In 2010 I moved to Suzhou, China and immediately was confronted with what must be one of the longest running smog alerts I had ever experiences. I had lived in LA many years in the past and saw the orange sun (so pretty) but never anything to compare with China's air.
A few years later I live in Guangzhou and check my China smog meter every day: (This is the website for air quality in China: compliments of the Chinese government) http://aqicn.org/map/china/ The truth is that I'd rather live oblivious to these conditions, but when you look out the window of your apartment or from work you see a grey haze over everything each day accept perhaps after a good rain.
What is hard to deal with is when smog seeps into your life and affects you in its most insidious way, while you're sleeping. You have no way to control this. Late at night you feel a congestion in your chest and wake to feel your chest being squeezed like a sponge.
Of course there is the fact that a person should receive a reasonable amount of vigorous exercise to stay in tip top shape. But, don't hold your breathe. The weather won't allow it, at least in the way you might expect. So, people try their best to find ways to exercise inside where there might be a certain amount of filtration through air conditioning units. But, some people have given up and "live with it".
Chinese pride is something that I never had thought about when it comes to this pollution. As much as you might hate the pollution, to knock China for its pollution is taken very personally by the Chinese. You are insulting, in a form, the Chinese way of life, for their striving for a better future for their nation. It is part of what makes their nation number two in the world as an economy.
What is true is the fact that car is king in China now and there is no going back, only forward. Car Crazy China Cars will only become more common and fresh air, less and less. That is air in China.
How does the mind work? What jogs your memory and directs it a certain way?
I live in the Clifford Estates, Panyu, Guangzhou, China and ride the free bus shuttle constantly as a perk to living here. It's free transportation and I benefit from using it.
The other evening I was sitting on the shuttle bus surrounded by the scores of Chinese residents of Clifford with no directed thoughts in my mind. In the front of the bus, just above the front entrance is a digital read-out clock. It reads in military time, with a full 24 hour setting.
As I was sitting there the clock changed from 19:56 to 19:57, which of course means 7:57 PM to western eyes. But to me 19:57 became 1957.That number jumped out at me like God had been talking to me.
I felt like Jim Carrey in the movie "Bruce Almighty" where God talked to his character through the digital road sign.
My mind spun back to my time playing music with The Diamonds. 1957 was the year that "Little Darlin'" was number one in the US, selling 8 million copies. I heard that date every night, or I should say every show that The Diamonds played. It was part of the dialogue on stage. Little Darlin' by The Diamonds
For the rest of that ride on the bus, even though I was in an atmosphere far removed from American Graffitti I thought about my friends and former bandmates as that bus bumped along. I had worked originally with John Felton, who died in 1982 in a plane crash while we were playing in Nevada. But, that's another story for another day. The Diamonds
When I arrived in China in October of 2010 I was whisked from the Shanghai airport to Suzhou in the middle of the night. I couldn't see much other than freeways that kept going and going, much like the US mainland system of highways. But, what were the drivers like? It was dark and few drivers on the road at 1 am in the morning.
The first experience of something "different" from my past experiences occurred when I road the bus the first day or work. The bus picked up its passengers as any form of conveyance, but then I learned the driver's abilities.
The bus sped off at a quick rate, even faster than the automobiles around it. As time went by, day by day, I learned the nature of the bus drivers of this route (there were more than one).
When approaching a red light the bus would reduce its speed but not stop. The cars at the light in front of our bus would need to begin their acceleration process meanwhile our bus sped up and passed the cars from either left or right. What was very disturbing to me was when the bus driver did this maneuver in the left turn lane, bypassing the cars from the left side. I had only seen this type of maneuver in movies. Here was a professional driver (with a busload of workers) overtaking the slower moving autos as a common practice. Whew!I think this guy learned to drive in the air force, perhaps in a dogfight.
I now live in a secure community in Guangzhou, China. Since my arrival in Suzhou in late 2010 and today a lot has happened in this country. When you go to the shopping centers, take an airplane, or simply turn on the TV you see car commercials. Reading these two articles attached you will see that number have grown from 13 million units to 35 million units in three years! China's Car Units 2010China's Car Units 2013
What does this mean? Traffic, and also badly trained drivers who are dying to get out on the road. Cars are now the true form of status symbol. Nothing beats this.
