Respite

This morning, I dropped my kids off at music camp, New Orleans style,  with all the kids wearing shades and dancing to "When the Saints".  I remember why I love this city.  In a world with so many downturns and stories that threaten to sink a heart, it is so good to be in a place where celebrating is part of the culture.  Now I'm home in my comfortable place.  I worked on an instrumental piece, per the advice of my voice teacher who told me to write something different.  It was like gliding in a river of cool spring water.  This time spent creating has help me to center and be ready for the busyness of later in the day.  My daughter ran through the house with her balloons and then sat in my lap as I caught up on email.  Why is it that these moments we are living seem to fly away, always seemingly one step in front of us, like a fairy twinkling in the dark trees at night?  For a few moments at least, I was able to treasure my little one's pudgy, granola bar encrusted face, feel her dimply skin that still has a bit of baby soft left in it, and snugly fit her compact toddler shape into my lap, something I can no longer do with my gangly 10 year old.  For a brief spell, I found a respite in motherhood instead of looking for a respite from it. 

Taking a good long look at my life

I wrote "Take A Look"  a few months back as if I was writing it to a friend of mine.  Now as with so many things, my thoughts have come full circle pointing in my direction.  I've been a lazy kid lately.  "With four kids"? you say.  No really, it's possible. What I mean is that I've been surviving by doing the minimal amount of work possible, and then escaping into the realm of  my comforts (late night Netflix and chocolate for starters) ASAP!  Now I know that there are times when really, surviving is moving forward, and I've been there, but I don't have to be there now.  I've just been flitting around, not really looking for much of a vision to hook into, and let me please go on record to say, so that you can call me out when I forget it, that this is no way to live.  We humans seem to be programmed to want something outside of ourselves, something bigger to be a part of, a cause, a love, a person, the spiritual, the ethereal, and when we shrink our world to ourselves, we really just shrinkwrap our personhood and leave out a fundamental element of being human.  So, I've been on my little "Desi is the center of the world"  jag for a bit, and it's really pretty comfortable, until something reminds me again of just how small I really am, and just how much is out there that I can be a part of.  Maybe that's why I like to climb rocks. When your face to face with something large and unyielding that scoffs at your futile attempts to scramble up it's face, it puts things into perspective.  When you finally reach the top with bruised knees, spaghetti arms and scraped up hands, you feel like you've accomplished something,  Then you realize that the something really not much after all in the large scheme of things, and that there are much larger "rocks" to climb.  I guess I'm beginning to look for my rock so to speak.  Several years back, something happened to me and I became afraid to dream, afraid to offer of myself.  Most of you reading this know what that is so I don't need to go into it. Now, I'm just starting to dream some dreams for myself, my family, my world.  I've been taking a look...

Here's a link to the song  "Take a Look" 

www.myspace.com/desirichter

Oh, and my personal favorite line in this song is "Are you a phantom of who you could be?"

Let Me Love You

Okay so it's time let the fingers fly and chat a bit about musical processing, what that is like for me and specifically how it happened on the songs that are about to be released on my two C.D.'s  Hey did I mention that I have two C.D.'s coming out?  Did i mention that you can buy those?  Just checking :)
Let Me Love you is the title cut  for my EP.  For those of you who, like me until recently, weren't familiar with the term EP, it stands for Extended Play.  An EP contains  more songs than a single, but less than the 8-10 of a full album.  Anyway, Let Me Love You is an EP of 5 songs.  Not all of the songs are love songs, but the title cut is.  "Let Me Love You" is from the viewpoint of a lover, who has cast eyes and heart toward a beloved and is making a play for this beloved's affections.  Let me love you is an expression that implies, "I want to know you, in ways that are both vast and intimate,  but that's going to take you opening up the mysteries inside and letting me have access".  It's about asking for vulnerability and trust with a pretty big promise attached.  This lover is confident that she can deliver a love comparable to the skies, but only with help.

Like most of my musical forays, the song "Let Me Love You",  was written in stages.  It took months for it all to come together.  I guess there are all kinds of songwriters out there, and if you are one of those songwriters for whom the music just floats out of the sky and you have the whole thing written and a demo recorded in about 10 minutes, you are not wanted here :)...but no, really I'm happy for you...sort of.  The first bit of inspiration came on the piano, a series of chords in C minor.  That's usually how it starts for me, messing around on the piano, though sometimes I write in the car, riding my bike or when I'm sweeping my kitchen floor. Never knew housework could be so inspiring!  The verse came next within a day with minor tweeking.  I liked the idea of talking about all the things that I can't do, like tame the wind, move the moon and balancing those ideas against what I could potentially do in a relationship.  I really didn't know where the song was headed after that.   It was probably at least 3 months before the chorus came, simple and direct, just "let me love you".

Take a listen at


www.myspace.com/desirichter
Lyrics below

I have no way to tame the wind
I cannot bottle up the sea,
but when it comes to loving you
I wanna dive into your mystery

I cannot move the moon through it's paces
I cannot sing the stars into synchrony,
but when it comes to loving you
I wanna know more than my eyes can see

Ooh, let me love you
Ooh, let me love you
wider than the sky

But when it comes to loving you
I wanna dive into your mystery

Ooh, let me love you
Ooh, let me love you
Ooh, let me love you
Ooh, let me love you
bluer than the sky


You get the idea :)


Comments definitely welcomed!

