JT Thomas

 Apparently my four-leaf-clover collecting has paid off. I just got a used Behringer C1 microphone used for $20 and a used Scarlett 18i6 for $70 (a full $200 less than they run for)! Catsitting for my sister over the summer paid off BIGTIME. 

At this rate, it looks like I'll start testosterone sometime this semester, which makes me endlessly smile. So I'm going to just spend every spare minute recording vocals for an album I'm thinking will be ready to put up on Bandcamp sometime around the end of the year. I can play guitar and violin significantly better when I'm not simultaneously trying to remember lyrics, so I think I'll be good. I've written a MASSIVE number of songs that I haven't posted anywhere or sung at any filksings. One whole album of high-voice stuff, then probably never again. That's a delightful thought: have the record of where I came from so I can see how much things change.

Also known as: a fiddle tune got stuck in my head, and the name was too good not to make the pun. Then another pun showed up, because it’s also a Morris dance tune. To top it all off, I was sitting in the theatre for an hour waiting to be cleared to turn on the preshow light cue... and I got bored.

Edit, because it seems I might need to clarify: that title is the actual title.

( The Girl I Left Behind Me )

 I am still very much a trickster at heart. And there is fair warning that this was coming, if anyone cares to scroll back a couple posts from me. But this time, it's even more ridiculous than expected: I found a video of the song in question performed by SCA members in context.

Link here, and I sincerely hope this is the worst prank anyone gets today.

can I have in various stages of the writing process at once?

Lyric stage:
--"Elevenses", not the actual title
--Superstitions
--a certain Star Trek song without a proper name as of yet
--resistance song, again unnamed as of yet
--a Grimm / Child ballads / classical mythology crossover piece that is written for the sake of sarcasm
--Poison Control
--a Civil War marching song that has a slightly too convenient name not to make a pun out of it

Melody stage:
--River Wind, provided it doesn't make me cry too much to handle it
--Elfin Knight with Scarborough Fair, using an older melody for the descant

Instrument stage:
--Trinities (to actually get good enough to sing and play it at once without laughing too hard to breathe)
--Law of the Jungle (because not once did I write down my own chords, and guess who has a horrible memory for chords?)
--A Real Steampunk Story

Other Songs I Am Learning: 
--Barrett's Privateers

Other Projects:
--that Maquis & French Resistance musical I've been working on for three years and is finally getting somewhere because I found my old lyric sheets
--the ten-layer Christmas song my dad will yell at me if I don't finish

This is in addition to about six fiddle tunes I have lined up to learn so I can actually get decent with fiddle again, now that my hands can handle it. (Heh, halfway to a pun.) 

...I didn't realize how many I had going.

 If I've never mentioned it, my parents' house is kind of huge. (Not my house anymore. Nopes.)

My mom grew up here, then bought it from her dad for cheap. The main part's about a hundred years old, and there are at least two separate extensions, a huge basement, and both a second floor and an attic. The attic's basically empty, but the basement has all of my baby clothes and about three thousand vinyl records (at least half of which were destroyed in a flood when I was little, sadly). 

The upstairs, however, is a mystery most of the time. It's where my dad's stuff goes when he doesn't want it. That means, of course, anything technological. He's kind of hopeless. 

According to my mom, somewhere upstairs, there is a bunch of recording stuff. As in, she bought him enough stuff for his own recording studio and he never touched it after opening it for Christmas when I was a tiny child. So now, she's offered it to me if either one of us can find it upstairs. 

I spent probably about an hour upstairs today trying and failing to find any of it to see if it's even compatible with modern technology (we still have a Windows 95 computer upstairs, too, so if it's not then it's staying here for someone else). But it's impossible to find to see if it's even worthwhile to claim as my own.

Things I did find:
--my mom's sign language textbooks
--my late aunt's mandolin, in desperate need of repair but maybe I can play it then?!?!?! I may save up some money for those purposes (update: my dad thought it over, he thinks it's his godfather's originally, most likely from the 1930s, and he's fine with it being mine since otherwise it would sit around. Also, the upstairs of this house has no heat, so me having it means it's not in the cold all winter every year which is probably better)
--extra guitar strings
--at least two guitars my dad would never admit exist, one of which is a 3/4 classical with not a single sign of who made it but at some point it was fitted with a strap button which has since fallen out given the hole and the fact that it had a strap tied onto the headstock with a literal piece of nylon string
--an Appalachian dulcimer which my dad has now declared I can have, because it came from Little Bear's original owner. Needs new strings, is otherwise perfect. Is also adorable, has its own case, and is definitely mine
--a whole lot more books than I thought I had
--a bag of cords I need to go through tomorrow in case there's one of the ones I need for my drawing tablet (the cord is nearly broken)

Overall, pretty successful in unexpected ways.

That moment when my father steals my guitar for a minute and starts playing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"...

...then says "if the fate allows" to remove the only semblance of a reference to anything not purely Christian.

Have I mentioned how Catholic he is? I feel like I need to point out just how Catholic he is. He's so Catholic it's not even funny. I also feel like I should mention *this is why I wear headphones to listen to any and all music when he's home*.