Back to driving; how do they drive? Badly and more than that, ignoring others, and what we in the west think of as "common sense".
My living circumstance is to be surrounded by cars within Clifford Estates. Cars are parked everywhere, even where they should not be. Ticketing of wrong doers is beyond the thought of police. There are just too many infractions to deal with. So, they do not ticket anyone. People back out directly into oncoming traffic without a thought. It is expected that these things happen. But, again, don't forget the numbers which are growing exponentially, more than triple the sales of three years ago.
The future is open to more and more vehicles, more and more exhaust, more and more accidents. China is car crazy!
When the United States was in its automobile expansion times, in the middle of the 20th century, Detroit was booming and everyone knew every car model and we all waited for the early fall for the new car models to come out.
That same thing is now true of China. People, who before were ignorant of car makes, are now checking everything out for their car purchase. Cars are truly a status item and having one represents a person's growing affluent. Keeping up with the Jones' is the word of the day, except perhaps it's not Jones, it's Zhang.
Chinese car craziness is only beginning. The numbers that I mentioned above are only a matter of a small fraction of the 1.3 billion people who live in China. This blog entry will be out of date in the near future.
For people in the United States and many western countries socialized retirement came into being in the 20th century and caused a revolution in the way families dealt with retirement. Traditionally, worldwide, it had been the family's responsibility to take care of the elderly.
But, for places such as the United States social security came into being in the 20th century, and became a partial support and, in some cases, the only support for the most elderly in the society. Money was taken from all and put into the system with the result of a cushion of cash to rely on when retirement was at hand.
It was quite surprising to me, when I arrived in China that I found that this "communist" country had no such system in place. Instead, this country of 1.3 billion people still relies upon the children to support them when retirement comes. There is no social security.
In their system, the normal scenario is for the eldest child to be the primary support of the parents and even grandparents living either in or near the oldest male.
So, what happens in the new China? The new China includes a new and important wrinkle. We must remember that in the past, families were made up of a reasonable number of sons and daughters who would share in keeping the retired parents and grandparents comfortable. Today China has a policy of one child per family with penalties for people who exceed that one child limit. China's One Child Policy Scrutinized
So, the result of this system is a reliance upon ONE CHILD to do what had been a shared responsibility by a family of siblings. This has created a stressed out society which is more than normally focused on making more and more money than had been the norm in the past because they are now the sole support for an upside-down pyramid of parents and grandparents above them. In this society parents expect and demand the continuation of the traditional system of the support of the elderly.
There are also other factors which feed into this growing problem such as a major migration of the population from rural areas to the mega-cities. These issues will be talked about in upcoming blog entries.
I welcome comments to this and any blogs. Please join in discussing and feel free to share to other internet outlets.
In 1974-5-6 my family and I were living in Eugene, Oregon. I had
just gotten off the road working with my group Johnny Golden and the
Family Jewels and I was looking to continue in music but in a creative,
current way. Johnny Golden had been a success built on the 50s craze
which raged because of the film American Graffiti, and the spin-off TV
series, Happy Days. But, any success I might have with that group was a
derivative success built on a music, although very fun, was in the
past. So, my friend Jeff Patterson Jeff Patterson's blog
and I set about to shape music which we would create from fresh musical
experimentation and inspiration coming from more contemporary sources.
We met some people and jammed around a bit, but nothing seemed to be
working. I was working in Valley River Shopping Center where there was a
music store. One of the clerks there, Lee Smith, had a few friends, all
ex-navy guys from the aircraft carrier, Enterprise, who were looking to
put together an original music group, too.
So, Jeff and I
went to a practice one evening and met Greg Nance and Tom Kinsey
and we messed with musical combinations. Lee played hammond organ,
Greg-guitar, Tom and Jeff played drums, and I played bass for this
configuration.
