This blog is about bringing some little periods of self therapeutic need. Therapy can be found in music, gardening, fountain pen script, doodling and generally seeking time out from the crazy World we live in.

All the little songs below are written and played by myself, Gray Summers.

It was intentional to add a whole load of echo to this song below. Basically, the idea was to grab this opportunity quickly and give myself an instant therapeutic shot of sound vibe. When you feel low in mood, a guitar can be really helpful. It’s so good to be able to switch on the Mac computer, open GarageBand, simply open a ‘New File’, pull the microphone in front of your face and guitar, strum a starting up exercise of a very simple strum and melody to yourself to bring calm. This one below is a very short song that I wrote years ago. Way back then, it was for an intentional ‘pinned’ WordPress introducer on a ‘header page’. Of course, it never happened. One day maybe. But it served a purpose here in bringing a bit of calm. It was nice singing ad hoc harmonies to my own voice. Not great keeping in tune wise …..but fun.

After this little foray, it was nice to open another ‘New File’ and get some newer ideas down. These naive captures are really good for thinking on. You play them back a few times and begin to hear extras that can maybe be future added. Here below? It was a case of continued therapy. Just adding bits and bobs on top as ‘feelers’.

So, as said, a little bit encouraged, you instantly get back on your guitar and record a bit more music. Here below? As the microphone was already set up and already in place was the ‘echo guitar’ choice from the library list. Sing and play guitar and capture. Open up a track for keyboards and choose the ‘Blips Piano’ and the ‘Taiko Drums’ choice to gently experiment some little background beats and a bit of melody. Play both on the AKAI MIDI keyboards. Single finger notes as usual as I can’t play piano properly. Strange hitting little drum beats on a keyboard too. Should have used my djembe really. One finger piano? Bit like my typewriter/typing skills. Next up, open another track and choose an ‘audio for voice’ recording, and use the microphone for a bit of harmony singing. And that’s it really.

Other Therapy over the last few days? Doing some Grandparent duty on Wednesday. So my Grandson was with me all day. So we listened to some vinyl, eclectically. Also, he used the Olivetti Lettera 35 to continue writing his ‘novel’. Some cheap watercolour paint was taken from tubes and put into half pans for the pallette. Afterwards. A bit of gardening planting up cucumbers, french beans and peas.

Oscar Wilde Fairy Stories were awesome. In the 1960s my school class had Alice in Wonderland (both books) read to us by the teacher. Magical Times. Oscar’s stories, on listening here, magical too. They are full of emotional, ethical and moral story telling. I’ll definitely be listening again. Alone. The narrator, Robert Rietty (also spelled as Rietti) is the type of voice that is perfect. He was known as the man with a thousand voices. You can understand why. My grandson has just finished ‘His Dark Materials’ by Philip Pullman on audio books. So I found him Lyra’s Oxford to read. Whilst listening to vinyl, he continued to type his ‘novel’ on the Olivetti Lettera 32 typewriter. He has started Chapter 2.

My own Therapy. Just picking up the guitar and getting some ideas out. I have a fair few songs that I need to bite the bullet and hunker down by finishing off the lyrics, find a suitable rhythmic vibe and get them recorded. Confidence is actually extremely low presently. Actually, it’s low in many areas.

So seeking Therapy is based in experimenting with the simple and naive artistic pursuits. Watercolour painting is a new interest. Currently this is experimenting using a wet on wet technique (wet the paper and apply colour loaded paintbrush). You watch the paint take its own journey across the paper and guide it according to what scenes you want to expand on.

Getting the ideas down is very therapeutic. When you listen back to the ideas and see that they are okay-ish, it gives the soul a bit of sparkle. So you then record properly. Below is a more serious considered song. Stars above the Dunes. Still trying to get at a vocal melody for this though.

I have noticed many YouTube sites and others that now state that no AI in any way has been used in their uploads. So it seems to be a common intention to include this assurance. So….I never, ever use any AI in any of my projects or uploads. Never will. Hope that makes sense. 😊

Thank you. 🙏🏽 ☯️🕉️