Firefly
I like to play piano and sing. I’ll often take down one of my huge fake books with hundreds of songs, flip to a random page, and just start playing and singing the songs, one after the other. Often I’ll discover something wonderful, like a great chord progression or a clever lyric.
A few years ago I started singing lessons. When we started including actual songs, I quickly realized that while it’s fun to casually sing other people’s stuff, I didn’t really want to study it. If I was going to spend a lot of time practicing a song, I wanted it to be my own! So I started writing my own songs.
My teacher threw an annual student recital at a Seattle nightclub, and I participated. Most of the other students sang jazz standards, but I chose to do a few of my own songs. I rehearsed a few times with the local jazz trio who was backing everyone up, and with the encouragement of some friends I got up and sang my songs.
I later wanted to orchestrate some of my new songs. So I fired up my music software and worked out arrangements for eight songs. My plan was to hire some local musicians and singers, rehearse with them, and then record them. That quickly became much too complicated and expensive, so I did it myself. Using a combination of software and real instruments, I performed all the parts, sang the lyrics, and hired a local producer to mix the tracks.
This was back in the days of compact disks, or CDs. Here’s the cover. I named the album Firefly after one of the songs. It probably wasn’t the worst home-made CD that year, and some friends graciously claimed that they enjoyed it. I’m still writing new songs and I’m still hoping to learn how to really sing one day! Become a better piano player wouldn’t hurt either.