I don't know the exact progression, but we
jammed a bit then I introduced "Told You Twice" which I had written
while I was still in Johnny Golden. The second tune I taught them was
this one, "Up Here With Me".
How this song came about was through a bit of daydreaming which most people
might identify with. For me, I had had a few different out of body
experiences when I was teenage and beyond. Especially when I was young I had
this phenomenon and it left me with strange feelings. One such time
(of which I cannot speak in depth) I had a dream which paralleled a
publicly heralded police incident. It was as if I had been there, but I don't
believe that I really had been there. This is still an unsolved mystery to me.
The opening phrase was
very real and remains very real to me, "my mind is floating through the
window, I'm a million miles from here" was written in the front room of
my apartment as I was thinking about places far from there, the Himalayan
Mountains, to which I imagined.
This was truly a song made
for a video. The entire song is etherial. If you listen carefully in
portions you will hear wind chimes in the mix, an overdub that gives a true
haunting feeling.
Musically speaking, I was going beyond the
normal pop song style. Lots of minor mode sorts of things were here.
Upon careful examination I have seen in this a familiar musical melody
which reoccurs often in my writing many years to come. The jump of a minor
seventh happens here as it does in a few later songs.
But, what
really catches my ear now is the final vocal high note. Ending the song
songs on a ninth chord with the main voice holding the ninth is not
a common occurrence. Actually, that note happened in the studio and was a total
surprise even to me. I didn't know it until I did it, which is
something that has also followed me in my singing career. Doing the
unexpected.
A little about the video: The song was recorded in Eugene, Oregon at Raspberry Studios. As written above I was the sole writer of music and lyrics. The recording was a group effort by ME which was Jeff Patterson, Greg Nance, Lee Smith, Tom Kinsey, and myself.
The compilation of photos you see in the video are an interesting photo montage of musical history primarily shared between Jeff and myself. Jeff was always the keeper of the camera and historian.
The first photo is of the second lineup of ME which included Dave, the bass player, who replaced me on bass and I took over on keyboards and rhythm guitar.
A bit further along was a photo of Bee Bumble and the Stingers (who after a name change became Johnny Golden and the Family Jewels). From left: Liz, Jeff, Lyle Annis, Don Patterson, and Taco (short for his Japanese name.......we sang "Smoke On The Water" in Japanese)
A photo further along was in our group's recording studio singing background bits for "Marshall's Madness" another of my tunes that we recorded.
A photo of guitar teacher: Jack Frances.
A photo of Jeff and my long time friend and brilliant musician: Steve Elmer aka Mike Stands.
A photo of The Diamonds performing in Sparks, Nevada for an outdoor gig.
A photo of The Diamonds while in Malaysia. Kota Kinabalu
A photo of Juju Lund, a long time friend during a piano lesson.
A photo of The Diamonds: Steve Elmer, Bob Janssen (only for the publicity photo....ha ha), myself, and Jeff.
I came to teacher in China in the fall of 2010. As a teacher in an international school I had a mix of many children from throughout the world. That is the nature of international schools. There was a mix of ethnic groups quite different from most US classrooms at least where I had done my initial training.
As is true of all teaching, discovering who the students are and how they behave and interact is a deciding factor in approaches or tactics to dealing with students. Getting to know your pupil is the key to discipline and how to dispense knowledge. What is their prior knowledge? From that point learning occurs.
Ethnicity was one factor. But, what I hadn't thought about, was the family makeup.
The group of people, which has the most profound affect upon any person's life, is the family unit. Whether you might be speaking of children playing together, learning in school, funding for college, or whatever steps in life a person might take, the number of siblings, including their order, affects how they act and react to life's circumstances.
Where am I going with this? China's "One Child Policy"! China's One Child Policy/ Invisible Children
In 1978 and continuing to present day the Chinese government started a course of population restriction for an understandable reason; over-population. China currently has a population of 1.3 billion people. China's Population counter
What significance does this have? The vast majority of children in China are only children. This has a profound affect upon all aspects of their lives. Of course, this also has a profound affect upon social life in Chinese life and schools. The result is a classroom full of only children.
