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Search Results for: GUITAR

COUNTRY BAND, BLUES BAND, PLAY ‘EM IF YOU’VE GOT ‘EM

From a country band to blues band, it all started in the school band. I don’t know what makes others want to stand up and make noise, but for me it’ simple: have some fun. You remember fun? It’s spelled f – u – n.

HAPPY PLACES, BECAUSE WE NEED MORE THAN ONE

Happy places hard to find? It’s the virus pandemic, the lockdown, broiling temperatures, and forest fires. It’s the political right, political left, the politically disconnected. It’s President Trump, former VP Joe Biden, and the specter of a stealth third party candidate swaying the vote. Anyone but you, right? You’d be in your happy places if […]

PORTLAND APARTMENTS, A BOOMERPDX LEGACY

Renting three consecutive Portland apartments over five years on the same city block means you’ve either found the right neighborhood, or you’re a NW Portland kook. I knew I wasn’t the kook when I first moved in. That guy lived in the house across the street, a large older man dressed in crotch strangling overalls […]

PLAY MUSIC ON THE PORCH DAY HEALTH WARNING

“Take a stroll and listen to people play music on their porch,” they say. Sounds inviting to me. But what ‘they’ don’t say are the dangers of hearing others play music in such an inviting place as a front porch.

USEFUL NOISE WHEN SKIP A ROPE IS THE SOUND OF COMFORT

The sound of useful noise is a comfort. Some find it in a guitar, others in a piano, still more in the song they sing in the shower. No one sings Skip A Rope for comfort. It’s a mean song that’s beginning to sound like a new national anthem. Hit the link to hear it. […]

TIGARD MAN: WHY MOVING OUT OF INNER CITY PORTLAND WAS A GOOD IDEA

I’ve been a Tigard Man for thirty years, but it feels like yesterday. Memories of Portland keep reminding me why I moved. Not bad memories, but they weren’t good for others. For example:

MUSIC EDUCATION MAKES A GOOD LISTENER

From flutophone to virtuoso, music education is an essential subject. One online expert said there are two kinds of music: easy and impossible. They finished with: The path between them is called practice.

SELF CARE, THE RIGHT TOOLS FOR THE JOB

Self care showed up in more places during the covid lockdown, and even more with reopening unfolding across the country. Most advice serves to create calm in the chaos, instead of just cutting and chopping willy-nilly. A smaller voice says, “Have another beer and see how that works,” but let’s look at psychology today instead.

BETTER PERSON? BETTER THAN WHAT?

Does a better person replace a good one? Or is ‘better’ the enemy of ‘good?’ Like most things, it depends on who you ask. You get an answer either way, asking or not.

JOHN PRINE: WORDS FOR ASMR CALM

I heard of John Prine in 1972. This is his first album cover. He’s a guy sitting on a hay bale like it was just another day. Then he became the Mark Twain of songwriters.