Rebekah's Journal

I remember, a long time ago, sitting outside, with a couple of my filking friends, talking about our dreams of making albums. We were thinking of cassette albums, then, it being before the technology for CDs became accessible for people like us--though with kids and jobs that weren't making us rich, and with nobody in the Midwest doing filk albums, those dreams weren't likely happening any time soon. But still, what songwriter doesn't dream of putting out an album or two?

And I had plenty of songs for an album or two, mostly songs that I've never recorded, though a few are on albums compiled from open filk circles at various conventions. I've got those cassettes somewhere (I still haven't found everything that got moved when we had more than one roof-leak insurance claim in the same year, some years back, and stuff got moved out of the wet very fast and randomly). I accepted a copy of each cassette in lieu of the first few dollars of royalties, knowing that the cost of the cassette was more than I'd likely ever earn from those recordings, and was very happy to get them.

It's a very different world now, with affordable microphones and recording software, and no need to have bulky tapes to record on and huge mixing boards and all that other stuff you used to need to make records. And I have a decent microphone and a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) and so I've been able to make my own recordings, and some of them are available on Bandcamp. (https://wylddandelyon.bandcamp.com/)

Others have been shared on Patreon, for paid members, as a heartfelt thank-you for their support.

But back to my story. After a couple of people recently told me they missed hearing some of my earlier songs, I got the idea to make my next short Bandcamp album using some of those very first songs I wrote, and calling it Time Capsule--what if I had recorded the songs back then? What might that album have looked like?

I can't sing with my 20-year-old voice any more. I've grown older, of course, but I've also learned a lot about singing and vocal technique--and my asthma is properly treated these days too. My voice is actually, I think, stronger and more reliable than it was back then. And I'm having to relearn chord patterns, and to try to remember the details of what I was doing to accompany those songs back then--intros and outros, and flourishes--stuff that always lived only in my memory. And memory isn't perfect, even when it's not all dusty and faded.

But it's happening! I found a perfect old picture of me to use, and a wonderful writer-and-artist friend made it into the cover you'll see soon. I gathered my lyric sheets for those early songs, and had too many, and limited myself to before the turn of the century and still had too many songs for just one album! So I picked 10, which pulls it out of the "short album" category, but, assuming I can get them all finished and polished, will make me very happy. And I've been practicing and tuning autoharps and guitars very carefully, and recording.

And best of all, when I talked about this soon-to-be digital album, and played some of those songs at the local housefilk, those same two friends I was dreaming with on that long-ago afternoon were singing along with me, remembering old harmonies or improvising new ones, and they both kindly agreed to be my backup singers on this album!

This makes me very happy. Very happy indeed.

And it reminds me of one of the things about creative work: If you keep on dreaming, and working, and sharing your dreams with your friends, dreams can, indeed, come true. Often not in the way you first imagined, and never as fast as you imagined, at the start (or almost never) but perseverance and being good to your creative friends and acquaintances can, in the end, help a dream become real.

So, look for Time Capsule, by Wyld Dandelyon and friends (And Friends! Squeeee!!!!), on the next Bandcamp Friday--which is August 1! (So soon! So much to do still!)

And in the meantime, if I don't notice you trying to reach me, it might be because I have my phones and computer all on mute because I'm recording, or mixing, or very intently listening, trying to make the recordings as good as I possibly can before the first.