So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Beautiful People,

I have so appreciated your support reading this blog. You know how much I love to write! I truly love writing. But of course as you know I also LOVE to sing! And play piano! And guitar! And write songs! And write classical choral pieces too, even, and also sing them!

And socialize, and cook, and work out, and then there’s dishes and laundry… and therein lies the problem. Now that the album is released and doing well on the radio, it’s time to get it out there in the world by touring and playing lots of shows — which also requires lots of hours at a desk requesting to play shows.

I keep asking for more than 24 hours a day, but apparently that’s not one of the options offered with the Basic Human plan I signed up for.

So the blog is going to be no more. I’ve left it here so you can enjoy posts from the past. They’re pretty well sorted by category, so you can root around that way, or just scroll down in date order.

If you’d like to connect with me on a more regular basis, please find me any of these places:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elaineromanelli
Twitter: @ElaineRom
Instagram: @elaineromanelli

Happy Trails to you all. May your beds always be soft, your hearts warm, and may there always be the promise of a fourth book in your trilogy.

 

-EFR

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it’s official: the CDs are in!

THE CDS ARE HERE! WHOO HOOO!

HourBefore.FrontCoverFinal.er.15.Web

Soon they will be in the hands of DJs all across the country (and a few overseas, too)!

And then they will be in crowdfunding supporter’s hands.

And then on April 21 they will be on sale worldwide via iTunes, Amazon, Bandcamp, my website – everywhere! –  for anyone who wants their very own copy.

And then we will come together to CELEBRATE!

Release party in NYC, April 25, 7pm, Rockwood Music Hall.

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeehaw!

(ahem)

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Tough week

Wednesday I missed posting because I was at a funeral. Sometimes I’m at funerals to sing professionally, and don’t know the deceased, and sometimes I’m there personally, and not singing.

On the occasions it’s both, it’s tough. Crying and singing don’t mix.

Plus, funerals tend to evoke other funerals for me. It’s like plant roots; you think this plant over here is on its own, easy to dig out, but it turns out the roots are entangled with other plants, some not even nearby, so that, if you tug, much more comes up than you expected.

I sang one of my songs, ‘Weep Not’, at the service. RIP.

 

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Celebrate!

This Wednesday’s post is in celebration of my album art going to press today.

Hooray! Huzzah! Hurrah! It’s getting printed, boys and girls! Let’s dance with abandon!

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Lemons

Lemons

When life gives you lemons, get a pint of whiskey, a glass, and a muddler.

Mix, pour, drink. Repeat.

Then figure out who the heck you’re going to get to help solve the problem.

Then when that person also bails, go to the one person you can always rely on. I hope that’s you, but  it may be your cousin George. Whatever. Doesn’t matter.

Go to that person, your own personal Olivia Pope, and give them the lemons, and then settle in with your pint. Of course, if you are your own Olivia Pope, then I suggest you switch to water as you get down to business.

And that is how my Wednesday is going this week.

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Surviving and Thriving: the kicker

Part 3 of 3 articles I wrote and published on Music Think Tank about thriving at music conferences. This is the turbo-charge-it summary, so if you’re short on time, read this one!

http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/three-tips-to-thrive-at-the-folk-alliance-conference-part-3.html

 

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How to Thrive at a Music Conference, part 2

Behold: part 2 of a 3-part series I wrote and published on Music Think Tank, about how to survive and thrive at a music conference.

http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/three-tips-to-thrive-at-the-folk-alliance-conference-part-2.html

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Three Tips to Thrive at the Folk Alliance conference

These posts are in preparation for Folk Alliance International’s annual conference. FAI is the mothership to all the other -erfa’s I’ve mentioned (SERFA, NERFA, SWERFA, etc.).

This is part 1 of 3, all originally published on Music Think Tank.

http://www.musicthinktank.com/blog/three-tips-to-thrive-at-the-folk-alliance-conference-part-1.html

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About Arranging

Play-Doh

In the last few years, I’ve had the experience repeatedly of writing
a song for one instrument and then re-arranging it for another.

In music, arranging is not as easy as moving the couch around. It’s more like making a Play-Doh castle. Cut an arrow slit here, add a turret there, and eventually there’s a dramatic shape in front of you, instead of a block of undifferentiated goo.

The bummer is, you can’t use the same arrangement for every instrument. Maybe for a guitar and a dobro, maybe even a lute, but not for a guitar and a keyboard. They’re too different.

OrangenBanana

Like these besties. They both love cocktails & dancing, but they can’t share pants.

For instance: you know the famed ‘middle C’ pitch on a piano? The one and only, the star of the catchy “Mrs. Midde C, Look At Me” song? A guitar has more than one middle C. (Run, children! The aliens are already among us!)

That and many more differences make it hard to pick up and move an arrangement from piano to guitar, and vice versa. You have to re-arrange it for each instrument.

And songs are like children, as I’m sure you’ve heard before. Some are even-tempered, and will obediently snuggle into a new arrangement and tuck themselves in, and some jam their little toes in the doorway and kick and scream and raise a ruckus and WILL NOT GO, and it takes an *eternity* to figure out what the heck will lure them out of that stuck place.

Tantrum

nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnNO!

So that’s part of a musician’s life, too.

Was noodling around on guitar the other day, and a song I wrote for my new album (coming out in April!) just hopped into place. Wrote it on piano, never planned it for guitar, but there it was, good to go.

I got so excited I tried out two other songs from that album… and the temper tantrums commenced.

The moral of the story is, as I’m sure you’d expect: move your couch around every now and again, and, as tempting as it is, don’t eat that Play-Doh.

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Things that make you go ‘Huh’

As I try to settle down to work each morning, flipping through news, social media, and whatever magazine is on the coffee table, odd thoughts flit through my mind.

Here is today’s list.

• Why is the speaker of the house required to sit where we can see him (or her) grimace for an hour during the SOTU address? Seems cruel.

SOTUBoehner

 

• This seems to need clarification: it’s ET cetera. Not “Eck” cetera.
Et with a ‘T‘, as in E.T. Phone Home, plus ‘Cetera’ like Peter Cetera (sort of).
You’re welcome.

E.TPeterCetera+

 

 

 

 

• Fashionistas: jumpsuits are back? Really? The garment preferred by prisons?
On what not-Kate-Moss human do they look good?  Just… no.

jumpsuits-are-ugly1

 

• Pomegranates are not (quite) as big a hassle to de-seed as you might think. Thanks to this video:

 

• Models and actors, why must you continually be sharing your fitness secrets? I believe the ‘secret’ is: you won the genetic lottery. Maybe just say thank you, and sit down.

zac_efron

“I’m genetically gifted with long limbs, even skin, and proportional facial features!” “No way! Me, too!”

 

• Why DO birds suddenly appear every time you are near? Is that a good sign, or a bad one? Are they friendly birds? Or more Hitchcockian?

Friendly:                                                                                                          Not so friendly:

FriendlyBirdBirdAttack

 

 

 

 

 

Yes. All that, before the second cup of coffee.

Thank you. I’m here all week.

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