CD Update

Theoretically I knew that a lot went into making a CD.  I knew that it started with a song and that hopefully someone out there would hear the song within the song (or that one could pay someone to hear the song within the song), that embellishments would be added, that hours of practice and multiple takes would be necessary, that it would really amount to a whole lot of work.  Now that work has begun in earnest, and I'm getting close to having this, for lack of a better work, this, product that I want to distribute.  That is so weird for me.  I'm the least likely person in the world  to try to sell, and now I'm going to have 2,500 full length C.D.'s and 1,000  5 song C.D.'s going to "market". It makes me feel uncomfortable on multiple levels, but I'm learning that being uncomfortable isn't always a sign that one needs to change course.  So I now have "product", and I'm working on artwork, production credits and getting an audience to listen.  BUT even if I don't, even if I end up with an attic full of C.D.'s 10 years from now, I will not have considered this process a failure.  Far from it. How could something that encourages personal growth as an artist be considered a success or failure based upon it's market value?   Call it what you want, but it feels good! 

Blogging about my blog and the beauty

As I have already been razzed about my last failed attempt at blogging, I figured I'd better "get on the blog" (I hope this feeble attempt at humor is punishment enough for your lack of faith in my faithfulness) You know who you are.

I had envisioned this as some sort of deeply artistic and philosophical platform where our minds can meet in cyberspace. However, as mentioned in my "breakout" blog I usually do this around the other duties of wiving, and mothering and friending. (and I mean that in positive connotation. Duty is not a four letter word. O.K. so it is a four letter word, but you know what I mean). In addition, if you want to go really deep, call my husband. Deep is his speciality.

Music, however, now that I would love to talk about all day long. Music and beauty particularly catch my fancy. Music embodies for me a sort of artistic creed about beauty. I was talking with my friend, John, the other day who is reading John Eldridge. Whether you like Mr. Eldridge or not is irrelevant. Just don't come 'round here if you don't. kidding! In the book, the author John, was talking about how after the death of his friend, Brent, nothing helped assuage the empty ache left behind after his friend died. Nothing helped--not church, not words of comfort from friends. Nothing. Nothing except sitting in his wife Stasi's flower garden. Something like that happened to me recently. I got to sit in a garden in Tennessee at the Art House after making my C.D. And this garden helped to heal something in me that was broken. Or rather it stood in graceful opposition to it. I have been railing questions about evil in the world and in my life for over a decade now. This garden didn't offer a single counterargument to my accusations. It did not shout back or quote me a scripture. It just sat there and stared at me with it's delicate flowery eyes...and slayed me. By it's essence, it' very nature, it pierced my armor and where it pierced, the tears flowed.

This is what beauty does. And it's so underrated, or worse, it is assaulted and twisted, but true beauty longs to be admired and in the admiring it offer us something better than ambitious ambitions and demanding demands. Beauty bypasses something in our defenses and disarms us. It takes the issues to an entirely new level, and says, "I'm not playing your A-B-C logic game. I'm going to hit you over the heart with poppies and queen anne's lace. And I'm going to follow it up with a roundhouse kick of your baby working her rose-bud lips around her thumb in her sleep, and to finish you off, I'm going to infiltrate your psyche with sunsets and dew glistening on the grass as you leave for work in the morning. Take that!" And beauty wins again.

I'm really glad it wins again. If I can write just one song that does to me or someone else what the beauty does for me... oh if!

New CD

So I have a new CD coming out. I say that like I have a bunch of CD's already out, and this is just the newest in a long line of well-known albums. Truth is this is my first CD, and I'm pretty excited about it. I'm a late bloomer when it comes to the music scene. I spend most of my time on household tasks, laundry, dishes, diapers, or ferrying energetic children around in our Dodge Grand Caravan. In moments that I carve out, I process my 1/6.5 billionth of existence through song. I throw cheerios at my youngest daughter to keep her occupied, and I write music in my front foyer on a piano that is about the same age as me.

Why to I write music? When I figure that out, maybe I'll be able to do a better job at it, or who knows even quit and do something more practical with my time. The point of this particular post is not to delve into the nuances of my musical psyche. The point is that I do get a real kick out of fiddling with the fundamental elements of song, and I am blessed with a husband who supports this little quirk of mine, to the tune of sending me to Nashville last month to make a CD with an incredible producer. In music speak I actually recorded an EP ( 5 songs) because it seemed more suited to my artistic sensibilities, and it was, well, cheaper. I literally had the time of my life. After my wedding day, the birth of each of my children, and a couple of nearly spiritual experiences with chocolate, the week I spent in the studio was the most vibrant, beautiful, magical time in my life.

So, I have a new CD coming out, and I thought it would be helpful for me, and perhaps interesting to others to share a little about each cut and the creative process behind it. I'll go through each of the five songs and share the significant moments that led to the creation etc. Hope you enjoy!

Until next time.

By the way, I really don't enjoy writing prose, so if you are in any way inspired, annoyed or moved in any way, PLEASE leave a comment. Positive feedback from reinforcement junkies welcome! Oh and become a follower if you don't mind please...