I Don't Have to Dream -New Song

I've written a lot of tunes over the years with Samantha in mind, but this is only the second time I've written one as a gift. This one is for our 18th wedding anniversary, which means we've been together for 20 years! Holy crap 20 years?! Wow! Time flies...

The song is called I Don't Have to Dream. That's right "It may be hard to believe, but you're right here in front of me. Nah, it ain't so hard to see, that I've got everything I ne-ee-ee-eed. I don't have to dream..." You know I love you baby!

The ukulele is pretty obvious, but the rhythm is with a hairbrush and a stick on a wooden washboard. I like alternative percussion.

Here's a video of a new Mike Mudd tune. He played it for the community we stayed at in Lanas, Costa Rica. They're very friendly and inviting, but maybe the video doesn't show it that well. Of course no one speaks much English there, so they had no idea what he was singing. Too bad the end got cut off, you should have seen the standing ovation he got!

Down the Drain
Uploaded by Mike_Mudd

The Dance

Well, it's testament that you can't force the creative impulse. I sat down the other day to write lyrics to 'When' and instead ended up with lyrics to the 'Lament' instead. That's been the biggest development in my song-writing ability over the last several years -learning to let things flow as opposed to an intentional writing. I've definitely sat down to write something specific and written it, but there is a much higher chance for getting stuck.
The Dance

Even More From the Abyss...

Forgive the lousy performance and intonation of these two, the point was to just capture the general idea of the tunes, not create something CD quality. Another uke tune with no title other than 'E-Minor.' The second tune is called 'When' which will be one of my favorites when I can get the time to write some words for it. The lyrical idea is about what it will be like at some distant point in the future to look back on right now. I get very sentimental about the idea (more than usual), knowing that life is going to change so much down the road. It's just about the most bittersweet thing I can think of.

E-Minor

When

More From the Abyss...

I love the ukulele for so many different reasons. In this tune I made up a couple of weeks ago, I was treating the uke as a sort of soprano classical guitar. I'm glad I could remember it.
Lament in F-Minor

'Open' guitar tunings are really cool for achieving an 'open' sound in a tune. This is something I was playing around with after getting a device called a partial capo which allows me to achieve an open tuning without retuning the strings on the instrument.
Open E

From the Abyss...

I'm always getting behind on music. I've been writing so much that some of it gets lost in the shuffle. I'll have a half hour to play and come up with something that I won't remember later. I'm losing less than I used to though thanks to modern technology.

I'll spend some time posting tunes I managed to rescue from the abyss...

A little uke tune probably influenced by 30s Duke Ellington or Cab Calloway:
Raisin' Cain

A 7 minute guitar composition with 'dropped D' tuning, I've got some words for part of this:
Tin Roof

Saturday at Artichoke -John's Tune

I captured a recording of John Sabestinas on banjo and myself on the tenor uke at Artichoke yesterday. It's a tune of his called 'Stealin' Apples off the Tree.' He wasn't warmed up so he didn't want to sing the words.

Stealin' Apples

Waste of Time

Well along the lines of the last depressing (and extremely long) post here's a new original uke tune that I wrote a couple of weeks ago. I was looking through a notebook and thought 'oh yea, I forgot about that one.' Samantha said it reminds her of Tom Waits -I guess there are worse comparisons.
Waste of Time