truly lucky to be with her. Funny... I stopped writing since I've been happy... most of my songwriting occurred when I was a walking heartbreak. I really think I need to get those down in some publishable form for my own therapy to move on and write some "happy" tunes about being a husband and father... to the wonderful women in my life...


This pic is just a view from Blue Mountain of Wasaga Beach... far off in the distance...

Tricked out...

So, it's been a late night of tricking out the laptop to try and get it
going for me... I learned about loops all over the place (on the
internet) and I'm trying to learn how to use them in Audacity... wish
me luck...

Ciao for now...