This is a song about having so much mounting frustration with what you have to accomplish that you need to take a time out. 
Copyright 2021

Ron Snyder - THE PLACE

Instrumental version of the classic Christmas song.  Guitars and Keys: Randy Belculfine, Percussion: Bill Aubin

Mary Did You Know (Instrumental)

Color Blind - Combstead / Robert Grigg

An original idea by Stone catcherye

Music & Lyrics, Guitars, Drums, Vocal : Stone catcherye https://soundcloud.com/stonecatcherye
Music & Lyrics, Synth Bass, Organ, Vocal: Jan Schonander

Image partially created using OpenAI

BLUE MONDAY

Sunday night the tension is more than I can bare
Time moves slowly as I count down the hours
A load off of me as I walk out the door
This ain’t no 
This ain’t no 
This aint no blue Monday

Wake up and change your believing 
Wake up and see 
You don't have to live a life of  feeling blue to spite the green
Wake up and change your life 
Like  you want it to be
 You don't have to wait 'til you die 
To live the life you need

Just live the life you need

Thursday night pressure’s low I’m breathing again
Time is moving why can’t I just press pause 
I’m comin home, I’m putting my helmet on 
This ain’t no
This ain’t no
This ain’t no blue Monday

Wake up and change your believing 
Wake up and see 
You don't have to live a life of  feeling blue to spite the green
Wake up and change your life 
Like  you want it to be
 You don't have to wait 'til you die 
To live the life you need

Just live the life you need

Oh, I'm a ghost, oh, you the most
Oh, I want a Blue Monday
Oh, just give me a Blue Monday

Oh, I'm a freak, oh you're disease
Just give me a blue Monday 

Just give me a blue Monday
Just give me one
Just give me one
Just give me one blue Monday

Wake up and change your believing 
Wake up and see 
You don't have to live a life of  feeling blue to spite the green
Wake up and change your life 
Like  you want it to be
 You don't have to wait 'til you die 
To live the life you need

Live the life you need

Blue Monday

Blue Monday | Stone catcherye & TheGat(s)

Huntin' Wabbits - Combstead / Robert Grigg

14Mar23

Some slow piano music to close your eyes to

:D

Piano Explorations [29]

The years are running... the faces around are changing... friends are leaving... only in my music  I still feel young...
I invite you to listen to my piano improvisation "Year after Year".

Watch the video version of this composition on my Youtube channel https://youtu.be/lF6XQFb6Wq4

The sheet music of some of my compositions can be downloaded from my website https://pianoimprovictor.com/ Some new works are available on  https://www.sheetmusicplus.com/publishers/victor-birkan-sheet-music/3028943?isPLP=1
Find all my music here: https://linktr.ee/victorbirkan

Year after Year - Improvised Piano Piece

Introduction in English:

My mother was always a smart woman, endowed with a naturally high intelligence .

Living alone with her sick father, she had to leave school already in the 6th grade and go to work in a factory.

When she later met my academically pre-educated father, she was introduced through him into the circles of the so-called " educated citizens ".

We then often had corresponding "nouveau riche" and "status conceit" parties in our large rented apartment. Here, my mother regularly got to feel the "fine", subtly deeply humiliating difference between the would-be educated and her as a despicably uneducated person.

At the same time, the would-be educated often had a style of communication that I call "trash talk" in this song. They often engaged in name-dropping by mentioning only the names of famous personalities without knowing anything more about their work. When asked more closely, they quickly changed the subject or texted you with some quarter-truth.

My mother, who was plagued by feelings of inferiority, was very intimidated by this, and it made her feel all the more stupid, uninteresting, and not socially acceptable.

At that time I was still too small. But I would have liked to turn back time for my mother's protection and sing this song at the highest volume to all these "trash talkers" standing on our dining room table at that time.

That the topic of "subtle differences" is a timeless one (I bow here to the wonderfully perceptive Pierre Bourdieu in this regard) is shown by the deep rifts that continue to exist between today's self-proclaimed "elite" and the supposed "primitives".

