Tumon Bay

     In August of 1993 my family moved back to Guam.  Actually that is not totally true.  My daughter moved simultaneously to a job in Phuket, Thailand while we moved back to Guam after being there a few years prior.  The island had developed considerably since being there in 1990-91, our previous time there.
     A musical friend of mine, Jeff Patterson,    Jeff Patterson profile  had also decided to check out life on Guam and landed within a short time after our arriving.  He stayed with us in our apartment for a brief time. 
     Jeff and I hadn't written anything of consequence before this although we had worked together in creative musical groups since our days in high school and college.
     We sat down and started to write a melody, a three note bit that felt very soothing.  We wrote that on my new guitar which I had purchased use in my music classes at Tamuning Elementary School where I was the elementary music specialist.  That three note bit was the center point, but we had no words.  Nothing!  It was one of those blah-blah-blah songs......  We used the words "light like air" which felt nice.
     In my mind I felt we were writing a song on the lines of Air Supply or something.  It had that kind of felling to it. We had the whole song written melodically.  It was pretty good; even the harmonies were following into place.  But, it was still "blah, blah, blah" or "light like air" and that had to go.  So, we were driving in the car with Barb and Julian Janssen and Barb said, "how about 'Tu-mon Bay' that works" and it could be a piece for the most important tourist spot on Guam.
     Wow!  Inspiration!  All of a sudden the car was alive with the phrase "Tumon Bay".  But, that was just the chorus.  What about the verse?
     Jeff literally went swimming the next day in Tumon Bay and after sat down and the whole lyric flowed out of him.  In this situation the place, Tumon Bay, actually inspired via its natural beauty.

     So, it came back to us together to finalize the lyric.  We already had ideas of its use.  We were going to present the song to the Guam Visitors Bureau for use as a bit for their advertising.  We recorded it on a cassette and with lyrics accompanying it I presented it to GVB.  They took forever to get back to me and when they did their response was, "it's about Tumon Bay, not Guam"  That was true, of course.  It zeroed in on one locale and not the entire island.  But, we still had a great song.
     Jeff left Guam shortly to return to the Pacific Northwest.  So, the song sat unused.
     For me, 1996 found me recording a children's CD called "Hafa Adai!  Fun Songs From Guam And Around The World".  I needed some more material and "Tumon Bay" seemed ripe for use.  So, I recorded it       overdubbing my voice three times for the background harmonies.  The harmony that I sang (two part) in the second verse was what Jeff would have sung if he had been available; but he was in the states.
     That song got a bit of help from my friend Tom Renfro who was a DJ at the time on Guam's public radio station.  It got a good response and I appreciated his help in publicizing it.
     I was now working at St. John's School in Guam in 1997.  Another school had just recorded an album for Christmas and gained a lot of acclaim for it.  The administration and other teachers saw my skills in songwriting and suggested that our school should put out a CD of some sort also.  I went back to the studio that had recorded my CD and when they heard that I was representing St. John's School the price went up.  The school was seen as wealthy and should be able to put up the money.
     No was the answer to that.  I came back from the studio with an inflated price and was given a definite NO.  So, now what?
     My friend Chris Evola, who was a supporter of my work suggested getting a digital recorder and do it ourselves.  Of course he was saying "you Dave".  I had never recorded anything on my own totally, except demos for sending to publishers.  This would be a new undertaking and honestly I was afraid of my own "get it done quickly" style of doing things which left quality somewhere in the backseat.
     But, he convinced me and I in turn convinced the school of the low price and what my goal would be, to create a CD for the school.
     I thought of Jeff and my song, Tumon Bay, as the piece to work with.  So, I created a backing track slower and more sultry than the previous recording.  I also created a "waves hitting the shore" sound for an introduction to the song.
     I started working with my 4th, 5th, 6th grade choir to sing the harmonies behind what would be the lead singer.  The background voices were recorded around one microphone in a classroom.  I didn't have enough headsets so  some of the children were the primary singers and the rest heard their singing and sang to the timing of their singing.  In retrospect I have to say I can't believe we were actually able to come up with anything worthwhile, but it was wonderful.
     I had selected Natasha Melwani, who had a very nice smooth melodic voice, as my lead singer. Her mother would drop her off at the school and we would record her part verse by verse.  There were many takes and I would have to judge each one on its quality and ask her back a few times.  You must remember that the song is 5 minutes long and each verse had to be as perfect as it could be.  The work was gruelling for a sixth grader to deal with, but she was a trooper and the final product was wonderful.
     Guam is a destination resort to the Asian area.  Millions of people, especially from Japan, visit Guam each year.  As much as songs about Guam might attract English speaking listeners the truth is that more Asian languaged persons visit Guam, so if a song could be in their own language, that could be a very good thing.
     I saw this opportunity and went to work on it.  I first presented the lyric to one of the Japanese language teachers at St. John's, Ichie Shepherd, and asked her to translate the song for me.  She did that, but the result was not lyrical enough.  That can be a problem in dealing with translation of lyrics.
     With this new thought, translating to Japanese, I needed a new singer who was fluent in Japanese.  There was a new girl to St. John's, Sanae Okada who had just recently moved from Japan to Guam.  Her mother, by chance, was quite talented at music and she took it upon herself to make a more poetic Japanese Tumon Bay lyric.  What you hear on the recording is a synthesis of Jeff's lyric and Mrs. Okada's poetic work.

