Recently, Anjali and I have found a new groove in her bedtime routine.
Standard: After her bath, and after getting her pajamas on, we move slowly down the hall to our bedroom. I let her play a bit on the way. Sometimes we read a book or two (She like Brown Bear, Brown Bear and Moo, Baa, La La La). Usually, by this time mama is ready to go to sleep with Anjali, and I can get some work done. Often, if I try to help her to sleep at night, she just isn’t having it.
New: Recently, I have had some success, due in part to three songs: “Helpless,” and “Guinevere,” by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, followed by
This week I want to share someone else’s music with you. If you’re not familiar with Paul Simon’s album, Rhythm Of The Saints, I highly recommend you get familiar with it. It was released in the late 1980s. I have to say, I had heard it one or two times years ago. But as it made its way onto our iPod playlist for Anjali, we have become very intimate with this CD now.
It’s really just a fantastic blend of Afro-Brazilian music with Paul Simon’s songwriting. The melodies are great, and all of the instruments fit together in this perfect puzzle. The lyrics and songs uncover layers of beauty and meaning with each listen. As this recording is one that Anjali enjoys sleeping to quite often, I have uncovered many layers!
Not often, but every once in a while I google search Jeremy Dyen, or search my name on YouTube. Although I’ve done a ton of recordings and performances, I’m always surprised at what turns up.
We ventured to NYC for Halloween. Madhavi have done this for 3 years in a row. The last two years we went to the parade in the Village. It’s a blast, if you like watching thousands of people dressed in ridiculous, fantastic, hilarious and often really creative costumes.
We knew we wouldn’t hit the Village this year. I had a short solo show at 6pm, performing music from my upcoming CD, Jeremy Dyen presents: Battery. I had this image of Anjali and Madhavi sitting in this fairly intimate venue, right up at the stage. Um, didn’t quite work out that way. With a day strewn with interrupted naps (car ride up, and from the carrier to the car), plus the over stimulation of being in a club (no matter how intimate) and the music being a little loud for a little one, Anjali was fussy. Madhavi had to take her for little walks outside, though they did get to watch me on a TV screen in a separate room at the club. All in all, not the ideal. But Anjali and mama were troopers. And Anjali was super-cute in her leopard suit. We’ll see what next Halloween brings.
I’m doing a solo show in NYC on Sunday, October 31st (yes, that Halloween!) at Rockwood Music Hall. Although solo usually implies a person singing and accompanying themselves on guitar or piano, I’m not one for such implications. I have to make it more fun (read: complicated!) than that. I will be doing some songs just on guitar and just on piano. But I’ll also be playing lots of percussion, and creating loops of said instruments to make layers of sound, not unlike a full band. It’s a way for me to make my solo shows more dynamic, and to help recreate what’s on my upcoming CD, Battery.
Here’s a video of me rehearsing “You’ll Never Be Late.” It’s been a challenge to find focused rehearsal time. It’s not like I can bang on loud drums while Anjali is sleeping (or maybe I can…), and having her in the studio amongst tones of instruments, wires and cables is recipe for disaster. But she’ll be at the NYC show!
Ever come upon something in your life that makes you totally re-think everything (ahem…Like having a baby)?
For A Day is a song from my first solo CD, Onswitch. When I wrote the song I had nothing specific in mind. I was just thinking two thoughts:
One: Isn’t it an amazing feeling to be inspired and to have your life flipped inside-out by some new encounter?
Two: Do a full evaluation of your life. What if it were all gone–everything and everyone close to you and you could re-create your life? What and who would you re-create? What would you start from scratch?
This week I thought I’d share a song I wrote and recorded in 2000, called Expectations. The song is on my upcoming release, Battery, though that is a newer recording. This recording below is the original demo. Simple premise: Let go of your expectations about things. Things often come out differently than planned, so enjoy the results for what they are rather than what you thought they should be.
The other day I was thinking about this unreleased, somewhat experimental song I recorded a few years back called Arrest Me. I think I was listening to a lot of Radiohead, circa Amnesiac B-Sides, at the time.
Anyway, the lyrics to the song are not many:
You grip a world of rocks and stones, I mold the clay with both my thumbs (2x) You only see the way things are, I see the shape of things to come.
My words make rings of smoke, They’re here, then disappear without a trace (2x) That’s my imagination, Arrest me if it don’t stay in one place.
The song is really about shaping your own world (‘mold the clay’) as opposed to accepting things the way they are (‘a world of rocks and stones’). It’s up to your invention and ‘imagination.’
I was thinking the other day that I need to take my own song to heart. Already, I think our family does so. Some examples include the simple fact that I am a stay at home papa while Madhavi earns a living and alternative parenting practices like not feeding our baby with a bottle. Now, as Madhavi and I embark on new ways of living–new potential sources of income, plans for extended travel abroad, ideas a la The Four Hour Work Week (inspiring book!)–this song plays in my head. Let it play in yours. Enjoy!
Being with, now 8 month old, Anjali is pretty much the center of my (and Madhavi’s) world. Sometimes it’s frustrating though, because I cannot maintain any momentum in my writing, practicing or recording. I also turn down lots of gigs in order to be with my family. Usually those are low-paying or relatively unimportant gigs. But then I feel like that tree falling in the woods that nobody is around to see. If a musician is not out playing music in public, then how do people know I am a musician?
Yes, I am a musician. Even if I never perform again (and the fact is I perform just about every weekend and then some), I am a musician. So long as I maintain my passion, persistence, growth and devotion to music, I will always be a musician.
This week I offer you this yet unreleased instrumental track I created at home using two Hang drums (pictured to the right).The Hang was created by PANArt in Switzerland. It is a metal, UFO shaped, hybrid of a steel pan and and Udu drum. Listen for some clackity sounds, which are a bunch of bamboo sticks I found when touring in Japan several years back.
groove in her bedtime routine.
