Month: September 2023

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The Babysitter’s Here!

I have loved this song by Dar Williams ever since I first heard it a couple of decades ago.

Dar Williams

Ms. Williams weaves together several fundamental human themes — the value of role models, the heartbreakingly inevitable connection between love and loss, the challenge of female/male power dynamics, and the significance of being trusted — within the framework of a story told by a child about their beloved babysitter.

It is masterful songwriting.

I released it two weeks ago to coincide with the start of the school year here in Massachusetts.

I have several friends whose almost-grownup children are entering college — and they have shared with me that they are feeling simultaneously grateful/proud that their kids are becoming adults AND heart-broken/shocked that their kids are old enough to leave the family nest.

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

I do not remember having many babysitters when I was a child.

There was one, however — maybe a friend my mother met at a painting class? — who taught me and my siblings how to cook eggplant moussaka from scratch.

We happily prepared that meal again and again during our child and teen years following her recipe.

It was delicious!

The theme of trust and trustworthiness in Dar’s wonderful song very much reminds me of how respected I felt as a young adult when I was hired to help take care of three small children (one each from three families) who had all dropped out of the same pre-school together.

I myself had recently dropped out of college, and it was a very powerful — and healing — experience to be entrusted with these three little human beings.

Parents have to tap into a deep well of trust to let someone else take care of their children.

Without a lot of interviewing and no background checks, I and two other twenty-somethings were hired to have fun adventures with these three children in shifts during the day while their parents — who were architects, college professors and a child psychiatrist — worked.

We were given the keys to one of their cars (a Saab), three car seats, and a little spending money in case we needed to stop at a grocery store or bakery for treats during the day.

The parents also gave us a book on child development by Penelope Leach from which I learned that I could follow the children’s lead and let them to explore their curiosity/interests — which included (among other things) ants and dogs and pistachios and flowers.

One of my favorite memories is driving with them to a wonderful nature area — the Punkatasset Preserve in Concord, MA — and wandering very slowly up and down the trails so that we could pause whenever something caught the children’s attention.

Their interest in flowers led me to serve them food — such as apple slices, carrot sticks, chunks of cheese — in flower patterns on their plates.

This is something I still love to do with food.

Here’s a tomato flower I made recently from produce given to me by a neighbor with a farm share from an organic farm just over the border in Lexington, MA (about which I have written in a previous blog post).

They are so beautiful…and nutritious!

Plants are truly amazing.

How are they able to capture and transform energy — radiating from a nearby star! — into something delicious we can eat here on planet earth?

What a miraculous blessing…

Another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

Last week I listened to a interview on YouTube in which an artist manager explained that Spotify’s algorithms seem to reward folks who release music on a monthly basis — and that if one is able to do this for 18-24 months, an exponential increase in streams sometimes kicks in…

This is what he has discerned from the streaming patterns of music released in recent years by a dozen independent musicians he is working with…

I have seen a significant (for me) increase in streams for the six songs which I have released (every three weeks) since the middle of April this year.

My recording of “The Babysitter’s Here,” for example, has gotten more streams (598) on Spotify in two weeks than many of the songs I first released have gotten in two years.

So I am going to stick with my plan to release a song every 3-4 weeks for the next 19 months and see if an exponential increase kicks in…

Thank you to everyone who has been streaming my songs on Spotify, Pandora, Apple Music, YouTube and other streaming platforms.

You are welcome to click and listen to “The Babysitter’s Here” on many streaming platforms.

And any song you “like” or “heart” or add to a playlist will improve the algorithmic activity of my music there.

You are also welcome to visit my website — where you can learn more about my musical life (including upcoming gigs) here on planet earth if you are curious.

Thank you to Dar Williams for writing such a delightful song.

Thank you to the families who trusted me many years ago to take care of their precious children.

Thank you to Doug Hammer for his sublime piano playing AND his patient engineering expertise.

Thank you to the generous photographers and graphic designers at Pixabay — and to my friend Carolyn for the lovely photo she took of.a rainbow from her living room window.

Thank you to Stephen C. Fischer for transforming photos from earlier parts of my life into graphic designs for my current song releases.

Thank you to my neighbors for sharing their beautiful vegetables with me.

And most of all, thank YOU for reading — and listening to — another one of my blog posts!

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Nice Work If You Can Get It (pt.2)

Here in the USA, it’s Labor Day weekend.

I just looked up the history of Labor Day, and discovered — no surprise — that it has roots in labor unions.

You can click here to learn more if you are curious — and to see a great photo of an early Labor Day float being pulled by two horses during a celebration in 1916..

