Fill-in-the-Blank Friday: The Other (New) Project(s) I'm Working On

The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that the main reason God gave me a decent singing voice was because I sing all the time.  I sing in the choir at church.  I sing in the car.  I sing in the shower.  I sing while working with the kids.  I sing in my apartment for no apparent reason.  I sing when I'm walking down the aisle in the grocery store.  I even sing when I run sometimes--though that sounds a lot more like loosely organized wheezing and panting.  Seriously, the seven-year-old I watch told me that all my singing was starting to annoy her, and when the seven-year-old says stuff like that, it means there's a problem.  Or that she just likes to be rude.  Or both.

So anyway, I sing a lot, and if I couldn't carry a tune, it would be even more annoying.  So God decided to do the world a favor and give me a voice that doesn't suck too much most of the time.

However, since my voice doesn't suck too much most of the time, and since the poetry I've written is only good enough to be modified into sappy song lyrics, I tried writing some songs.  This required the ability to play an instrument.  Or at least the ability to pretend I can play an instrument.

Marching Band wasn't my thing (sorry, Mom).  The flute wasn't my instrument (sorry again, Mom).  The guitar is my instrument!  Actually, the guitar isn't really my instrument either, but I don't let little things like a lack of mad guitar skills keep me from pretending I can play.  My sister and brother did marching band; I took guitar lessons.  My brother and sister were band geeks; I was a wannabe hippy geek.  Only, most awesome guitar players teach themselves guitar, and most bad guitar players take lessons.  I am no exception.  I took lessons.  For maybe like a year when I was sixteen/seventeen.  I haven't improved much since then.  I might have even gotten worse.

I tried taking a piano class for a semester.  We shall not speak of it.

Ever.

So with my horrible poetry skills, my mastery of 7 guitar chords, and voice that doesn't suck too much most of the time (and about 15 years of bad song writing), I've managed to write about 20 decent songs.  I've written more than that, of course, but some of them are so bad that I want to forget about them--like that semester of piano class.

I've been meaning to do something with them for a while now, but the time hasn't worked out.  So I really need to get my act together and contact the nice dude to actually set up a time to actually record some of these songs.  I was considering donating all proceeds of sales from these cds, and I'd still like to do that, but there's something that bothers me.  All Most Some of the songs I want to record are, well, dreadful.  And I don't really think most people would want to pay a set fee for songs that are, well, dreadful.  Unless you're just a glutton for punishment.  Or my mom.  Who payed $200 for a flute I can't remember how to play, not that I could ever really play to begin with.  Sorry, Mom.

One of my friends recently told me about a site called bandcamp.com, which enables artists (after I record something, can I consider myself a recording artist?  Oh yeah!) to offer their music for download, and it enables listeners to name their own price for that download.   I'd love to be able to get my music out there for a "suggested donation" type deal.  And that "suggested donation" would go to "The Creative Ministries of Ruth Campbell."  Which is a fancy way of saying I'd be getting the "suggested donations."

But that's just with the first cd.  I'd like to record a second one, which will hopefully be more awesome because I'd hopefully be getting lots of donations from the first cd to help me make the second cd more awesome (like with liner notes and stuff).  Because the second cd is actually going to have some of my more awesome songs on it.  And it's going to have an awesome theme.  It's actually going to be serious--because I'm awesome enough to be able to be serious sometimes.  And I really would like to donate all the proceeds from the second cd, because I think that would be an awesome thing to do.  And I really do like the word awesome, don't you?

So stay tuned.  And if you feel as though you've been staying tuned long enough and I'm still dragging my feet, feel free to poke me. 

And I might write a song about it.