….here’s cranking for Barn in the woods studio.

I’m still figuring out the electrical systems – the boat had not been
taken care of very well. There seem to be lots of alterations to the
electrical wiring. I’ve ordered the manufactures manual to see how this
thing should really look.

I have the house-basement leak repair complete and the boards replaced
on the back deck. So that project is done.

Always car maintenance though. Shilo’s car needs its brakes replaced -
I’ll get that done over this week. But the muffler system is completely
shot as well. We’ll have to take that into the shop for replacement.
Costs for that work on a Subaru are over $500. Geez! Apparently it’s not
just the muffler, but the entire exhaust pipe coming from the engine is
rusted through. Whatever.

Fun Fun, and more fun.

Well, the winter’s burst of musical ideas got choked out by every sickness and bug presently known to human kind. With the whole family hacking and coughing, it’s hard to be very musical.  But there are some ideas floating around the lab.  Like….maybe putting on some kind of a summer concert. Shilo and I are probably going to comb through all the music we know and see if we can put it all together. We’ll see.

Another thing I was thinking about doing (inspired by Lance Foster) was to get the drum out and work up an accurate rendition of the Ioway (Baxoje) Flag song.  In order for this to make any sense, I think I’d need to include supplemental information provided by other sources. Flag songs can be a delicate topic – and understandably so. But I think from an artistic perspective it’s important to get the unique song form down into a recorded format for review.

So much music has disappeared – the least I can do is preserve the melody as best as I can.

In the mean time, I’m still plowing through my archive of cassette tapes of pow wow recordings. I just went  through a Prairie Island set of tapes from 1994. I love that tape because Wahpekute Singers are all over that recording. That is such a soulful group.

Very interesting at this point, but no conclusions may be reached other than the obvious – the song is similar to the Baxoje Flag song because the Ho Chunk (Winnebago) are relatives of the Baxoje.

I’ve been spending some time in the music lab these days. I was just going through some older unmarked powwow recordings I’ve kept in my archives. I came across some really good live material recorded out at Prairie Band Pottowatomie dinner dances. Those were fun days. We would all get together to sing way out in the countryside.

At any rate, I’ve now able to pull those recordings from tape and convert these files into wav and then mp3. The real trick is categorizing these files into some sort of system I can review.  The cool thing about this is being able to then pull my favorites out of this libary and import into my iTunes. Then the whole thing lands on my iPod. Talk about cruising material.

Going through some of these old songs brings to mind some older flute songs I had forgotten. In the past I had also found potential flute melodies in some of those old round dance songs…just re-adapting favorite melodies and emotions.

It’s all good. Hopefully, this will lead me back into composing some new material. All seems quiet on that front for now.

Yes, we are finally getting near to the end of the shopping season. That part always drags out my energy. Usually because at the same time, I’m trying to provide energy for playing sacred Christmas Carols at church and at other places. As usual, I’ve been doing more research into authentic Christmas Carols, as I do every year. I’m always surprised by how much these works of art seem to be modified at will to suit the popular politically correct view. I wonder if we would ever consider re-painting a Cezzanne or Monet or even a DiVinci to more accurately suite our sensibilities.

In any rate, I’m just trying to focus back down on the holiness of the day to boost my own spirit, and share some joy with those around me.

It seriously snowed today. Well, actually since friday when the schools all closed and we had the pleasure of driving around on very slick roads for a while during work hours. But, today was a good day to be outside while the lake effect snow (light fluffy stuff just like in Who-ville) steadily came drifting down.

The kids thoughtfully made trails all over the yard so that the rabbits and deer would have places to walk. Since we’re doing a live christmas tree this year, I took the opportunity to dig a planting hole out by the tree line before the ground freezes up. Just adding another tree to the forest. The animals should like that.

I’m still writing some more music at this time. Been spending time down in the lab working on something fun. But mostly dealing with everyone’s health issues, and now my cough. So no vocal tracks for me for a while.

I think fall is a great time for a roadtrip. So, packed up family, packed the car, packed lots of good tunes and headed for Mackinaw island.  Imagine a pristine island locked in time in the mid-1700′s, quiet Victorian architecture, quaint cottages along the lakeshore and the company of 1600 partially supervised boyscouts.  Hoo-wee.

But, the ferry ride was great, and it was great weather for a bicycle ride all the way around the island. Skipping rocks out over the north channel of Lake Huron at a quiet spot along the ride was just perfect in the afternoon sun. But we saw the rainy weather working its way up to the Bridge. So back on the ferry ride to the hotel for some evening swimming.

Everyone had a great time and the fall colors were just starting to come out. I’m glad we had a chance to go clear out the cobwebs.

I have finally been doing some recording in the lab (my trusty barn). I put a couple of the things I’ve been working on up on the website – music downloads page. It was fun to get ‘She Talks to Me’ into a recorded format because I kept changing the song around. So now it’s locked in as they say.   So far, I think my wife likes it – which is good since I wrote it for/about her.

http://www.elkvoice.com/othermusic/SheTalksToMe.mp3

The EagleNationSong  is a flute song. I adapted this from a song we used to sing in Whitecalf singers. In fact, I remember Bruce Whitecalf teaching me this song a long time ago. I’ve also heard the Brotherhood community singers (Porcupine Singers) sing this at PowWows. It’s a Lakota song as far as I know, and I think it’s beautiful whether sung at the drum, or rendered on the flute. The song gets it’s name from the lyrics which say, “Wanble gleshka kiye waupelo, Wangble Oyate ke, waupelo”…or the Eagle Nation people are coming…     Enjoy this very rough cut recording.

http://www.elkvoice.com/othermusic/EagleNationSong.mp3

Lastly, I put a video version of “Believe It”  out there too. We needed to use this song in church and I wanted to be sure folks could understand the lyrics. So I put this slideshow together with super-imposed lyrics. It turned out OK for our purposes. Hope you like it.

http://www.elkvoice.com/othermusic/Believe_It_web.wmv

So, I’ve been throwing different lures into the water just to see what might interest the fish on any random day.   I’ve been able to pick up a small mouth bass on a yellow tail fly/jig.  Actually, Zuri was smoking me with the fish count. But more importantly, I think he had a really good time getting out in the canoe with me and stalking fish. He’s actually able to bait his own hook, cast, set the hook and bring the fish in all by himself. I think he enjoys the thrill of the catch as much as I do.

I did figure out a way to troll from the canoe and put a small floating rattle trap crank bait in the water with a drop down sinker rig. I picked up a large mouth bass and a perch within 5 minutes out.  That little lake has quite a diverse bit of cover and topology, so I’m figuring there are other approaches as well.

Maybe one more time out this fall. Maybe some fishing from the bank as well.