I've got a new Christmas EP coming out in a week. It's called Ring the Fuller Minstrel In. Here's a lyric video of the first track, my take on the Tennyson poem "Ring Out, Wild Bells":
I also did a couple of covers for the bonus round of SpinTunes 18 and submitted a hastily-recorded song to the "It Wasn't My Good Fortune" Song Fight.
I was eliminated after round two, but I submitted a shadow entry for round three of SpinTunes. The round three challange was: "Tell Me What You Want: Write the "I want" song for a musical that otherwise doesn’t exist. Your imagined musical may be based on a true story or an existing non-musical work (novel, film, etc), or it may be wholly original. A musical's "I want" song is the number early in the show in which the main character lays out their basic desire and motivation - to find themselves, to prove themselves, to fit in, to get out, etc."
My imagined musical is an adaptation of the 1964 Doctor Who serial The Dalek Invasion of Earth, but focused on the character of the Doctor's granddaughter Susan. I'm thinking it would be structured a bit like Into the Woods, with the first act basically following the story that was on television but the second act carrying on with Susan after The Doctor, Barbara, and Ian depart in the TARDIS.
In round one of SpinTunes 16, I did a song based around a scene in a movie rather than from a book and I remember feeling as if there was some disappointment that more of us did movies than books from some of the judges. So, a bit later, for the Song Fight prompt "Mythical Creature," I did a song from a book (Edith Nesbit's Book of Dragons). After doing that song, the thought crossed my mind that I might do a song for each of the stories in the book. Casting around for a topic for this challenge, I revisited that thought.
This song started out being based on the story "The Deliverers of their Country," but it turned into its own thing pretty quickly. In the story, a tiny dragon flies into a young girl's eye. But the dragon is safely removed and is merely a harbinger of larger dragons on the horizon. There is no gestalt flying eyeball entity in the book. That just showed up out of nowhere and took over (just like in the song).
The SpinTunes 18 round two challange was: "Escape the Grid: Write a song that makes creative use of one or more tempo changes."
I'm having a second go at the SpinTunes contest. The round one songs have just been posted to Bandcamp. The round one prompt was "Color Me Impressed: Write a song about, or prominently mentioning, a specific color."
A lovely little waltz about being murdered and buried in the garden. Written for the "I'm Covered in It Now" Song Fight.
I covered Stephen Foster's "Hard Times Come Again No More" for Micah Sommersmith in the most recent round of Gift of Music. My mom, JoAnne Hinkle, is on violin.
