a song each day

I've never been much of a music person -- not the way some people are. I mean, I own maybe 40-some CDs, and possibly a couple hundred extra songs on mp3. I enjoy going to concerts and hearing new things! I think singing is approximately the most fun thing ever, even though my talent there hovers somewhere amidst tolerable, trainable, and oh-god-aim-for-the-head. But instrumentally speaking, I've never played anything other than nursery rhymes on one of those white plastic recorders in elementary school, and one half of "Chopsticks" at a go on my grandparents' Lowrey electronic organ (possibly with the Polka accompaniment going 'cause I thought it was hilarious). My brain is just way, way more skewed towards written communication than auditory. And I'm kinda a spaz, coordinationally.

It's possible that I've got an inflated sense of being an oddity in this 'cause I can't seem to date anyone who plays fewer than 5 instruments, and 'cause I have a few friends who are aiming towards making a professional career out of playing music. One of these, a Mr. CJ Bargamian, is working on the sort of personal project that completely blows my non-auditory mind: A Song Each Day. As the name might imply, he's writing and recording a new song every day -- for 30 days.

As someone who's never had music in her head that didn't come from somewhere else, this is more or less incomprehensible -- but as a creator, it's fascinating. I'm possibly obsessed with other people's creative processes, and CJ's been blogging along with the project, explaining bits about where his concepts come from and how he develops them into finished pieces. The resulting music sounds understandably unpolished but is even more interesting for being a bit raw, because while not every song is to my taste, all of them contain little pieces and iterations of the songwriter that I've either heard before or hope I'll hear explored more fully in the future.

I think that every songwriter should do this. Erm, not just for my entertainment (DANCE, MONKEYS) -- well okay largely for my entertainment. But also to promote cross-media creative understanding and community motivation towards discussion and productivity?

DANCE, MONKEYS, YESSS.

CJ is on day 17 today -- you can go through the library of songs past (my favorites so far are from days 2, 3, 6, 8, and 14, for varying musical/entertainment reasons), or tune in each day for a new one! If you listen in, let him know what you think. And hey, if you'd like to hear some of his more polished & collaborative pieces, check out A Fight To The Death – on hiatus right now while its drummer, the fabulous and fresh-scented Mark Carbone, mends a few bicycle-broken bones, but coming back to Atlanta-area stages within the next couple weeks. Along with Mark & CJ, George Wallace, Nathan Green, and Daniel Winn produce what I can completely objectively say is the best gypsy-lounge-Americana rock I've heard in our fair city.