The Valuable Friends:

@rick-4-1 - Refuge Drums
@janinelevinson - Haven Vocals
@phil-mcwalter - The Other Asylum Stuff

SANCTUARY

I want you
I think I see you everywhere
We want love
We want to see love everywhere
 
Under the sway of thy gentle wings
All the world comes together
 
Old friends, no more these sounds! 
Let us sing more cheerful songs 
More full of joy! 
More full of joy!
Joy, bright spark of divinity, daughter of Elysium 
Fire-inspired we tread thy Sanctuary 
Sanctuary…

Joy!

I want you
I think I see you everywhere
We want love
We want to see love everywhere

Under the sway of thy gentle wings
All the world comes together
 
All you millions, I embrace you 
Well this kiss is for all the world
And you millions, oh I embrace you all
This kiss is for everyone 
All the world…

© Aug 2023 Phil McWalter

Lyrics and music inspired by Friedrich von Schiller's (1759-1805) poem: "A die Freude" [Which also appears in the choral fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony - 'Ode to Joy'.]

Image: The Sanctuary, Avebury, Wiltshire UK. Dates from 2,500BC

"For there is nothing lost, that may be found, if sought."
from 'The Faerie Queene' Edmund Spenser 1552-1599

Sanctuary

Spotify

I couldn't resist revisiting my tilt at this 1980's classic from The Korgis, now with Rick!

@rick-4-1: Teaching The Drums
@phil-mcwalter: Learning The Other Stuff

Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime - The Korgis

Change your heart
Look around you
Change your heart
It will astound you
I need your lovin'
Like the sunshine

And everybody's gotta learn sometime
Everybody's gotta learn sometime
Everybody's gotta learn sometime

Yea ea eah

Songwriting credit: James Edward Warren / The Korgis

Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime

Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime II

Kintsugi is an art form that embodies the philosophy of wabi-sabi which values the beauty of imperfection and transience. Kintsugi also serves as a metaphor for embracing our flaws and imperfections in life seeing them as a source of strength and beauty and finding resilience in the face of adversity. 

Kintsugi

Waiting for Spring, is the title track of my new album, available at https://timhopkins2.bandcamp.com/album/waiting-for-spring.  Winters where I live in Canada, can be long and harsh.  We always look forward to springtime.

Bandcamp

Waiting for Spring

Für Elise is surely one of the most famous compositions of all time, by Ludwig van Beethoven, the German composer from the 17 & 1800s. Famous for getting the kroovy boiling of Alex from A Clockwork Orange, and famous for many other things, being deaf for instance, this piece is instantly recognizable on piano or guitar.

I hope my rendition of Für Elise proves to be the same. I tried to pick out the most recognizable part by ear, then added my own guitar elements to fill it out and give it my own spin. Those guitar parts may feel blasphemous and out of the spirt of the original documentation of Für Elise. But, they were fun to play and I hope you enjoy listening to these Für Elise variations on acoustic guitar.

Für Elise Variations for Guitar - Ludwig van Beethoven

Summer Ease

forever wondering
if I was ever really
up for the moment
in the bright city lights
and the dark, wet streets

just a humid memory

Goodbye, good night

Reposted with the added vocals of Lien.  My many thanks to Lien for graciously enriching this composition with his amazing talent. You can find more of Lien's wonderful music here https://soundcloud.com/lien-thag

Inspired by the poem "The Peace of Wild Things" by the American poet Wendall Berry.

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

The Peace of Wild Things (featuring Lien)

A very quick idea from my morning walk by the river.

Two Miles Per Hour

I hesitated to upload this one.  It was written as an expression of my sorrow over the recent loss of a dear friend to illness. I don't believe it's an easy listen and is texturally and harmonically dark at times.  I hope it also expresses at least some of the love I held and still hold for my friend.

Funeral for a Friend

Recorded using solely Soft String Spurs Extras and Soft String Spurs by Dan Keen available for free here:
https://www.pianobook.co.uk/library/soft-string-spurs-extras/

Photo by Vincent Burkhead on Unsplash

Fragile (Soft String Spurs demo)

Jim Sanger