Akiwowo, 4-part

If you find one of me scary, this ought to terrify you - it kind of scares me. This is Akiwowo, the four-part corona-virus-stuck-at-home-alone-learning-new-stuff version. I've spent the better part of three days on this - totally engrossed to the point of forgetting to eat, and even forgetting more than once that 5:00 had come and gone without even thinking about my first beer. The lighting, the camera settings - testing, testing - back and forth between studio and computer; working out the music and the multiple takes on each thing; taking the video editing app to places I had never been before; editing the clips, syncing the clips (and even still, parts of it are not 100%), arranging the clips. It made sitting in my bedroom (in the same upstairs of this same house) as a teenager with my little reel-to-reel and spending hours figuring out how to record myself singing, then playing it back and with a second recorder recording myself singing harmony to the first recording seem very easy in retrospect.

Learning Curves and Empty Days

I had some fun today recording this song and learning how to make a split screen video, which involved hours of focus. These empty days with no set schedule are certainly conducive to getting lost in projects that on any normal day would seem like a total indulgence. Something tells me that even though our lives have been totally disrupted - socially, financially, and in many other ways - on some level we should be savoring this time: days of total quiet, sleeping late, freedom to wander hither and yon; working parents who craved more time at home with their children
suddenly have their wish come true. In some ways, we've been thrust back to the 1950s when families spent time together. I'm not sure how anybody is going to want to get up in the morning and leave home after this thing all plays out.

Anyway, Akiwowo was fun, and just like that, it's 5:00.