The latest blog in my Songwriting Series is now up and online...

In this new one I cover elements of song... We spend lots of time on melody and lyric and briefly cover other elements like harmony, tempo, rhythm etc.

Thanks for all your feedback both here and on the blog... I'm encouraged that you're encouraged!

Go, create, conquer!

Love,

Brooke

http://www.brookefraser.com/blog

Realise it's been AGES since my first installment of the songwriting series.  Promise it's coming... here have been the two obstacles:

1) I've been travelling for the past five weeks (30,000 miles, thank yoooup) and I need quiet and headspace to blog (at least for this series I'm writing), which have both been running from me as hard as the LAX airport staff are belligerent.  If I ever get arrested, it will be at an airport because I finally have enough of a TSA guy treating some poor, frightened old lady like a piece of trash, and snap and fly kick them in the ear whilst punching them in the throat.

2) My jaw-droppingly awesome husband is the only one with the admin passwords to the blog, and he is currently on a boat somewhere in the middle of the ocean and uncontactable.  I'm not kidding.  They have a satellite phone on board that they use for emergencies that only works "sometimes".  Boys love that stuff.

When he gets back in a couple of weeks, I'll have a blog prepared that we can update quick smart.

Patience is a virtue.  And a pain in the donkey, but also a virtue.

I might delete this blog tomorrow because I realise I am writing this whilst heavily jet lagged and some people may be offended that I just talked about fly kicking mean people in the head. Right now, however, I am too tired to care.

Good night o cyber friends...

As I can't blog every day, or even every week, the easiest way to keep up with what I'm doing and where I'm at in the writing process (if you're vaguely interested) is to follow me on Twitter.  I'm sure one of these days we'll get one of those fancy myspace things where you can see my tweets from this myspace, but I'm not remotely tech-savvy (or interested in being tech-savvy) so I shall leave that to the experts!

In the meantime:

Twitter.com/brookefraser

Come one, come all!

I've been a bunch of places, but musical collabs happened in Detroit and rural Michigan with my good friend Ben West (The Real Efforts of Real People) and in Jacksonville, Illinois  with my favourite bearded man, Willliam Fitzsimmons (I'm actually in William's den right now as we're about to load the car and head to the airport).

I really want this next record to reflect my fondness for my musical family... something special happens when you meet and create with people who also value music as a facilitator of human connection and a forum for our humanity rather than a commercial enterprise.  

This trip has been awesome, I've gotten out of a rut and I'm anxious now to get home and continue to work away at these little song people who are beginning to show their faces at last.

Only 30 more hours 'til I'm standing in my home again... Bring it!

Love and legitimacy,

Brooke

We've actually been driving about an hour out of the city each day though into the beautiful Michigan countryside, where we have a top secret location kindly lent to us by B. West's friend Scott.  Writing is coming along swimmingly, and I'm so inspired by B. West and his collaboration and general encouragement. 

He writes near perfect music (okay, totally perfect) but is the most humble guy E-VER.  Check out The Real Efforts of Real People (they're my top friend on this myspace)... Oh. So. Good.

I also realise I'm taking ages to upload the second part of the blog series.  My intention was never that it would take this long, but I realised there's actually a lot to say and it takes time to say it right - plus now that I'm on the road for this writing trip it's difficult to get down time/alone time enough to finish it.  The second one is almost almost ready though, so I'll let you know as soon as it's uploaded. 

The responses to the first one have been awesome... very interesting reading! I look forward to giving you some more fodder to dissect.

Anyway... on with the day, we have a long drive ahead and some music to make...

You guys are cool...

Stay in school...

brookovich

Our little blog site is humming along... kudos to all of you who have come and checked it out! 

I've started a wee songwriting mini-series, a bit of a discourse on this particular from of musical arts and crafts, in my humble and flawed opinion!

Here's the intro to the series I posted on the blog site a few days ago - three "umbrellas". The first, "Climate", went live today.  Have a looky, see what you reckon.

We didn't know this guy and he was long gone by the time we discovered his incredible gesture... we were all completely stunned and so grateful.

Got me thinking about generosity... how startling it is... how awesome it is when we step out of our self-involvedness and do something for someone else, for no other reason than because we can.

I twittered about this (http://www.twitter.com/brookefraser) and challenged everyone to do a RAOK (random act of kindness) the next day, then tweet me when they'd done it.  The response has been AMAZING - so fun and so inspiring.  Funny how taking a few moments out of our day to do something good for someone changes us just as much as it helps them.  Hanging out the washing when it's not your turn... sending someone a nice card... buying the guy in front of you in the coffee line his drink... giving someone a bag full of groceries... letting the dog nap on the bed for once... helping an elderly person onto the train or across the road... these are just a few things people have done so far... Looking forward to reading many more!

I'm going on twitter whenever I can and re-tweeting what y'all are doing (RT)... 

If you're not a tweeter, we can report your RAOKs by you posting them as comments on this blog... 

Go for it!

B xx

I've wanted to play clarinet on a record FOREVER but no one has let me so far.  I figure if I buy a cheap second hand one and start practicing, and write a song around a clarinet line, they'll have to let me... right?

What do y'all think?

Take a looky!

Love from Brookie!