Amado Ohland

It's really getting to that point. "What to sing?" Have I said all I have to say that I know how to say in the hour it takes to create what I say? Am I now at the point that saying what I want to say requires I sit and plan for much longer? Until I have an answer, I'll go roaming at the mouth for a bit.

My darling bride asked me how I was doing today, and to my surprise I didn't actually know. So I took a minute to check in, and discovered how I was feeling. The feeling stayed until I was done with this song (a few minutes ago, as of this writing). I'll let you know when it changes.

Imagine, if it please you, an Earth 1500 years after a catastrophic, near-extinction-level event. Humanity has gone through another population bottleneck (say, maybe only ~200,000 survived, scattered widely throughout the globe) and is bouncing back. That we once had cell phones, nuclear power, and artificial intelligence is mere legend. But agriculture has survived, and with the reduced environme...

I thought it was a pretty righteous jam, then I immediately listened back to it and it's got some real honkers there at the beginning. But somehow I was able to stay in the "magic zone," the present-moment awareness, channel the musical impulses and ...well, I shouldn't get carried away with this. It's just a bit of singing, after all. Enjoy.

The thing about people is, we've a remarkable intuition for when people are faking it. (Good actors are remarkable for their ability to fake it to the point where most people can't tell.) I saw a sign that said "shine," and I worked that into my improv today. And afterward, listening, I had an intuition about the "me" who had sung this song, just earlier in the day. This, then, is the sound of *wa...

Ah. Um. So. One coach said "don't worry about what harmonies you're making until they're happening," and another said "bring one of your pieces—or something you're working on—to the workshop." So I tried to be "good enough," complex and interesting enough to over-compensate for the ostinato nature of this kind of music. So I made sonorities that worked well enough. They're roughly represented in t...

I've been too careful for too long. Sunday evening felt that way. (I wanted to say that Sunday evening proved it to me, but I'm not sure anything is proved to me.) So today I gave the cautious, the questioning, the careful, the tentative the ol' heave-ho. Begone! Questionable sounds resulted. Enter if you dare!

Returning to words—haiku specifically—will now be a regular feature of this project, since May 2016 went so well with it. Poems supplied by the Naviar Haiku project will probably be the bulk of it. When they've got one that gets to me, I'll try to schedule singing about it before their deadline for that week.

different elements. journeyman chemistry. slower-acting catalysts. maybe even something slightly new.

Me & a pretty wise buddy of mine, we been talkin' about this concept a bit, how it's hard to be there for the way that other people sometimes feel and yet that's exactly what (and all) they need. Is it one person's responsibility to make another person feel differently? Hmm... This track is a reply to “Prompt 71: ‘Don’t Feel That Way.’” More on the Society for Spontaneous Singing at http://singthi...

Every once and a while I need to do intentionally "wrong" things, something weird to jolt me out of my habits. Examples: * https://soundcloud.com/amadoohland/absurd-ditty-the-first * https://soundcloud.com/amadoohland/reductio-ad-absurdum * https://soundcloud.com/amadoohland/cloudcuckoolander And I tried that again today. Problem is, it didn't turn out that weird. I actually think the whole "do so...

Continuing my practice of taking a step back. The first thing to come out of me was the "theme" part, the three-part harmony in the bari-tenor range. Other parts accreted. The solo was ...hard. I feel like everything I do repeats myself, lately. So I stripped it down, took it easy, and committed to a limited number of ideas. I'm really feeling the lack of words. It's a place to grow from...

I tried to take a step back today. I didn't know that I was going to be falling back a step or so. It's okay though, I feel like I need to keep stepped back for a bit, go into my process with some Beginner's Mind, and evaluate from that place. It was nice to stumble.

Tried to end the month with a bang. I'd done very little Blues this month, so I sought a poem that could be smeared around a lot. Turns out, the song does have a feature in common with the first song of the month: it uses a tonal ambiguity to end with a more "major" or "up" feel than it starts. Be that as it may, I did what I often do: try too hard. I hope it doesn't suffer too badly for it.

About a year ago, I saw more fireflies in my yard than I'd ever seen in one place before. I don't use this word lightly: I was in awe. I experienced wonder. And naturally, I sang about it. (This song is something of an unofficial sequel to that song.) This year, I've been on the lookout for the same phenomenon. And last night was pretty good. Clear night, stars above... That's when it hit me that...

So, yeah, 23 days ago I was goofin' and I sent my wife a bunch of texts about a duck she saw. I made a silly rhyme out of it. It took 11 minutes to come up with a little verse, just off the top of my head. I'd just started my "words month," and she said "there's your words for today." I said "this silly crap? Never." Couple of days ago, a buddy hooked me up with an analysis of rap. Today I found a...

Saw this poem early on, this month. Knew that I'd want to sing it. Waited for the right day to arrive. I had no idea the form that arrival would take. But today's definitely the day.

Goofy process today. Made it to my singin' place after a late lunch, wrestled with the tech, got it going, and tried my best to do a sloooow song as quickly and efficiently as I could. I made loops, looked at the time, and it was time to wrap it up before I sang the performance. And it suuuuuuuuuuuuucked. What to do? To pull the tracks into a DAW and correct pitches and timing, even in a loose sor...

quiet? I take on a song that calls on me to be quiet? How is that a good idea? As tempted as I am to wash this thing in reverb in hopes of smoothing out the timbral and intonation irregularities, that's not what this is about. So imma chalk it up to a pretty good idea that didn't fly as well as I'd like, because of deficiencies in my current command of my instrument. But hey, maybe I'm the wrong p...

Ha ha haaawr! There's only 8 words in the whole thing, and I screwed one up! It is what it was. Ravens, man. They don't just fly. They CLAIM THE SKY. I've heard it said: if you think it's a raven, it's probably a crow. If you think it's an airplane, it may be a raven. Still. "Dusk" would have been better, poetically. "Dark" was more fits-in-my-mouth singerly. Tough one today. Dunno if it worked. W...

I tried to get "simple," and in some senses I did. Syncopation notwithstanding. If it makes you smile at least half as much as it did me, then I'm doing my job.

a response to the Naviar haiku prompt, but I'm going to process it a bit (GASP!) before I submit it to them. Here, you get the long drone meditative thing, without the EQ and mix-reverb. Enjoy.

For today's Daily Song I take on the haiku suggested by Naviar Records. I'm a bit of an odd duck compared to the Ambient/Electronica artists who are the typical respondents to their haiku prompts. As a singer and an improviser of a cappella pieces, I usually create pieces that groove and doo-wop a bit. (It varies.) So for today's piece, I decided to slow down and make a sound tapestry with my voic...

I found this haiku in honor of Friday the 13th, then got too busy to record then. So I did it today. I sat down to make Art, and made this instead. I thought the chord progression was one interesting thing, but it turned out that the first measure of the 4-measure loop was in a different place than I thought, so the chord progression is more normal. Still. It might be fun.

We all know you're a hoopy frood, and perfectly able to conduct your adventures self-sufficiently. And let's imagine you've met someone. They too have that magic spark, and additionally there's something they've got that makes your spine thrill. They've quite gotten under your skin. So here you are, on your solo adventure, in the woods. You find a place in the highlands where the water starts its...