Taking a leap...

Sometimes life gets comfortable, you get into a routine, and before you know it, years have gone by. The past five years have brought magic to my personal life-- a wonderful husband, a new city (I LOVE YOU SAN DIEGO!!!) and a fresh circle of people to add to my list of dear friends.

Career-wise, I've sang my heart out as a solo act, and then I caught band fever, performing some exciting shows with an awesome band. I've just scratched the surface with my creativity and am ready to dedicate more time to writing and performing as an original artist. I've cleared my calendar. I even let go of my Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays at Albies. (We had a riot, didn't we? I miss you all, already, Albies gang!)

And, now, I am stepping onto a ledge, spreading my arms and sailing off in a new direction. Joyfully, happily, shouldering childlike faith (and some adult hard-knocks street smarts as well!) I'm taking that long first step forward.

Oh, and P.S. I just gave my website a long overdue facelift. Hope you check it out! www.rosewinters.com

This one's for you, sis!

Well, I started this blog a week ago, and now I have two songs. Two songs a week? That's a hundred songs in a year. I think I'll call that my goal. I notice that I can only put one song on this blog, so I'll always put the newest song on, and the other song(s) you'll be able to find on You Tube, under rosewinters4.

I am so glad my sis asked for this song, "If He Walked into my Life," I had forgotten how pretty that song is. And since it was featured in the musical Mame, I now have a new category: Showtunes! That's two categories, the other being Halloween. First category to hit ten tunes gets a CD printed!

Oh, and you know something funny? I got another request! Wouldnt it be funny if my blog turned into a request blog?! That's what I do at my gigs!!

To hear "If He Walked into My Life" just click on my profile and check the audio clip towards the top.

I have a little red notebook I call my bible, where every time I run into a problem in my studio, and SOLVE it, the answer goes in that red book. That way if the same glitch happens again a month later (which it will) I can remember what the heck I did to fix the problem! And I am LOVING my red book! It's saving my bootie time and again, and every day I add something new to it. I appreciate my past self for writing my fix-its and saving my present self all that grief! "Thank you, past self!" ...Hey, if I write something to my future self now, and tomorrow I read it, wouldn't that be like time travel, soft of? Here goes: "Future self, you are really dumb, you never remember what I write in the red book!"

By the way, me and my husband laughed all night and couldn't sleep, because of the question I am about to pose. Here's the situation:

I used that expression, "I laughed so hard I peed my pants." (I didn't really, it was just an expression... no... really...)

Anyway, he said, "You can't pee your pants, you pee in your pants."

The debate began and lasted two hours, and we laughed so hard that... well you get the picture. So which one is it?? (I know I'm right, it's baby talk for goodness' sake!)

Time Keeps on Slippin' Slippin' Slippin'...

No, I didn't record that Steve Miller song, but I did just spend 4 hours solid trying to get "I Put a Spell on You" on the blog! Yes, thats 4 hours! Sheesh! But I love to learn and now I know what NOT to do!! AND... success! Benjamin Franklin had a hundred failures before he got the light bulb to work, so I'm in good company. To listen, go to my profile, and click on the audio clip that's towards the top.

Oh, and if I'm going to keep doing this, I realize now that I have to do the mechanical royalties thing so I can be on the up and up! For you musicians out there, check out HFA songfile for the scoop. So, though I was intending to just be a studio geek/artist, writing and playing to my hearts content, I'm ending up (today) doing computer geek stuff and (Monday) researching and paperworking legalities. Oh goody! Maybe I'll be back in the saddle by Tuesday. Sunday is sacred hubby territory, no music/work/geek stuff allowed. Just wonderful mushy stuff like sleeping in, making breakfast together, tending our (totally cool!!) garden and sitting on the deck watching the dolphins go by.

I'll get "Spell" polished up and re-posted, then on to my second song! What should it be?? Hmm. Last night I performed at Albies in Mission Valley, and a few songs really stuck to my ribs. "Some Enchanted Evening" has got to be the sweetest song on the planet. I like that Kid Rock/Sheryl Crowe song "Picture," it's really good for my voice. Even that old Sherell's song (how the heck do you spell Sherell?) "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" is fun! Those stuck out last night. We'll see! What crazy impetuous thoughts stir in the subconscious of Rose? Mwa ha ha! We'll soon find out!

For Tech geeks only:

For all you tech geeks snickering at me, here's what took me 4 hours. I had my .wav file on a mac, I converted it using audacity to mp3 on my PC, then tried to make a URL out of it, first using my website builder Intuit program. No luck. So I tried to put it on my actual website. No go. So I tried to put it on You Tube, and FINALLY discovered you cant convert mp3 to URL, it has to be mpeg. I tried to convert using my Adobe Premiere Elements, only to find you HAVE to have a video, not just music, to convert to You Tube. So I got a still picture, but then I had to learn how to make a still picture last 4 1/2 minutes for a video. Out came the tech manual. Got it to work, dragged the wav file over, converted it, sent it to You Tube, copied and pasted the file to Blogspot and there you are. Now I know what to do next time and it will take me about 5 minutes. (Stop snickering already!)

How many songs can I record in one year?

I'm a musician, and I've been in a slump for several years. I perform four nights a week, its what I do for a living. But I used to be a songwriter, I used to practically live in my studio. I know a thousand songs, literally, of other people's music.

But today, I decided to be "Un-slumpable." Or "Un-slumped." Hmm. Unslumpable sounds superhero-ish, I'll go with that one. (I'm the dork standing with my hands on my hips and the kitchen towel around my neck billowing in the wind.)

I think my breakthrough was simply to get rid of every single negative thought, emotion, fear, and worry. Strip it all away and what do you get? NOTHING TO LOSE!!! Yay for me!!

Since it was Halloween I learned a dozen new songs for my gig; Monster Mash, Witchy Woman, Witchcraft, etc. The song that really fit me though, was "I Put a Spell on You." I could really wail on that one, and I love the blues. I have that raspy blues thing going on.

So anyway, I had a revelation. WHY NOT just record MUSIC?? ANY music?? It will get my sea legs back in the studio. The writing will follow! Nowadays you don't even have to print CDs, you can just do the download thing. So instead of obsessing about "Should I write a blues album? Alternative? Punk? Acid? Country?" Instead of that, I'm just going to pick a song that sticks out when I'm singing it at a gig, and I'll march into my studio and record it. And instead of obsessing about "But I don't have a band! OMG!" I'll just record it myself, I'm a one man band anyway. And the musicians will come later, I have lots of extraordinarily talented friends.

Okay, I'm blathering now. So I'll get to the point. Today was the day, and I did it. I recorded "I Put a Spell on You." When I get it mixed down I'll see if I can figure out how to attach it to this blog. And then I'll pick the next song. Wish me luck!!