I have read that union activity is on an upswing in the USA.

With a current CEO-to-worker compensation ratio estimated to be 400 — meaning that chief executive officers are likely to earn 400 times the annual average salary of production and nonsupervisory workers in their industry — the time seems ripe to re-balance this extraordinarily greedy state of affairs.

I am an inactive member of two unions — SAG/AFTRA (for film and TV) and Equity (for stage) — as a result of working professionally as a child and teenager.

Me modeling as a child…

Go unions!

They are a vital part of our human socety’s interconnected systems of checks and balances.

Deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

I originally featured this recording with pianist Doug Hammer of a great Gershwin Brothers song a couple of years ago as part of a very long blog post in which I shared the pros and cons of a chatbot-assisted music marketing strategy as well as some show business history.

Today’s post will be shorter and sweeter.

THANK YOU to everyone who has been streaming my songs in recent months!

“Gold In Them Hills” — which I released a month ago — has just surpassed 1000 streams on Spotify. This translates into approximately $4 worth of income — which is split, I think, between the person who owns the rights to the song (Ron Sexsmith and/or his music publishing company) and the person who owns the rights to this particular recording of his song (which is me).

“Nice Work If You Can Get It” — which I released near the end of June — has been streamed 685 times on Spotify.

So that will earn me another dollar.

Luckily I am in this for the long haul…and I earn enough money from performing at retirement communities and leading Music Together classes to cover my very minimal expenses.

I also feel very fortunate to be making and sharing music as a way to make a (very modest) living.

Music really is “nice work if you can get it.”

A musician named Bree Noble — who also does a lot of teaching and coaching of other musicians — recently sent out an email which I found inspiring.

She wrote:

“Did you know that releasing music — i.e. seeing a beloved project through to completion — can improve your mental health?”

According to her, “studies show that most people desire purpose and connection in their work, and without that, their mental health can suffer.”

“We thrive when we experience ‘birthing’ an idea and seeing it through (to completion) — taking on a project that is our ‘baby’ and nurturing it to ‘adulthood.'”

Releasing music “can give (us) the emotional and spiritual benefits of project ownership — taking on a new challenge, providing a goal to work toward, and giving (us) a …fulfilling event to look forward to.”

Best of all, “not only can the…process (of releasing music) invigorate (our) emotional and spiritual (lives), it can help (our) music reach new people who need to hear it, enriching their lives as well.”

Deep breath in.

Deep breath out.

I think this wisdom/insight can apply to any creative undertaking — even writing a blog post.

It also reminds me of an article I read recently about folks who live to be over 100 years old.

Researchers have been studying these people’s lives, and many common themes have emerged.

They tend to be optimistic — while also acknowledging the reality of their challenges.

They tend to feel connected with others — as part of an extended family, a circle of friends, a spiritual community, a bowling league, a quilting circle, a fraternal lodge, a blogging community or some other subset of beings here in the interconnected web of life on planet earth.

Their diets tend to be plant-based — eating more vegetables, fruits, beans/legumes, and whole grains AND and more “cooked-from-scratch” meals (meaning less processed/junk food items…)

They tend to get out into nature on a regular basis — walking, biking, swimming, doing tai chi, painting, reading, playing games, etc. — rather than sitting at home and watching TV.

And they tend to have a sense of purpose — whether volunteering their time, sharing their wisdom, contributing to group causes, creating things, etc.

Apparently if we feel that we need to be here on planet earth — contributing in some positive way to our families, friends, children, grandchildren, community, watershed, ecosystem, political system, etc. — we are less likely to die.

Another deep breath in.

And deep breath out.

I am curious to learn in the comments about what gives YOU a sense of purpose these days.

Here is a link to “Nice Work If You Can Get It” in case you might like to listen to it on a streaming service.

As I have shared in past blog posts, if you “like” it or “heart” it or add it to a playlist, that improves the algorithmic sharing of my music on that particular streaming service.

Thank you to the Gershwin brothers — Ira (words) and George (music) — for writing such great songs.

Thank you to Doug Hammer for playing so exuberantly on my version of their song AND for being such. a terrific engineer/producer.

Thank you to Stephen Fischer for his skillful graphic design work.

Thank you to labor unions for helping to counter-balance the greed which seems to be an unavoidable part of our capitalistic system of economics.

Thank you to the photographers at Pixabay for their great images.

Thank you to whoever took my photo 50+ years ago on a front staircase somewhere in NYC.

And thank YOU for reading. and listening to another one of my blog posts!