I recently uncovered a video of one of the living history tours I led in Scotty’s Castle in Death Valley in 2002 during my time with the Student Conservation Association and had it digitized. I was acting as a made-up character from the year 1939.
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New Multi-Character Phone Recs
I’ve been experimenting with overlaying parts onto the Acapella app on my new used iPhone. First, the three-person song I love by Girlyman called “Everything’s Easy,” and then “Play a Simple Melody” by Irving Berlin, which is one I always used to sing with my mom growing up (but without the characters!). My daughter told…
Updated YouTube Channel
I’ve been realizing that most of my non-written work can be presented fairly well via YouTube, so I’ve added some more videos and audio pieces and broken my channel into playlists for better organization, including separate sections for Music Videos & Slideshows, Audio Documentaries, GlobeSongs, Fun & Movement, Cover Songs, and Travel Recordings. You can…
Revisiting the Fairy Potato
I just posted on YouTube a slideshow version of an audio piece I produced in 2015 called “Fairy Food: The Little People’s Potato.” Sometimes when investigating a topic, I end up with a lack of clarity but an expanded sense of magic and possibility. That was certainly the case here. It seems that as well…
A Christmas Song
Taking a break from GlobeSongs to bring you a holiday tune: “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” which was written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane in 1943. I started teaching myself piano during COVID, and this is my first time accompanying myself on the keyboard rather than guitar. Wishing you joyous and cozy holidays…
Algerian storytelling song “Raoui”
Episode 12 of GlobeSongs explores Algerian Berber singer-songwriter Souad Massi’s song “Raoui,” (راوي) or “Storyteller.” Watch to find out the background of this lovely tune and the origin of the word “ghoul.”
Russian folk song “Grushitsa”
Discover the lovely Russian folk song “Grushitsa,” or “Little Pear Tree,” on this week’s episode of GlobeSongs, and see for yourself where it might fit into a categorization of Russian ethnic music as authentic folk music, folkloric music, and “fakeloric” performance.
Muslims as Heroes in the Epic Turkish Series Ertuğrul
I recently got caught up in the Turkish television series Diriliş: Ertuğrul, translated as Resurrection: Ertuğrul. So caught up, that this usual non-watcher just finished season one, which has 76(!) ~40-minute episodes (broken down from its original, 26 episodes for shorter-attention-span Americans). I didn’t know anything about the series when I started it; I was…
Fun via Funicular in Funiculì, Funiculà
A fun Italian (Neapolitan) song on this week’s episode of GlobeSongs. “Funiculì, Funiculà” was written to celebrate the opening of the cable railway (funicular) up Mt. Vesuvius, and won first prize at the 1880 Piedigrotta Festival. It has since become nearly cliché as an Italian song, even though it was written not in standard Italian,…
GlobeSong 9 from Azerbaijan
Now up, the ninth episode of my GlobeSongs YouTube series, featuring the Azerbaijani song “Qal, Sene Qurban” (“Stay, You for Whom I Would Sacrifice”). This is a song that I learned and started performing during my Peace Corps service in Azerbaijan, and it appears on my 2013 album Who Are My People?. If you’d like…