If you have ever thought about an only child the first thing which comes to mind is that all the family's resources are focused on one person. One person! The older generation, which had many siblings prior to the policy, are all devoting their love, affection, and resources into the future of that one individual.
What affect might that have? The word "spoiled" comes to mind first and foremost, spoiled in many ways. It's an upside-down pyramid of flow into one individual. Father, mother, aunts, uncles, grandparents all watching the every move of this "one child".
Grandfather and grandmother caring for their grandchild
Back to the classroom. The student enters the class as any child might but with one major difference; where there might have been a helicopter mom or dad before this, there is a whole squadron of helicopter relatives who are hovering over this child's development.
Let's get away from this for a moment and talk about learning within a family, prior to the classroom. I believe that the first learning that any person gets is within the family unit itself. There are lessons to be learned through the interplay of parents to children and children to children. These sorts of "real life experiences" and interplay are the child's first exposures to the world. Loving, caring, arguments, good and bad, are all a part of a person's growth and how they might deal with issues beyond the borders of the family. Without this early learning in the home, the classroom becomes the real starting point for many of these behaviors to develop. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/surviving-your-childs-adolescence/200907/the-adolescent-only-child
So, when I came across my first full classroom of one child students, which was during this year, I saw students with curious personality traits. Although I am generalizing here for sake of illustration, this is what I saw: students who were mature in many ways beyond their years due to their being around adults for most of the time and cultured due to their parents' input. These were also students who, socially, were very child-like, or late bloomers.
Other ramifications of the One Child System will be discussed in future blogs as this one quirky edict has made its mark in many, many parts of Chinese society.
When you wake up in the morning and you are lucky enough to live in a place where the birds still sing at daybreak you know that God has provided the inspiration of music around us, through his creatures. Sorry to say in many parts of the world that natural music has disappeared. But, man, in his simplest form, a creature of God, expresses himself through song for the sheer love of the sound he can create. Noble Court, Clifford Estates, Panyu, Guangzhou, China
I live in Clifford Estates, Panyu district, Guangzhou, China. I look out my window each morning to a green forest on a hill opposite my apartment's 16th floor. In the stillness of the morning from spring to late autumn I am blessed with the natural sounds mentioned above. In my time in Suzhou, China I was blessed with the sound of buses and cars beneath my balcony. But, here? I wake to the sounds of birds, frogs, and on hot days the whirr of cicadas (or their Chinese equivalent.....probably speaking Mandarin).
This atmosphere is the natural music which I spoke of, which inspires us.
This morning as I sat on my balcony I heard the distant beauty of a Chinese woman singing. Because of the distance I couldn't make out the words, but the song was classical in nature almost like a Christian hymn of my early days. But, this song was sung solo. No piano, no organ, just the beauty of a mature woman's voice drifting across the air in the same way as the birds were doing. She was lending her voice to the mixture as another ingredient in God's symphony. She wasn't being drowned out by motors, or loud speakers but simply singing for "the love of music".
So often songs are written which don't really have a true "subject", meaning a specific and exact person or direct purpose from which the song takes inspiration. But, rather the mind gleans bits and pieces of emotions and puts them together in the same way a mosaic takes bits of different pieces and reconstructs them into a full picture. But, the individual parts might not make sense when taken by themselves.
That is the situation for my song "Darlin', Is That You?"
My family and I had just moved from our home for the past few years in Eugene, Oregon to the small city of Coos Bay, Oregon. The move was especially difficult for my daughter Jennifer. She had been very attached to her friends and wonderful atmosphere there and now was removed to a place quite different. The town was a depressing place with lots of rain with few if any friends.
The school where Jennifer attended....two doors down from our house
For me, I found work at Southwest Oregon Community College as accompanist for their choir. Aside from this I thought that I would devote myself to writing more songs and do things which might develop into income (which didn't occur).
I had left behind my musical friends and especially my good friend, Jeff Patterson, who was also now left without a musical group, both of us formerly of "ME". I believe our intention was to now let our demonstration tapes be submitted to record companies with hopes that the group might reform if and when a producer or A & R director bite for our group's sound.