     The music of the Japanese Tumon Bay was taken by my friend Chris Evola who was a teacher of physics at St. John's School.  He worked for a year or longer at creating a music video using images of Tumon Bay and of course the singer, Sanae Okada.  In the video are students of St. John's, and curious and I feel innovative use of color, and the natural beauty that is Tumon Bay.

Tumon Bay as performed by Dave Janssen

The Dinosaur Song

     In 1989 I got my first job teaching music.  The school was Orchard Hill Elementary School in the Phoenix-Talent School District in southern Oregon.
     I had not expected to be teaching music to little children and I found myself grasping for musical material to fulfill the needs of the teachers who sent their children to me.
     One class in general was so full of energy and curious 2nd graders.  One day their teacher came to me and said that the class was going to be focused on the study of dinosaurs for the next 9 week period.  She handed me a paperback book full of simple songs from the series "Wee Sing".  Those songs are OK, of course, but nothing that thrilled me.
     So, before school one day I sat down and started to mess with parallel 4th riffs and with Queen's "We Will Rock You" in my mind.  Before long I had the basic chorus of "Dinosaurs".
     The kids arrived and I started the riff on the piano and they loved it.  We kept at it and within a few minutes (because of the sound of the slow heavy beat) they started trudging around the music room repeating "Dinosaurs" bent over in imitation of their slow moves.  From that moment it was almost a collaborative moment.  I started making up lyrics that might rhyme with dinosaur names.  By the end of the day, with another class as well, I had the song almost to its completed end.
     In 1996, when I was going to record children's songs for my CD, this song returned to me, and I laid it down synthetically with a computer 'band'.  The only overdub for the song was a sound effect for the huge bass heavy thud of the dinosaur stomping which was the recording engineer's idea.
     After the release of my CD this song has been the one requested the most often by the little ones.  The Dinosaur Song.

The Dinosaur Song on Amazon.com

Lost In A Book

     In 1993-4 I was working at Tamuning Elementary School in Guam as the music specialist for grades 2-5.  I shared office space with a teacher of advanced learners for the school and she was well connected throughout the school system.  She had invited me and my family for dinner one evening and I shared a song that I'd co-written called "Tumon Bay" for the people gathered together.  With that as my songwriting calling card she had an idea as to who I was musically.

     One day at work she said to me, "one of the schools in northern Guam is looking for a song to promote reading.  Do you think you could write a song for their purposes?  There isn't any money in it but it would be your song to use as you please." 

     With that I started jamming on some ideas.  For some reason the beginning guitar riff to "Who'll Be The Next In Line"  popped into my head.  There is absolutely no connection between that and reading, but that's what got me started.  In a very short time I had the chorus:

     I got lost in a book, I couldn't find my way out

     I couldn't leave by the way that I came

     I got lost in a book, and the further I went

     The words that I read led the way

     Oh, lost in a book, oh, lost in a book

     You can find yourself in a page

     The imagery of someone literally walking into a book and walking (as in walking down a path...."Wizard Of Oz"-style) was in my head.  So, with that I had the chorus.  

