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piece-o-day ‘you won’t see me’

you won’t see me
…if i see you first.
…even when you look right at me.
…’cos you started seeing someone else.
…if you don’t look hard enough.
…but you will feel my pointy boots.
…so open your eyes.
…haven’t got the time.
…it would make you cry.
…but you’ll pet my dog.
…so i will fly away.
…today… but maybe tomorrow?
…it’s simply not a good idea.
…though you will hear me.
…THEY won’t let you.
…without a telescope.
…it costs too much to get here.
…i am already gone.
…you’re afraid.
…but i’m right here in this tree.
…you’ve never heard of me.
…’cos you never liked my face.
…so look a little harder.
…instead you’ll see my shadow.
…but i see you!

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piece-o-day ‘an unlikely bohemian’ straight piano (sample) musing.

- we see all sorts of interesting wildlife wandering around in our neighborhood on our doggie walks. the other night for example we saw a skunk, but i didn’t have my camera out. these are from yesterday morning- a photo of crow (may we never have to eat one!) – a particularly nice one as he did not crow excessively about himself nor did he poop on us as we passed him by.

- the other 2 photos? all i got to say is ‘baruch hashem l’olam amen v’amen’ (blessed is hashem forever, amen and amen- psalms 89:53) & ‘v’sharim k’cholalim- kol maayanei bach’ (and the singers as the players- all my wellsprings are in YOU- psalms 87:7).

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piece-o-day ‘the fade’.

so much time lately working out on guitar. i think it’s starting to show.

i love derek bailey. going back about a decade- when i was still more programmer than this- i bought a bass so i could mess sonically with something that had strings- just ‘cos i knew what derek bailey could do with a guitar. and bass is simple ‘cos there are only 4 of them and they are all tuned in equal intervals. this led to the project that got named ‘lemon duck’.

for the longest time guitar was a total mystery to me. but lately i’ve realized it’s not all that different from bass-

note on middle photo- not an outtake from ‘brazil’ but a portable air conditioner.

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piece-o-day ‘bitachon’… which means the sort of faith you have when you are certain of something. confidence. in god, true friends (old and new), stuff like that.

i was going to aim an expanded version of this (min and half sketch) towards mi yodea songbook- but as it’s a slow march, maybe not. whenever i bring a new original to mi yo land i run it by our drummer ann. old friends may be amused that she has vetoed pieces (‘the cheikh’, for example, which i LOVE) on the basis of them being ‘dirge-like’. ok- maybe i save this for something else….

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piece-o-day ‘cavelight rainbow’. (gtr, bass, looper & sound forgery)

i went to the basement to see if i could get a picture of one of the rainbows that show up here occasionally to go with this…. alas no rainbows in the house today. but i did get some nifty photos of glass block instead.

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piece-o-day ‘tns’ a short (min 20), sweet (mostly pentatonic) musical moment – which stands for take no shit.

dedicated to renee baker, huntress diana and all the other GOOD people of the world.

mi yodea? (who knows?) YOU do!!! and we LOVE you! yes we do.

(note- a shrink is a paid friend. a real friend who takes no shit from you is worth about 10,000 of those.)

today’s piece-o-day is a 5 part suite called ‘survey suite’- file under ‘challenging’. improvised no overdubs. for j.

1) this train (keys)

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2) sound reasoning (gtr)

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3) and the horses they rode in on (drms,kys)

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4) here come the vipers to vipe you away (bass,drms,keys)

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5) you’ll want to be on board this train when it is leaving baby (keys again)

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nothing changed. everything changed.

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mi yodea finally getting into a real studio this week. to celebrate today’s piece-o-day is a version of ‘the march’- which is part of ‘march and slide’-

it’s been an interesting time. the highs, the lows, the things we learn. the recurring themes- constantly reinforced by the actions of the world. as you sew so shall you etc.- though i think that was the other guy’s book, relatively speaking.

so what do we do? we march on. what other choices are there?

i’ve been really busy lately- studying, writing, rehearsing, processing… but i owe the world some blog on it all, soooo…..

ok- first there’s mi yodea- we’re about to go into a serious studio. i had seen a video of henry threadgill on youtube discussing his techniques for simplifying improvisation and i thought i would try one of the ideas he presented (allow fewer note choices- the simplification here being using notes from a D major or G minor tonic over a double harmonic scale based in D or G) and then apply it in a mi yodea song- antiyoub. so here is a rehearsal version of that, warts, froggy voice, talking and all-

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phil isaacson- clarinet, rachel fischer- flute, ann gross- bougarabou, sue kaplan- dumbek,voice,  me- keyboard, voice and writing

then there’s gHOST project- actually represented here by ’4 out of 5 gHOSTs’-

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stacey taheny- voice, words, efx, keys, etc, w dalmatian- bass, voice, drum kit, sue kaplan- drum kit, percussion, me- drum kit, bass, keys the firey drum kit duet on the 2′nd track here is by sue and w!  (but kit solo at the end of the first is me)

lastly my 3 (solo) piece-o-days o’ may (so far)

may 3 ‘firn di makhatonim aheim’ a tune by naftule brandwein which mi yodea is taking into the studio next week- solo piano version

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may 2 ‘how is it out there now?’ solo keys improv

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may 1 ‘wish doctor’ keys and drums w/ some obvious ‘borrowing’ :

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mi yodea is still in search of bass and vocals (and more if we can find it)- please e-mail me at zelwel at hotmail dot com for that and also for booking info on all of the above. make us happy- love us, book us.