Natural Rhythms
Episode #145:\xa0 Natural Rhythms\xa0 \xa0(Song starts at\xa0 4:44)\nI was fishing at the beach, chatting about things that came to mind - including the song featured on this episode - 'Natural Rhythms'. I recorded these bits and pieces of me talking and have included them on this episode.\xa0\nI mention the tides. I guess it was the peaceful feeling of being by the ocean. This brought the song to mind.\nThe beach made think back to when I was sitting in the old van Hercules, in Mt Maunganui, New Zealand. Norfolk pines have been planted there long ago. They stand about 30m apart, like sentries lined up along the beach.\nThat was pretty much the opening line of the song.\nThis was a lyrics first, music second song. I like just looking around me, starting writing and eventually a theme comes through (much like how I record podcast episode, by the way). In this case, Natural Rhythms - inspired by the waves and the tides before me.\nThe tides have a profound effect on us. That\u2019s why I love camping at the beach.\nAt the beach the other evening,\xa0 I also thought about Christmas. I hope your Christmas was a great one: perhaps time to slow down, have nice conversations and fun with people you like being around.\n'Natural Rhythms' is song #300 (out of about 800). I wrote it a while back - 1993. It\u2019s been sitting there waiting in the songbook for it\u2019s day.\nThis brings to mind my plan to record a series of piano vocal albums of songs featured on this podcast - and I will. I\u2019ll publish the sheet music too. Then some songs will go on to be more fully arranged and released on other albums.\nSo there is an intention about what I\u2019m doing as an artist.\nI mention the word intention in this episode. When I sit at the piano to compose, there is definitely an intention to create. The songs won\u2019t just appear by themselves.\nSongwriting is a delicate art, it relies on a lot of theory having being learned and your chops on the keys being up to scratch (if you\u2019re a pianist -which I am).\nI think the arts should be rewarded as such. Not everyone can write a good song. Most people can learn to fix a pipe or a window\u2026 anyway..\nI love what I do - I\u2019m an artist and a songwriter. I\u2019ve put out a mountain of content online over the last few years. You can find it by googling my name\u2026or here\u2019s my blog -\xa0 it\u2019s a good place to start: www.petepascoe.wordpress.com\xa0. There\u2019s lots of links here each week.\nIn 2022, I\u2019ve created and published 52 blog posts, 52 podcast episodes ( including 52 songs), about 35 small seascapes, 10 1.5m seascapes, 150 cartoon roughs, some videos, etc.\nIn addition, I\u2019ve taught 2500 private piano lessons on Mondays and Tuesdays.\nAll of this has been an absolute pleasure to put together and \u2018do\u2019.\nRecording these episodes is like a performance each week. It\u2019s all off the cuff, there\u2019s humour here. This is not a dry presentation of \u2018 how to write a song\u2019 along the way, I look to impart how I write a song, but I present in a relaxing, entertaining manner. I\u2019m pretty comfortable in front of the mic.\nI\u2019m also pretty comfortable at the piano. This week again, I begin another song.. so you can hear how I do it.\nAs I mentioned, it was a while ago that I composed Natural Rhythms. I was much younger then, finding my way along. An \u2018almost\u2019 sort of a relationship was providing some pretty steep learning curves. It\u2019s seems we are given plenty of life experiences just when we need, if we go\xa0 forth into our day with intention to live well and learn.\nIt\u2019s with some peace that I look back on a time for me that had some heartache (1993) - the peaceful feeling of having \u2018let it go\u2019 is possibly because I made time to relax by the ocean and put my feelings into an art - the song of the day. \nSongwriting has been an extremely rewarding thing to have done with my life. And it continues to give me pleasure.I hope Natural Rhythms does the same for you, along with the chat.\nSo here\u2019s another 30 minutes of relaxing chat, fun, observations and music for you.