I had purchased a piano which I had at my disposal to write on. I put in a certain amount of time each day playing my old tunes along with fiddling with new melodies and lyrics. But, again, I was all alone for the first time with no group to perform with.
With this feeling of distance from what had been a very fruitful musical undertaking I was the one on the edge of civilization. I remember talking about Coos Bay being the end of the earth, or at least the US before the ocean.
I began getting images in my mind of this lonely guy who would mistake a perfect stranger for a lover far away. That is something that I have felt in the past with people of similar body type who "fool you" by looking like the spliting image of a past love.
Musically I wanted to incorporate a bit of a Barry Manalow sound in the downward riffs in the chorus. Strangely I also had a bit of a country riff going in the piano part that was just a natural our growth of the lyrical content. Overall I did envision an orchestra playing in conjunction with backup singers. Close your eyes with my comments in your mind and you will understand.
I especially like the middle eight of this song. I truly enjoy the way it naturally grew out of the rest of the song. Sometimes the middle eight is forever to write. In this case it was easy.
We had just moved to Huntington Beach, California Huntington Beach, California (California Street and I occasionally would ride the bus to my job at South Coast Plaza. The nice thing about riding the bus was that it gave me time to think and even write down ideas which I couldn't when I drove.
I walked to the bus stop one day and found myself inspired, even though it was early fall, with the idea of writing a valentine day song. At that time I was always prepared for lyric writing by carrying a steno notebook, so I started singing this little tune that just kept coming until I had the whole song, verses, chorus, and middle 8. I think I made it through the whole day and then sat down at the piano after work and put chords to it.
This song has a quirky story with it. At the time that we moved to California the TV show The Gong Show was the rage The Gong Show. I was deep into reading about performance rights groups and knew that if a song were performed nationwide it would bring in a considerable amount just for that one performance, let alone reruns.
So, I set about calling around trying to find that show's production company. I found it and sent in a demo which was of my daughter Jennifer singing the song. That would be our gimmick for winning , by the way, she was 2nd grade at the time and cute, cute, cute, especially singing this song.
Sorry to say the show went "out of production" and was not renewed by the networks, so case closed.
There was one continuance to the story however, when we moved from Huntington Beach to Azusa in 1980 we joined a talent competition in the Covina Park and took second place (many thought we should have won) which was a thrill for her especially. She was a real trooper. I'm Too Shy To Send You My Valentine at Amazon.con http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003C39VO8/ref=dm_dp_trk8?ie=UTF8&qid=1373112378&sr=301-1
When I was a boy growing up in Portland, Oregon I would sit in front of the TV each Saturday morning and watch the cartoons that would continue till early afternoon. My favorites were Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jeckle and Popeye.
During the early days of Television a large part of the cartoons were those that were taken from movie houses from decades earlier. It was only later when studios started churning out ready-for-TV cartoons. Most of those seen were short pieces which had been shown before major motion pictures. Most, if not all, were in black and white or maybe it seemed like it because my family had a black and white TV.
What I especially liked were all the music numbers which were played as accompaniment to these animations. Lots of shows had classical scores, or quasi-classical scores which was great for learning the classics, in a fun way. Of course we kids didn't know we were learning we just saw Bugs Bunny conducting and some silly orchestra doing silly things while the music played.
The other music that was used quite a bit were old jazz renditions. The animators would do great things to emphasize the sounds being produced. Lots of times the chimney of a building might belch smoke in the tempo of a song, or the same being true of a locomotive chugging up a hill in time to the music. Animals on the side of the railroad might sing like the background singers. These cartoons were filled with sight gags in time to the music.
In 1974 my family moved to Eugene, Oregon and my daughter, Jennifer, spent her years 2 through 5 there. I had loved the Paul McCartney songs like "When I'm Sixty-four" and "Honey Pie" so I found myself messing with the old jazz sounds one evening in the practice rooms of the University of Oregon.