     Then, I started thinking of different things to read, which led me through a "list" of reading materials that kids might read.

     You should find a story, something you'd like to read

     Someone's life, or a poem, or prehistoric beasts

     And after reading a while, you'll discover a style 

     That appeals to what you like

     And you'll get lost in a book, oh, lost in a book

     Find yourself in a page

     The list of the second line is really me, Dave Janssen.  I love biographies and always have.  Poems?  Yes, again, and dinosaurs?  Love them.  My friend Gary Aronson from Portsmouth School in Portland had dinosaur teeth and bones that he and his dad had found in eastern Oregon and I went to his house after school a few times and saw that collection.  That all preceded the "Flinstones".

     But, I now needed a second verse.  The song was too short as it was.  I'm not sure who inspired the next bit, but whole language was the rage at the time and the idea of "creating" and not just reading a book was an outgrowth of that educational concept.  So, I thought of "writing a book" as the outcome of reading books and wanting to become a part of the book from the other end......creativity.

     The song had been written in 1994, but the recording did not proceed until 1996.  I used the song in its original version with me playing guitar for my classes, when it suited the purpose of promoting reading.

     I planned to record a children's album in the Spring of 1996.  So, I was told to create backing tracks with my keyboard from which we would overdub instruments and eventually the vocals.  I laid down the tracks, including "Lost In A Book".

     When I recorded the track for this song it was very minimal.  My intention was to lay a guitar over the top in the overdubbing stage.  But, when the engineer heard the backing techno sound he stopped me and said, "hey, forget the guitar, listen to that all by itself".  I was skeptical, but ultimately went along with his thinking and it was great.  My first techno sounding song, which the kids loved.  Gone was my Kinks inspired riff, but that's the creative process, including the recording stage.

     When you record songs, you don't know which song is the one people will use the most.  But, with time "Lost In A Book" got the reputation that it deserves.

     In 2001 a colleague became president of the International Reading Association of Guam and it was her desire to use the song as the theme song for the entire island's Read-A-Thon for 2001.  It did so well that they used it again the following year.

     In 2002 I moved to Raleigh, North Carolina and the school where I taught heard the song and decided to use it for their focus song for a city-wide competition and again the school took a singing/dance group to the International Reading Association convention in the spring of 2003 where we performed for the delegates.

     In 2003 my family moved back to Guam where I reconnected with the IRA of Guam once again.  This time it was the desire of the leader to use the song, but this time taking it to the US International Reading Association's convention in Reno, Nevada, where I performed the song once again.

     The song is available on Amazon.com, ITunes, Rhapsody, and a number of other music download sites.

Lost In A Book (Amazon.com)

Lost In A Book (youtube.com)

Dave Janssen Songs "Why Do I Write Songs"

     Why do I write songs?
     I've been absorbed by songwriting since I was around thirteen years old.  When the Beatles hit the stage on the Ed Sullivan show and my older brother told me that their band members wrote their own songs, for some reason, that hit me in a way that I'd never been able to shake.
     The idea that someone would take a simple melody and a lyrical thought, a story, an emotion and put it down for all to hear inspired me and stays with me to this day.  If people would say, "what did you do?"  "Yes, I worked in a library, I worked in a store, I had a booking agency, I was a teacher, but I wrote songs is what I do and will leave behind someday."
     I suppose we all want to be immortal in some way.  People have children to continue their genetic code into the future. People create huge monuments, buy property,
     A song or literary work is like a child, I think.  We create that bit of sound and lyric combination and let people hear it for so many reasons.  But, it is a piece of us or where we were at that moment in time.  Some songs are an amalgamation of many things imaginary and real.  Some are straight and to the point, raw.  Sadly some songs are just drivel with no purpose. Each song has its own purpose, whether whimsical or serious, perhaps even spiritual.

     For a period of time I will be sharing some of my songs on this blog with explanation as to "why" I wrote them.  Whether "hits" or "misses" these songs had their beginnings in my mind.  Whoever reads my writings might get a better picture of who I am from the body of work that I've created.  In some cases, I might devote to the recording of the songs, who played, curious stories of what went on at the time to make the song or the recording.  This will be a peeling of the onion to see what is underneath.

     Dave Janssen Songs