Lyrics in English (for those, who don`t speak German):

Trash Talk

Just chat, don't think anymore, dislocate brain, be stupid 
Chattering sideways, never wavering, just no profundity, flatland

They remain one-dimensional, quite gloriously meaningless
The wordplay is all thin and stale, The shallow is all big with them

Come close all books, welcome to a shallow brain walk
Sult yourselves in the mud talk, It`s time for a nice trash talk  

Are at many parties with colorful Smarties, with false eyelashes and pout 
No contacts, just meaningless verbal acts, word junk.

They are the heroes of the lazy mind, meaningless in the jelly glow 
Are narrow-minded, cheeky and brazen, persist in the one-legged dance

Come close all books, welcome to a shallow brain walk
Sult yourselves in the mud talk, It`s time for a nice trash talk 

Have no enemies, no friends either, talk beside, nothing remains 
Leave only grease stains, can`t even bump, get stuck in the approach, nothing drifts 

Except: Trash Talk, Trash Talk, Trash Talk, Trash Talk (Fad Out)...

________________________________

Deutscher Originaltext

Trash Talk

Einfach quatschen, nicht mehr denken, Hirn ausrenken, Dumm sein 
Seitwärts plaudern, niemals zaudern, nur kein Tiefsinn, Flachland

Sie bleiben eindimensional, ganz herrlich bedeutungslos
Der Wortwitz ist ganz dünn und schal, Das Seichte ist bei ihnen ganz groß

Komm schließt alle Bücher, welcome to a shallow brain walk
Sult Euch im Schlammreden, It`s Time for a nice Trash Talk  

Sind auf vielen Parties mit bunten Smarties, mit falschen Wimpern und Schmollmund 
Keine Kontakte, nur sinn-entschlackte Verbalakte, Wortschund.

Sie sind die Helden des faulen Geists, nichtssagend im geligen Glanz, 
Sind borniert, vorlaut und dreist, verharren im einbeinigen Tanz

Kommt schließt alle Bücher, welcome to a shallow brain walk
Sult Euch im Schlammreden, It`s Time for a nice Trash Talk 

Haben keine Feinde, auch keine Freunde, reden daneben, nichts bleibt 
Hinterlaßen nur Fettflecken, können nicht mal anecken, bleiben im Ansatz stecken, nichts treibt 

Außer: Trash Talk, Trash Talk, Trash Talk, Trash Talk (Fad Out)…

Trash Talk

Nur diese eine Welt

Introduction in English:

Last year, my wife and me bought a cottage on the Baltic Sea. It was to be something like our retirement home for the next thirty years. 
Unfortunately, this vision has so far been thwarted by our increasingly resentful neighbours. Consideration is a foreign word for them. They let their children play loud basketball as long as they want; they grill foul-smelling meat as long as they want and they party as long as they want. 
If you ask them nicely to be quiet, you will be dismissed with slogans like "We don't give a shit", "Move away if you don't like it" or "We'll do what we like".
In my helplessness and speechlessness over this dissocial stubbornness, I came across an old Beatles song called "Not a Second Time". Of course, it was composed by John Lennon in 1963 in a completely different context.
But its lyrics fit just as well with my desperate and so far largely unheard plea for more neighbourly consideration. - In particular, the lines: "You're giving me the same old line/ I'm wondering why/You hurt me then/ you're back again/No, no, no, not a second time“ sum up our current plight with these self-centred neighbours.
And as always with covers, my aim is not to get as close as possible to the original, but to transform it into a Karlit-O-Kay sound design.
The picture cover for the song is by German artist Markus Schuke.

Einleitung auf Deutsch:

