{"id":7551,"date":"2021-02-01T09:18:46","date_gmt":"2021-02-01T17:18:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/storymind.com\/melanie\/?p=7551"},"modified":"2021-04-28T21:29:27","modified_gmt":"2021-04-29T04:29:27","slug":"composers-sketchbook-track-36-what-im-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storymind.com\/melanie\/composers-sketchbook-track-36-what-im-not\/","title":{"rendered":"A Composer&#8217;s Sketchbook | The 1970s Track 36 | What I&#8217;m Not"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"580\" height=\"300\" data-attachment-id=\"7375\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/storymind.com\/melanie\/composers-sketchbook-track-1-whats-so-wrong-with-suicide\/composers-sketchbook-background\/\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/storymind.com\/melanie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Composers-Sketchbook-Background.jpg\" data-orig-size=\"580,300\" data-comments-opened=\"0\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"Composers Sketchbook Background\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-medium-file=\"https:\/\/storymind.com\/melanie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Composers-Sketchbook-Background-300x155.jpg\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/storymind.com\/melanie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Composers-Sketchbook-Background.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/storymind.com\/melanie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Composers-Sketchbook-Background.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-7375\" srcset=\"https:\/\/storymind.com\/melanie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Composers-Sketchbook-Background.jpg 580w, https:\/\/storymind.com\/melanie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/Composers-Sketchbook-Background-300x155.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 580px) 100vw, 580px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/storymind.com\/melanie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Track-36.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>This is one of the few songs with lyrics that I wrote in the very beginning of my compositional journey.  I don&#8217;t recall ever thinking about starting to write lyrics.  In my memory it just seemed natural I guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In those days The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, and the Mommas and the Papas &#8211; all strong influencers of my music &#8211; had already broken up.  So, the notion of lyrics was just a natural part of my notion of what composing was but I simply hadn&#8217;t paid it much attention in the early days, as I was much more interested in the music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Interestingly, at least to me, is that I started composing on the piano in 1962 or so, when I was about nine years old, and The Beatles had just started to become known here in the USA.  So, my development as a composer was largely tied to their rise and demise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As related previously in this text, my mom was in the kitchen and heard my step-dad playing a new composition on the used upright piano he had bought to express his music.  She liked it a lot and came out to compliment him on it and it was me playing something I&#8217;d composed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now I imagine I&#8217;d been playing around on the keys for a while, since one doesn&#8217;t just sit down for the first time and compose something.  At least I suppose not.  But actually composing something just happened.  I was simply tooling around, learning how notes sounded together, found a combination I liked, added to that, and that&#8217;s what I was doing when my mom came out.  I never even had a conscious thought at the time about trying to write music.  I was just following some interesting sounds to see where they might lead, they way one might hike down a path to see what&#8217;s over the next hill, or the way Home Simpson might drop something important that he was doing to chase after a dog with a fluffy tail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But once I realized I had composed something and my mom liked it, I started doing it all the time, also because it made me just like my step-dad, like most kids do with their parents when they are young.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Beyond that though, the first time I tried my hand at lyrics in order to write an actual complete song was when my mom and dad were putting together an idea for a feature length animated cartoon they hoped to sell through a friend who had a contact to Disney.  It was called, The Adventures of the Mighty Toad Patrol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was based on our actual Boy Scout Patrol from Troop 8 in Burbank, California.  My step-dad was the scoutmaster and I was the patrol leader of the Toad Patrol.  The Toad Patrol got its name from our very first campout, which was held in a park in Burbank (we weren&#8217;t ready for the wild yet) and the  place was literally crawling, and sometime hopping, with toads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My parents wrote a script for the movie, my step-dad wrote the music (my mom co-wrote the lyrics) and my dad developed all the characters in a variety of original detailed drawings.    They decided to do an audio recording of the entire script on an old reel-to-reel tape recorder they had and also included me so I wouldn&#8217;t feel left out and we could have this whole experience as a family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I remember that I decided to write a song for the movie myself, and if I recall correctly, I didn&#8217;t tell them about it until I had finished it &#8211; music and lyrics, just like my dad!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I played it for them and they actually liked it.  Looking back, it was pretty simple, but they wrote it into the script as a scene around the campfire when the Patrol Leader (me) sings a song (that captured the woodland spirit) to the other members of the patrol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I still have that tape around here somewhere, and I&#8217;ll share it when I find it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Getting back to THIS song &#8211; wow, long way around &#8211; I was used to the concept of writing lyrics, but just hadn&#8217;t done it much.  When I did, I found it as easy as music, and just as much fun, and flowing just as nice as you please.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here, then, are the lyrics for What I&#8217;m Not, my song about about trying to discover &#8220;Who am I?&#8221; like most of us in high school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Lyrics<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My mind cries all alone within my body,<br>but still the tears don&#8217;t show.<br>And I just want to tell you that I&#8217;m slowly,<br>losing touch with all I know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So foot in front of foot I make my way,<br>across the crowded vibes of thought.<br>Trying to separate conflicting images,<br>That tell me what I&#8217;m not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Music written and recorded in the early 1970s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is one of the few songs with lyrics that I wrote in the very beginning of my compositional journey. I don&#8217;t recall ever thinking about starting to write lyrics. In my memory it just seemed natural I guess. In those days The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, and the Mommas and the Papas &#8211; all [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musical-compositions"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paauzo-1XN","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storymind.com\/melanie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storymind.com\/melanie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storymind.com\/melanie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storymind.com\/melanie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storymind.com\/melanie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7551"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/storymind.com\/melanie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7858,"href":"https:\/\/storymind.com\/melanie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7551\/revisions\/7858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storymind.com\/melanie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storymind.com\/melanie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storymind.com\/melanie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}