David Dunham Selection

For my son-in-law Rocky who knows rough mountain roads like the back of his hand. From a one-off recording session with fine guitarist Curtis Gremmel, the talented ten fingers on the left side of the mix.

Rocky Road (with Curtis Gremmel)

I see him each morning, hair askew, face needing to be mowed with an electric razor, a face wrinkled and weathered by experience and decisions good and bad.  None the less, I am thankful he is looking back at me; I'm still alive and thankful to have another day.  
Peter's poetic meditation begins like a prayer and becomes deeply introspective into how life has changed the man looking back at him.  His initial inspiration was Arvo Part's "Spiegel im Spiegel" but for this reflective journey, he asked pianist Debra Buesking to accompany him which she does  with great feeling and eloquence.  I come into the picture as the one invited to bring them together for a memorable moment, a great honor and a labor of love for two of my favorite Soundcloud artists.  More of Peter's thoughtful music and spoken word can be found @https://soundcloud.com/user-264930040/tracks, and more of Debbie's beautiful playing can be found @debra_buesking.

Some Words for Mr. Part:

Dear God, just look at the state of you - what the hell happened?
Did time do that all by itself?
Chiselled and scraped with gentle, temporal strength?
Yesterdays now patterned well with telling tales of wear and tear.
Always took such good care that you ticked every health kick box
But all the ticks collect their tocks, bundling up the time we thought was
dangling spare.
And wrinkly skin comes out to play, crafting plots with crumpled neurons
badly frayed, and
Liver spots about the edges worn of happy recollections,
Waltzed away, invisible to the swinging of that penduled clock.
Take your eyes off it for just a minute and you’ve lost a day,
And then a decade’s worth of wry reflections,
Lovingly to fold them up and let them lie in memory’s pocket.
Those lines that contour of your brow, a biography of creases now
And all cut down so very deep.
Each epidermal void crevasse life’s stylus tracks a scratching past
Evinces of a record no mortal hard re-format could delete.
And of your eyes, sallow yellowed at the margins, framed by corvid feet
Rigid-set to well outlast whatever bargained span of life your good Lord
deems replete.
As if your face lampoons of age itself, wrecked and bent
Of scars that trace minutiae, carved in master sculptors’ stone
And none too soon, for just that task and that alone, recording compressed
of the past..
We both know well which ones are smiles and which the pain that heaven
sent,
The former few, soft of the flesh, the many others sunk unto the very bone,
The harshest welt of any sole upon the universal cobbler’s last.
But does it help to so reflect, or but to hurry time’s neglect?
Of such consideration circles wrapped in worry tearing down
All edifice of self respect, the towering pit of pity comes once more to town,
Parades a circus fine of talents, self deprecating jestered clowns
And galloping horses all the while stampede about the rounded ropes
Vespered peace forever sought, just out of reach, concedes of futile, now
confounded hopes.
So what of forward self projection, folding the creases back behind
And out of sight to speculation on future solaced peace of mind?
Perhaps again the crashing wall of fast reality, solid bricked
Determines upward focus but to fall, as if to gravity’s grounded truth
Tricked of consequential solitude, rimed of age, aching of the aged sick
No respite there nor rectitude as once you found in torrid youth.
But perhaps I’m speaking out of turn and out of place,
For though your memories sear and burn as if to carbonise some
worthwhile trace of validity
On that unholy visage lit by lives lived long before….
It matters not and changes nought, not a jot nor yet a thought
For you and I know better than to seek a settled score from comment fair
After all, you are I, staring back at me from the mirror mounted there.

Inspired By Mr. Pärt's "Spiegels" (Peter, Debra Buesking, David; final production)

I wrote this forty years ago as part of the "Scenes of St. Francis" small-town song anthology and thought it might be fun to post as fall is winding down but before the Christmas season gets into full swing.  St. Francis, Kansas is a little prairie town nestled in a shallow river valley and has an abundance of trees, mostly cottonwoods, but a few hardwoods that stand out especially in the fall. And with the trees was an abundance of squirrels always playing chase or hide and seek when they weren't getting into mischief.  They needed a song, and with my daughters being so young, I wanted to make it in the form of a children's song that they could sing along to.  As adult women, they still like to sing along when they hear it which is a good thing since my own singing voice has largely depleted with age.  But it is a nice reminder that once upon a time I could sing:) Rescued and remixed from an old but faithful cassette tape.

Squirrel Song lyrics:
Hop, skip, and jump, and away they go,
Haven't got a care in the world.
Playing hide and seek 'round an old tree trunk,
I'm talking 'bout my friend the squirrel.

Gathering nuts is a way of life,
But even they know when to play,
And though winter's coming before too long,
They still live life day by day.
Chorus:
Just let their antics entertain you,
From a high-wire act to a tree-top stunt or two,
There's not a dull moment when you see them around,
There's fun wherever they're found.

