Stick With It!
In April I was doing some exterior painting and listening to my favorite streaming radio station, JAZZ24, a non-profit out of Seattle/Tacoma when a cool song came on. I checked the playlist at their web site and it was Ray Bryant Trio. The name of the tune was Stick with It.
Take a moment to listen to this 70's tune: https://youtu.be/PnXeh_GEujc You can feel the uplifting forward motion of getting on with life, sticking with the task at hand and getting it done. Sticking with your plan and making things happen.
I thought what a perfect name for that tune! It has that Stick with It groove and is timeless. The attitude has since become a mantra for the Admiral and I has we adapt to the new realities changing all around us. Patience and a Sick with It attitude finally brought us to buying airline tickets for a return to Seattle where SNOWBALL was also patiently waiting, fortunately our dock neighbor and Dock Captain, Lee Youngblood" has looked after SNOWBALL and made sure the water stayed on the outside
Lee Sent us this picture several months ago so we could rest at ease as she was in his very qualified care.
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| First time to be in this position in over two years. |
You know you are close to Settle when you look back and see Mt Hood and Mt St. Helens
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| Then Mt Rainier is next |
This trip we would figure out if we could begin to split our time with Texas and the Pacific Northwest, or if it was better to sell the boat and make a new plan.
 When we arrived at Shillshole Marina the first thing we did was take a walk down through Golden Gardens park, just adjacent to the marina. A great welcome back to the Sound. |
| Our daughter suggested an air B&B over by Greenlake, turned out to be a great location for us |
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| Someone is taking on quite a project, but this is common thing in t the waters of the PNW, restoring classic wooden vessels. |
I had to get the log book out to put in renewal registration papers and enjoyed a drawing done by a seven year old grand-daughter Ella who is Graduating from Parsons, The New School this year.
After 3 days of cleaning and other catch up duties we took SNOWBALL out for a motor cruise to seatrial all systems and to refamiliarize ourselves with what was once just routine behavior.
The first docking was not perfect but not bad either. The next three were perfect.
We could have stayed out longer as this little storm cloud went South, we played it safe and came in earlier than we planned. We also have to relearn weather patterns!
A Tuesday Ebb Tide sail. I named the first guitar song after this sail, very light winds, smooth water with occasional wispy winds.
Just Happy to be Here Tour
As you can see winds picked up to around 5 knots as this Washington University research vessel passes by.
Back at the marina a Mother Canada Goose was training her young, a couple of rebels up front.
Big D was ready and waiting to skipper SNOWBALL, he is a great, observant helmsman.
I am just here for the Sail!
By the time this trip was over this animal lover was sold on the idea of boating on Puget Sound,
We decided to fill the fuel tanks which required entering Shillshole at the South entrance, a Whole lot of Sea Lions were there to great us.
After fueling we had to visit this guy one more time, along the way we saw a few porpoise and a few harbor seals, Clara determined the route.
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| Next Day it was off to the foot hills and the base of Cougar Mountain where the kids take riding lessons. |
The farm and riding barn are just around the bend.
Brush and clean hooves first.
Another small barn for two donkeys and two goats.
Giddy Up
Big D also rides bare back.
Wow really big wood pecker at Golden Gardens.
The Pileated Woodpecker is one of the biggest, most striking forest birds on the continent. It’s nearly the size of a crow, black with bold white stripes down the neck and a flaming-red crest. Look (and listen) for Pileated Woodpeckers whacking at dead trees and fallen logs in search of their main prey, carpenter ants, leaving unique rectangular holes in the wood. The nest holes these birds make offer crucial shelter to many species including swifts, owls, ducks, bats, and pine martens.
Another Stick with IT endeavor is the revival of guitar study. I've been at it now for over two years and it has provided me with a time filling fun creative outlet that sooths the soul. Restarting at 68 was greatly enhanced by the availability of online instruction. I started by getting an old Mickey Baker chord book out that I still had from the mid 70's. I got to page twelve before I realized I would need more help. I searched for the top five online guitar instruction courses and GuitarTrickes.com always appeared in the top three from the various online reviews I read. So after taking part I and II of their fundamentals course and Part I and II of their beginners Blues course I now consider myself an intermediate player. I continued with more advanced Blues instruction for the last 3-4 months but I'm now ready to begin playing my own style and creativity with their ideas, licks, chord progressions, turnarounds, intros, outros, and other bits and pieces.