Letztes Jahr kauften meine Frau und ich an der Ostsee ein Häuschen. Es sollte so etwas wie unser Alters- und Ruhesitz für die nächsten dreißig Jahre werden. 
Leider wurde diese Vision bisher von unseren zunehmend renitenten Nachbarn durchkreuzt. Rücksichtnahme ist für sie ein Fremdwort. Sie lassen ihre Kinder lautstark Basketball spielen, solange die wollen; sie grillen übelriechendes Fleisch, so lange sie wollen und sie machen Party, so lange sie wollen. 
Bittet man sie freundlich um Ruhe, wird man mit Sprüchen wie "Ist uns doch scheißegal", "Ziehen Sie doch weg, wenn es Ihnen nicht paßt" oder "Wir machen, was uns passt" abgefertigt.
In meiner Ohnmacht und Sprachlosigkeit ob dieser dissozialen Dickfelligkeit stieß ich auf einen alten Song der Beatles namens "Not a Second time". Der ist natürlich damals 1963 von John Lennon in einem ganz anderen Zusammenhang komponiert worden.
Seine Textzeilen passen aber ebenso gut zu meinem verzweifelten und bisher weitgehend unerhört gebliebenen Bitten um mehr nachbarschaftliche Rücksichtnahme. – Insbesondere die Zeilen „You're giving me the same old line/ I'm wondering why/You hurt me then/ you're back again/No, no, no, not a second time“ bringen unsere derzeitige Not mit diesen egozentrischen Nachbarn auf den Punkt, 
Und wie stets bei Covern geht es mir nicht darum, dem Original möglichst nahe zu kommen, sondern dieses in ein Karlit-O-Kay- Sounddesign zu transformieren.
Das Bild-Cover zu dem Song stammt von dem deutschen Künstler Markus Schuke.

Not a Second Time

Not A Second Time (Lennon/Mccartney)

Do not waste too much time thinking what your purpose in life is. Just enjoy the moments you have and cherish the little time you have on this planet.

Purpose (Release Mix)

I can still remember the new smell of my first vinyl record.  I remember peeling off the plastic carefully to save that hype sticker and carefully slipping the disc in all its luster from the jacket with the static tugging at my sleeve.   Putting on the headphones, my hands behind my head as I reclined, I must have had a huge smile as I soaked it all in front to back.  I fell in love with music.   Everything about it.  Pumping drums, riffs, driving bass and the big open tone of an acoustic piano.  I really tuned into lyrics too, bathed in the overall space of the effects and enveloped in the rhythm.  

My first multi-tracker recorder was a Fostex 4-track purchased with a friend at age 17.  We took turns bringing it home and recording onto cassette tape and often collaborated on our material.  I still have a few of those early recordings.  I was a kid with a drive for music but I had nobody to learn from who had ever been in the songwriting business.  I was on my own.

My cousin and I formed a band in High School that took on many forms with members coming and going.  But the late 80's to early 90's "Darius" was a staple on the local circuit, playing 40 song nights at various clubs, with a quarter of those being original tunes.  I loved the stage, the camaraderie of the band and the feeling of performing songs that I was part of creating. My favorite part was the audience reciprocation which only drove me to give more of myself to the craft, always hoping to deliver something special that they could appreciate.  

I released my first single "Somewhere Between Mercury and Mars" in 2013 which you can play here on SoundCloud or purchase from Amazon and other streaming services.  It landed in the top 50 of most played tunes in the Guitar Center Songwriting Contest that year.  There were over 10000 submissions to the contest too!  My video entry for the making of the song scored first place, an incredible honor for sure.

Today I'm more driven than ever to create and play.  I spend a lot of time in my home studio, on the guitar and in front of the piano.  I find recording fulfilling and challenging.  Listening to a decent finished mix is truly rewarding for me, I cannot get enough!  

I work on covers in the studio as well.  Its amazing how much you can learn about the process from deconstructing a tracked tune and recreating it from scratch.  Vocal doubling, harmony guitars, mixing clear and distorted amp sounds, quirky percussion, it all goes practically unnoticed until you approach it like a puzzle that needs to be reassembled.  What if Roger Waters never put the lengthy feedback echo after "Hello" in Comfortably Numb? What made him think to do that?  "Born to Run" has a glockenspiel alongside a guitar.  It brings up the treble in the song which prevents it from sounding too muddy, stroke of genius.  Though it sounds like a child's toy if you focus on it too much, it does what its supposed to, it raises the high end of the EQ.  

I hope you like what you hear and share it along.  We are bombarded with music these days as it seems everyone has access to recording software.  In that respect I'm humbled that you take the time to listen!

Thanks for checking my music out and please keep in touch!  jp6blue@gmail.com (@jp6blue on Twitter)  Also, if you are a progressive metal fan I encourage to check out my son's material, a graduate of Berklee College,  you will not be disappointed: https://affinitymusic.bandcamp.com

Mary Did You Know (Instrumental)

ROCKIN AXES

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