My mind went back to watching Saturday morning TV, with those old cartoons and the words just flowed. "I always wanted to be in an old cartoon, and watch the mice waltz down the street"....etc
The phrase "I'm in love with Betty Boop" was so true. I truly was in love with that early cartoon icon. Even though she had that silly old fashioned hair-do, she had those cute cheeks. Looking at her pictures now I see that she was quite sexy with a beautiful figure, legs,..........wow, quite a knock-out even by today's standards.
When I wrote it I was in a group in Eugene called "ME". We did mostly original music that I had written, but this was a song contribution which was not easily performed for most modern dance settings. Our gigs were restricted to dance band jobs because of the few performance venues available in that university city, Eugene. People did appreciate it, however, as a quirky kind of song, more for listening than for dancing.
Within a few years of living in Eugene I eventually moved to southern California where I wrote another song similar to "Old Cartoon"..............."I'm Too Shy To Send You My Valentine". But, that's another story for another blog.
When I had moved to Guam in 1990 the common question by most of my friends in the US states was, "what is Guam?" Of course they also said, "where is Guam?" I had always prided myself in believing that I was quite good in geography and history, but I was at a loss. I really didn't now myself. I believe the Oregon state curriculum might have studied the US territories in the 4th grade. But, I think it must have been towards the end of the school year and our teacher had missed it. Anyway, I was one of those who didn't know anything about Guam.
When I returned to Guam after a few years spent back in Oregon, my home state, it was my responsibility to take a "history of Guam" class. That class spurred many discussion in that many of the participants were also from the states and were curious about the territory status of the United States. Our instructor, Tony Palomo, a professor from the University of Guam told us all the facts about the territories.
This was very fascinating to me and I felt moved to "publicize" the territories and what seemed to be their hidden status within the US system.
In my mind while writing the music for "We're Americans, Too" I was thinking of "I'm A Yankee Doodle Dandy", at least in the general chord structure. I wanted something that said proudly "here we are, the territories" but keeping it positive. So, I used lots of major key chord changes.
When it came time to list the territories of the United States in the lyrics, I wasn't exactly sure what they all were so I called Mr. Palomo once again and explained my reason for checking with him. He was more than happy to inform the listeners of my song the correct territories. Of course after that I had to somehow take that list and make it poetic. That was a bit of a job.
The summer after the release of my album, which included "We're American's, Too" I performed this song in the Ashland, Oregon 4th of July parade while sitting in a beautiful car with the music playing loudly from the speakers.
Years later I also sent 75 cassettes of my album to Guam's US congressman, Underwood, to give to members of congress stressing the song and it's meaning. "Don't forget about Guam and the territories."
In the early 60s my family, father, mother, and two brothers were living in Portland, Oregon.
On one occasion that I clearly remember a friend of my mother coming to visit our family. She came from the same small town of Sydney, Montana where my mother had been raised. Her name was Mary McDorney and was an accomplished musician and singer who had a huge collection of what today we might consider "folk music". That musical label is a bit blurry actually because early country music was also from this source.
She brought her banjo to our house which for me was the first time that I'd ever seen such an instrument up close. She sat in our living room and played tunes, which my mother loved especially. My mother and she sat for hours and hours remember old times and showing us boys these songs.
Many years later I had my first job of teaching elementary music in a school in Medford, Oregon and it occurred to me that the kids might enjoy some of these old songs. So, I hunted around and found a version of the song in an old songbook, but it wasn't the one that I'd heard years prior. So, I took the lyrics and combined them with what I recalled from my childhood. My version was a hybrid.
In 1996 I recorded this version in combination with the other selections as a part of my release "Hafa Adai! Fun Songs From Guam And Around The World". Obviously this collection of songs then becomes very eclectic to listeners wherever they might be. But, it is all a part of my personal musical heritage. This song from that early confrontation with my mother's background in Montana.
What might be interesting to many people is that this song has shown a considerable following. I thought it would be a sleeper when I recorded it but instead I believe people have hunted this song down via internet search for the title "Dunderbeck". I hope it is of interest to you too.
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.
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.
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.
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.
