"Tell me, did you sail across the sun?"

I'm sure pretty much everyone reading this has heard of the song "Drops of Jupiter" by Train. If you haven't, I HIGHLY suggest looking it up. The song has an amazing mood about it, and while it's a sad song (especially if you know the background and inspiration of the song), it has a lively beat to it. It's this sad, melodic tone that is very hard to capture when combined with the upbeat tempo.

If you haven't guessed already, I'm attempting to learn the song "Drops of Jupiter". But I'm actually not just using the chords that are for the original song. I'm actually using the music for the Boyce Avenue cover version! (Again, I highly suggest you look it up). The guys of Boyce Avenue sing this song so well that it's almost better than when Train does it! And it takes a lot for me to say this, especially considering that I'm a huge Train fan!
The song itself is very difficult to play, since it contains a lot of muted strings that I seem to constantly hit with my pick right when I'm having trouble actually MUTING them. I'll get it eventually! I have wanted to learn this song from the day I first heard it, so I'm not going to give up on this one too easily!

Moving off on a different note, I'm thanking God that it's Friday! Is it just me, or did this week just not seem to want to end? I mean DANG! It feels like it should be summer already (and by my watch, it SHOULD be summer right about now)! Hopefully the weeks ahead fly by extremely fast, because I am really tired of school right now. I mean, seeing friends is great and all, but when every class is so easy that even I can sleep through it? Something's wrong there.

Oh well. Oh, and on one last note, I will restate the fact that you SHOULD MOST DEFINITELY GO CHECK OUT BOYCE AVENUE'S COVER OF DROPS OF JUPITER!! There, I bolded and underlined it for you!

-Alex S.

Inspiration Comes in the Oddest of Places

Wow, I can't believe that I finally got that song put together. I'm not sure if I mentioned this in the last post or not (I'm pretty sure I did), but for all those who haven't read that one, I finished writing my first performance-worth song the other day. Where did I get the inspiration for the song you may ask? Nowhere really, the idea just popped into my head, so I did it!

This whole experience has been crazy, full of ups and downs, but it's been awesome. Definitely something I'm looking to do again soon. All through this time though, I've actually been reflecting on a Bible Verse that helped me believe that I could do it. The verse goes like this: "I can do everything through him who gives me strength" (Philippians 4:13). Pretty inspirational, right?

Now comes the hardest part of writing a song: getting other people's takes on it. I hate playing music in front of people (I know, that's probably a bad thing since I play the guitar), but I hate playing my own material in front of anyone. But once that's over with, if they say it's good enough, I may just get it copyrighted. Who knows, I may just have a career in music yet!

-Alex S.

Good lyrics, they're a dime a dozen, but great lyrics, well, they're something else entirely

Well today has been an extremelly productive day in terms of my inner musician! I finally wrote a full, complete song that I think is worthy of other people's ears! And, not to float my own boat, but it's a pretty awesome song. The lyrics by themselves mean pretty much nothing at all, but when put with the music, well.. They still mean practically nothing, but it's a good song in my opinion! And the best part is that it can only get better from here!

-Alex S. (a content musician)