Song Share: Make A Map Of

I made a thing

I recently completed a School of Song class called “Home Recording for the Singer-Songwriter”, which was led by Philip Weinrobe, a producer, recording and mix engineer. School of Song offers short online courses on several different musical topics; my partner-in-all-things Meredith loved a songwriting class she took with Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief, and that was recommendation enough for me to try. Instructor Phil shared a grounded methodology and clear point of view that emphasizes capturing emotionally impactful performances and using the recording and mixing process to serve that goal. I learned fundamentals about recording and mixing along with a vocabulary to help me know what to ask when I don’t know what I’m doing, which is most of the time. And the course structure with its weekly lectures and small group song shares kept me working and making.

It’s a banal thing to say that music is an essential human expression. But it is! It’s an understatement to say that music backdrops all of the most important things in (my) life. But it does! (Jeff Tweedy’s latest book, World Within a Song: Music That Changed My Life and Life That Changed My Music, is a wonderful rumination on this.) And songs are meant to be shared. Songs gifted around a circle, screamed in a dive bar, serenaded up to a balcony window, whispered in a child’s ear. Songs recorded and not shared just end up rotting away on a hard drive. So, I better share some songs.

I recorded and mixed three original songs for my School of Song class, which feel finished enough and want to be heard. Without worrying too much about perfection or pretension, I am releasing them under the Bergadler name on Bandcamp as not-quite-a-single, not-quite-an-EP called “Make A Map Of.” “Bergadler” has existed for years as a mostly empty container for the songs that Meredith and I imagined writing together ever since our first co-creation: a love song written to ourselves and recorded for our wedding in 2003. Bergadler – mountain eagle in German – is a cheap supermarket beer that we often enjoyed (because it’s cheap) during a summer we spent living in Berlin, before jobs and before kids. As we both near 50 (!), now seems ‘bout right to resurrect a long past dream, to use the placeholder for what it was intended. I have songs and Meredith has songs, so Bergadler now has songs. Here are some songs.