Weeknotes: November 3–7, 2025
Monday, November 3
It's hard sometimes to play fast, but we are a rhythmic species — if you practice enough, a fast part usually comes together nicely, at least in my experience. I think it's much tougher to play slowly. When there is more space between the beats, you have nowhere to hide — each note carries more weight and a whole menu of nuance opens up.
I've been trying to make some music that is very minimalist with few elements and plenty of negative space. The piece I'm working on is for two fingerpicked guitars, one playing a repeated chord pattern at a relaxed tempo and the other playing a very deliberate single note lead melody. More often than not, this is the kind of music I listen to around the house: sparse Nordic jazz records from ECM, solo acoustic guitar albums, ambient synth music, etc.
Most of the music I've released has been densely-arranged songwriter pop with clever arrangements, layered harmonies, and lots of percussion. I will make more of that, but I also want to challenge myself to see if I can scale down and still keep it interesting. It's making me a better, or at least a more thoughtful guitarist. Because there are no vocals and just one or two instruments, I'm thinking very hard about every note and asking questions like:
What part of my finger yields the best tone for this note?
If I can't finish this part today, will my fingernails be too long and sound slightly different tomorrow?
How long should I let these overtones ring?
Do I slide up to this note or hit it dead on?
A bit of vibrato heading into the rest?
Weeknotes: October 6–11, 2025
Monday, October 6
"Sophia, bring it back to starboard, you're too close to that kayak! Sorry, kayak."
I wave at the coxswain — Sophia's oar wasn't even close. I'm finishing an evening paddle, upriver from Argo Livery, almost, but not quite to Barton Dam, then back past Bandemer, the Huron's regional rowing hub. I figured I might run into some river traffic, but didn't expect to share this segment with eight full crews and their launch boats. At a wide bend, about a half hour upriver, I tucked into some reeds and enjoyed a beer while the university and high school crews rowed noisily by. The season is starting to fade, but the weather tonight is gorgeous. Maybe I'll still have time for a couple more paddles before winter comes.
Back at Argo, a string band has set up under the pavilion. When I put in, a man was tuning a double bass, but now they are eight or nine strong with fiddles, mandolin, a dobro, and several guitars. I dock to "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" and sing along quietly while stowing my gear.
Weeknotes: April 7–11, 2025
Monday, April 7
C-G-D-G-B-D. It's a version of C Wahine, a Hawaiian slack key tuning I'm playing around with this morning. The low C vibrates against the back of my guitar and into my chest like a Pacific frequency. Outside a pale blue sky is flooding the weak clouds in a slow diffuse throb.
During a Zoom meeting we discuss a now-beleaguered company that we used to be a part of and it depresses me. I break for lunch and listen to a podcast dissecting last night's season finale of The White Lotus. In late afternoon I put the Tigers game on the radio. The entire homestand against the Yankees has been rescheduled because of the cold weather. Early April night games are a gamble in the Midwest. Two weeks into the season and the team is playing really well. I'm excited about them. They beat the Yankees 6–2 and who doesn't love to beat the Yankees?
I go for a drive, chasing the evening light and listening to Michael Rother's calm, radiant music. At Mary McCann Preserve, I hop back and forth over muddy lanes to get to the rail line at the back of the property. A dozen or so inert train cars are linked together on the track and have been there since I discovered this park during the pandemic. I'm collecting photos using different lighting strategies for my photography class, trying to find my way around manual mode. Right now I feel uncreative and pressed for time and I wonder how many lame photos of rusting train cars and derelict factories the instructor has to sift through every year from novice students like myself. They must be the G, C, and D chords of photography.
Weeknotes: July 8–12, 2024
Monday, July 8
In my dream I'm exploring a vast art deco hotel. It's mostly empty, either abandoned or in the offseason. Crates of interesting goods are stacked haphazardly around a casino-like room and behind the ornate bar I notice a beat-up cardboard box advertising a Casio keyboard model I've never seen before. What I pull out of it ends up being a gig bag containing an ornate handmade bouzouki, or maybe a cittern. Its strings are strangely paired with the middle ones in overstuffed clusters of three or four, all tuned in unison rather than octaves. I also notice the wood has rotted around the soundhole and on the back. A shame, as it's a beautifully designed instrument. I decide not to steal it.
I spend some time with Pretzel, my neighbor's three-legged cat, for whom I'm caring this week. He has barfed on his white couch blanket every day and every day I carry it down to the laundry room and re-wash it. I listen to Jake Xerxes Fussell's new album as I drive to Dexter to meet up with my cousins one last time before they depart to their respective homes in Pennsylvania and Florida. After dinner we visit our grandparents' grave where last summer we also laid some of their mom's ashes in a spontaneous little family ceremony. Then it's hugs all around and off we go into the furnace of a July evening. I put on some Hawaiian slack key music and keep all the windows down even on the highway.
Weeknotes: March 11–15, 2024
"How dare you." This, grumbled to my red Newgate clock as I return home from an afternoon walk. Daylight savings and poor time management have made me irritable. It's 3:30 and what have I gotten done?
The sun glinting off an old antique gum dispenser on my living room shelf was the first thing I noticed this morning. It ignited a previously-simmering desire to install a mantle mirror behind that shelf and open the room up to more light.