Drake Oranwood(With apologies to Frank Miller and fans of the Dark Knight)
So, as summer comes to an end, I find myself reflecting back on my first full year as a “working bard” (participating in actual bardic events, interacting with the bardic community). I tend to mark a Scadian year as falling from one Pennsic to the next. It is the biggest and oldest event in the society, and affords opportunities to live one’s passions like nothing else on the East Coast, at least.
Quick updates: I did the next thing on my to do list today, and submitted this year’s six new songs for copyright. I know I don’t really have to–or at least I could wait until I’ve written three more to finish the album. But having registered the copyrights, I’m much more comfortable letting my songs fly free.
Also, to submit my songs, I have to transcribe the sheet music (since now I can do the whole thing in 10 minutes and upload sheet music PDF’s online!), which means…
Yep. Sheet music to all the songs are now posted on the song pages. (Also, I re-posted the MP3 download links.) I’ve started posting chords.
And now, the serious recording process will begin. Starting with GarageBand demos of all the songs (some of which I’ll probably post).
‘Night.
So I just got back from NRWC, and boy are my legs bitten. I mean, the mosquitoes were insane. But apart from that the event was fantastic.
So, I finally found the WordPress iPhone app. Given that I do most of my writing these days on my iPhone, that’s very cool.
I’ve been trying to manage my writing process better since I committed myself to bardic just about a year ago (a few months before I set up this site and the Facebook group). By “better”, I mean “make it more convenient to write, easier to find my stuff, easier to share my stuff, and less likely to lose my stuff”. And since I first got an iPhone in my hands last year, that has meant (as so many of you have probably already found) doing it on my iPhone.
I’m a little excited…for the first time since I started doing Bardic seriously, I have a second song percolating in the same year (the first one was “Call Me Will” back in May). I’m hoping to have a completed set of verses to take with me if I get the chance to attend the monthly Bardic workshop up in Concordia next month. I guess we’ll see.
Wanted anyone out there who’s following (cricket, cricket) to know that I registered the domain drakethebard.com, making the site easier to find and tell people about. Also I was able to find and add a few MP3’s from my Spiny Norman days, and will add more if I find them. (At some point in the near future, I hope to put together some simple recordings of the bardic stuff and post it here as well.)
And yes, I will have the rest of the Pennsic XLI post out in the next few days.
And finally, something in the mail brought a smile to my face yesterday…
And so it begins. My first blog. This will be a blog about Bardic stuff, the stuff I do in the Society for Creative Anachronism in particular. It will be the place where I collect my songs (and that may include some that are not Bardic or “period”), and comment on the process of attempting to become a bard of renown in the SCA. (You know, while being a husband and a dad and holding down a job and stuff too.)
Hope you enjoy! (Because, otherwise, what is the point, really?)
Drake Oranwood