The CDs are here! The CDs are here!

I heard the familiar rurr-rurr-rurr of a diesel engine. I looked through the upstairs window and, behold! A UPS truck was trying to negotiate the tricky corner at the end of our street. (Why did he even try that alley?)

Are there any songs about the UPS truck coming to your house? I think I could write a couple about now.

And don't think I'm too weird. In the musical "The Music Man," an entire song is sung about The Wells Fargo wagon a-comin' down the street.

And by reading the lyrics, you can also find out how exciting it was in the not-that-distant past just to get unusual produce via wagon.

Unusual stuff like grapefruit and raisins.

So I took the 18-pound box from my friend, the UPS man, and of course opened the box right away.

(There were three smaller boxes inside the big box, in case you think that the small box to the left could possibly weigh 18 pounds.)

I've gotta hand it to the folks at TuneCore, who reproduced the CD for me. The CDs look awesome. I am stoked, as the kids say. (Not my kids. Other kids.)

I am right now listening to the CD, keeping my ears open for technical glitches. I'm up to track 9, "Conner Prairie Air." Everything is fine so far.

I just really want to thank everyone who has been in any way supportive of my music. It was your support, even in little way like with comments after I played the hymns at church, that gave me the confidence to even attempt this project.

And certainly thanks to my brother Jeff who asked for this music for his wedding reception. I think you will like.

Oh, and of course, I'm looking for venues to play, especially in Northeast Indiana. For example, I'm trying to find a place to play up in Angola, Indiana, but the coffeehouse I've played before has moved and no longer can host musicians. Write me if you'd like me to come to your neck of the woods!

Baklava to the future

This is a strange post, only because it has nothing to do with my CD.

But it does have a lot to do with my first video voiceover.

Photojournalist Steve Linsenmayer at The News-Sentinel put together a great three-minute video of local women putting together baklava for the Greekfest. But it needed some descriptive audio to go along with it. So yesterday at work, I cajoled information from coworkers, took a crash-course in iMovie, spent 60 minutes writing three minutes of yadda yadda, recorded the voiceover and saved it in some QuickTime-friendly format.

You can see and hear the video here. Opa!

The CDs are coming

Sometime today, a box of 75 "Wordlessly" CDs should arrive on my front porch.

If not, well then, I'll get them later, I guess.

Details as events warrant...

Waiting for Minnesota

The "Wordlessly" CD is out of my hands.

I shipped a CD from my own computer yesterday to a company in Minnesota to press the CDs, print the tray cards and booklets, pack 'em together, shrink wrap them and ship them to me. Hopefully, all before my brother's wedding on June 24.

This has been a fun, but tiring, project. There was a real rush at the end to get finished because of my total lack of experience in mastering a CD. That's the last part of getting a CD ready to get pressed.

And now, all there is to do is wait. I'll let everyone know when the CDs arrive!

'Wordlessly' CD cover

There are hundreds of little details that need to be ironed out when putting together a project like your own CD. One of them is the design of the CD cover.

Here is the front and back of my upcoming instrumental CD, "Wordlessly." With photos and typography by little ol' me.

The songs just keep on comin'

Edging closer and closer to the end of recording...

Three more songs have been recorded:

• Conner Prairie Air
• Lilies of the Field (working title)
• A Girl With Root Beer Eyes

That gets me up to 47 minutes of music. But I still think I have one or two more songs in me for this project.

After that, I am still going to have a lot of work in front of me. The mixing, the burning, the printing ... wow.

In the meantime...

Gig on Friday! And my dear Mary will sing some backing vocals for a few songs, such as "Widow Moon," "Relentless Love" and "His Mercy Endures Forever." Please join us. For more details, visit the engagements page.

Great gig in Angola

I wanted to thank the wonderful folks at Angola United Methodist Church for their hospitality last weekend. The turnout was wonderful, with at least 50 or 60 people in the pews. The best part was that they really sung out their part of "His Mercy Endures Forever." They didn't need much encouraging at all.

Plus, they were kind enough to take a few photos while I performed, plus the sound man recorded the entire gig, and I'll be receiving a CD in the mail pretty soon. Thanks!

Two more songs

I've added two more songs to the list for "Wordlessly." Here's the countdown so far:

• Still Waters · download MP3
• First Frost of Autumn · download MP3
• How Long Wilt Thou Forget Me
• Joy in Simple Things
• Gethsemane · download MP3 of early version
• A Covenant Between Them
• Hopscotch
• Home Is Where You Are
• Transfiguration
• The Cascades

That's 36 minutes, 38 seconds of music, but I feel this project must have at least 45 minutes of music.

So, back to GarageBand I go!

(And be sure to check out my real home page.)

'Wordlessly' available for preorder

Now you can go to my home page, find the web store, and preorder the upcoming "Wordlessly" CD!

If you order it before the end of June, you'll save two bucks. And if you order three or more, you get free shipping! "Wordlessly" would make a wonderful gift...

Three more songs complete!

For those keeping score at home, I've now in my back pocket three more instrumental songs for my upcoming instrumental CD, "Wordlessly." The titled assigned to them are thus:

• Gethsemane
• A Covenant Between Them
• Home Is Where You Are

Ah, but maybe you're thinking, "'Gethsemane!' I've already downloaded that from his nifty download page at download.com!" Well, you'd be only partly right, because I've completely re-recorded the song with some additional instrumentation, plus I've beefed up the song and made it along the lines of an ABA song structure.

This is not the same as an ABBA song structure.

ABA song structure just means that the song is in three basic parts: The first part is your main theme (A), the second part is a second, complementary theme (B) and then the third part is a repeat of the first part (A again), perhaps with some slight variation.

Verse-chorus-verse would be an ABA structure. It's really that simple.

So, for "Gethsemane," I took the short song as originally recorded, used that as the A part, and wrote a B part for the middle, between the two As. The song's now more than four minutes long -- like a real song.

If "A Covenant Between Them" sounds familiar to you, perhaps you attended my sister's wedding. It was one of the songs I played during the prelude of her wedding.

And if "Home Is Where You Are" sounds familiar, you're crazy, because it's brand spankin' new.

Don't forget to visit my new home page, where you can play a snippet of the song, "First Frost of Autumn."

New home page

I've redesigned my original home page in preparation for my upcoming instrumental CD, "Wordlessly." Take a look!

www.jonswerens.com

'Wordlessly' CD status report

How do you give a title to an instrumental song?

Except for some minor mixing tweaks, I've completed five songs for my upcoming instrumental CD, "Wordlessly." But coming up with titles for songs without words has been a challenge. All I have to go on is a vague emotion that I've attached to the song as I've written it. My fear is I'll come up with titles that are either pretentious -- "The Danse of the Foxe Hollows" -- or ridiculous -- "Minuet Rice."

But I'm swallowing my fear and releasing the names of the five songs I've recorded so far:

• "Still Waters"
• "The Cascades"
• "Joy of Simple Things"
• "First Frost of Autumn"
• "How Long Wilt Thou Forget Me"

Alert fans will recognize the last one -- it's the tune I've used at Providence Presbyterian Church for our singing of Psalm 13.

And please note that a version of "Still Waters" is available on my downloads page.

So, only nine or ten songs to go!

And don't forget to click here to sign up for my email newsletter, by which I'll remind you of events and updates.