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| My primary tools include a Washburn HB 35S Hollow body Electric that my son loaned me and the little Orange Crush 12 Amp. I recently bought a Sure SM57-LCE Microphone for recording |
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| On the left is my J45 Gibson acoustic that I bought in the early 70's and I gotta tell you she sounds better than ever. It is no doubt as the wood ages it improves the sound. A good friend of my Sons, Mark, gave me the Ibanez AF85-ALS another nice sound for Blues and Jazz. |
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| Its really great that you can print out the sheet music for every lesson. I'm to old school to do it all on a iPad. I need to write notes and just have a paper copy, I remember going to symphony concerts and all the musicians have iPads on their music stands, I'm not there! For the Delta Blues lesson you see pictured here I selected a ceramic slid, I don't know, I tried the glass and steel but they say everyone likes a certain kind and the ceramic works for me. I am currently going back over lessons that I have pulled out of the stack for possible creative song work, I have completed five so far. I review the lesson and see if its something I want to use for a new project tune., if not I just refile the lesson. |
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The latest addition is the recording software Abelton Live Lite 11, it comes with the little red box on the left a USB audio interface unit; Focusrite Scarlett Solo 3rd Generation that has two inputs, but I just use one! it took 4 days of watching YouTube videos to learn how to use it just for my very simple use of recording a single guitar. I do not even use 2% of the software's features. when I asked my nephew Zack (a life long Austin musician) about Ableton, he said don't' by it, its to hard! When I told my nephew Josh about buying the interface and software he was amazed, he said its really hard to learn and its for professional sound engineers, he said a musician could have a coffee with a Abelton sound engineer for 30 minutes of conversation and a few days later the musicians album would be ready without ever stepping into a sound studio! The primary reason for recording music is to up the learning curve. Similar to performing for an audience, you need to play with out making small mistakes. Recording music is not like just playing for fun by yourself, you have to keep the rhythm going and avoid making little glitches like buzzing a note or an unexpected brain freeze or pause in the tune. Recording presents an obstacle, you need to play as flawlessly as possible to avoid having to re record the entire piece again. Just imagine you are playing along and everything is perfect but you mess up the outro! Well that is where Ableton Lite comes in. With the software I can just play the final outro measures and cut and paste into the sound track. My playing has definitely improved in consistency since I am learning to just relax and ignore the fact that I am recording, hence less mistakes since I am not so into avoiding mistakes. At first I was making several edits on the sound tracks, The last recording only needed one edit. I would love to have a small live audience though since there is definite other dynamics going on. Also I hope to find a guitar buddy to work with, a whole other learning curve there for sure. |
My next addition will be a CD burner so I can make CD's after I have accumulated 12 songs I will publish my first CD. If you see me I will give you a free one! However the next CD will cost you, of course I will be a much better musician by the time I start my second CD so it will be worth it! I plan to charge 59 cents a pop, My music business will then be established and I can begin to deduct my expenses!
Writing this blog post encouraged me to learn how to post Audio files, So now I have a google site where you can go and hear my current five tunes:
1. Tuesdays Ebb Tide my first tune created from the first twelve pages of my Mickey Baker book.
2. Jeepers! Hooker I used a John Lee Hooker Lick from one of my Lessons for this.
3. Two Bad Dogs This was one of my favorite practice pieces since it concentrated on lead licks up and down the fret board, Bid D read me a story about 2 bad dogs and I thought what a great title!
4. Willow Weep For Me while I was painting the exterior of the house and listening to Jazz24 this song came on, Stanley Jordan was playing his variation. I recognized it from one of the practice pieces I was currently working on. Turns out every major jazz or blues musician has covered this song at one time or another, this is my version!
You can hear all the tunes at my newly created website: https://sites.google.com/view/just-happy-to-be-here-tour
If you ever wanted to do something but just never did, and its still on your mind then Do It! Your never to old or young to do anything. If your interest is music some kind of other art or anything else you have wanted in your life. There is a place to start ,just Google it and start there. Even if your dream is to make Mosaics with mud! I searched it on YouTube and Look at this! https://youtu.be/fvX1vorZgF4
JUST STICK WITH IT!
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