Instrumental hums then repeat chorus

Hop, skip, and jump, and away they go,
They have something we need to learn;
That a happy life is made of work and play
When each one gets a turn.

Squirrel Song (from Scenes of St. Francis)

Between writing sermons as a small-town pastor, I was also engaged in writing songs, some you have heard in my "Scenes of St. Francis". This particular song came to me after reading an article about love and marriage--ministers do a lot of reading for sermon preparation--but this one knocked me a bit sideways.  Turns out men on average will fall in love between five and seven times before meeting their wife, and then 1-1/2 times afterward!  This song is about the 1-1/2 times afterward, a little different kind of love song for Valentine's Day. 
I have sat on the text and melody for over forty years but thought I better do something before time overtook it as it had overtaken my singing voice.  I heard Axel sing in his magnificent song with Sarah Paradise-Brown "What We Still Feel" and felt he could give the song the vocal it needed, an international voice of "everyman".  When he received the guitar parts he set to work on it and gave the song a stunningly beautiful orchestral setting as well.  Thank you dear Axel for lavishing your vocal and orchestral skills on a song that needed both. I am deeply honored and indebted.  Hear more of Axel's beautiful music @axel-m-501052973.
"Faithful and True" lyrics:

I recall the day I said "I do",
I never thought that I could love anyone
Like I love you,
But of late I'm really not so sure
That the promises we made can hold
Us together as we both grow older
With each day.
Is it possible for love to endure?
Chorus:
But I've made up my mind.
I've made my choice,
This feeling will pass but never the voice,
That tells me I must remain,
Faithful and true.

Bridge:
It doesn't stop the pain of admitting what can never be,
But if love has any meaning it is found in trust,
And not in what we feel.

Instrumental break...

Repeat bridge:

There's a sadness as I say farewell
To a love that promised more than I could ever tell,
Or at least that is the way it seemed
To a man who found himself in love
With another 'till he counted the cost of fantasy.
It was more than he ever dreamed.

Repeat chorus and end.

Faithful And True (David Dunham with Axel Menningen)

Chinese Moon Puzzle

What happens if "Dust In the Wind" meets "Classical Gas"?  I sought to answer that profound question one morning when I was riffing on an A-minor chord and couldn't think of another way to describe this acoustic concoction. I couldn't think of a better name for it either, but seemed to have a "ballad" feel to it, either about a hero or villain, I'll let you decide, and maybe catch a "catnap" thinking about it:)

Ballad For Acoustic Guitar

🧘🏽⏸️⏳❤️‍🔥

.

Howdy. Carl Culliton here from Ireland. Artist name The Beautiful Dark. I toyed with the idea of changing it but doesn't feel right after 24 hours so... Back to TBD.. Thanks for all the support and inpiration. It's infinitely appreciated

Personally I don't play the SoundCloud game of equal reciprocation. Every time my life as a Dad allows me to listen to a song... I listen to the whole song as I want to give genuine feedback and also learn as much as I can whilst here. So sorry if I don't listen and like and repost loads of your songs. Id prefer to support people by actually helping with the skills I've developed and give less frequent yet valuable feedback where possible then just playing the game of likes. That said I completely understand and appreciate people that decide to do that, that's you and you are as amazing as I am so no judgement. I just want to be clear with you that you won't get any artificial spreading of your music from here but you'll get my honest opinion based on what I imagine you were aiming for. This has helped me transcend musical taste in a way. I'm always imagining what you wanted as opposed to what I like. This has opened up some serious musical doors for me, embracing music that way instead of pre judging it based on what I've already heard... Lose the taste and expand your horizons is maybe what it is suggesting... I've always been a multi genre artist but this has activated multiple genre from an artistic point of view on steroids for TBD! A musical tri sexual.... The Get to Down! 🫡
Love will win ❤️‍🔥🎶🧬🙏🪶🔆🫛🧠🤘🏽

Let's let the music do the talking!

😆...

Speaking of the music doing the talking. Make sure you use AI to enhance the development of your skill. Getting a result delivered to you that doesn't reflect your ability isn't soulful. Be honest with yourself and be honest about what technology is and how it has come to be. There is a very questionable built in theft of our spirited art works that has been used to build current LLMs so the onus is on each of us as individuals to decide both whether or not we feed that beast at all and how we let that technology feed and enhance or limit our beings...

I've had mine and I decided for now... Only my fingers and voice will feed my music. AI needs to be made conscientiously for me to embrace it at all. I may look at it for DAW automation in the future as that will free up my fingers to make better songs but I'll wait until politicians do their jobs (we'll be waiting a while no doubt) and clean it up for all of us!

Regulate AI NOW so we can label music properly