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Music and poetry site of Gnocchi Artyst – the poet who sings pointed stories

SONGS

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Gnocchi Artyst – Song Thirteen (Cheerio!)

Visit my music and poetry site at: https://HelloSaturday.com

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SONG THIRTEEN (CHEERIO!)
Written and performed by Gnocchi Artyst (June 07, 2020).
Subtitled in English and Vietnamese.
Copyright © 2020 — Please do not use without permission.
Gnocchi Artyst – Song One (You’re Far Gone)

Visit my music and poetry site at: https://HelloSaturday.com

Hello Saturday!

This song was recorded during the ongoing lockdown in Toronto, and it’s been quite a struggle: a string on my guitar broke, so I’ve been playing with only 5 strings; then my laptop acted up and wouldn’t turn on at times… but the hardest thing was to concentrate and complete the task.

With everything going on in the world right now, there are moments one may ask oneself, “Ah, what’s the point?” Sounds of ambulance siren at night, a few panic attacks, and my sleep cycle been out of whack. But there were excellent moments too: one late night of recording I suddenly discovered how to strum the guitar with a “swing” feel, I was so excited I couldn’t sleep! I sent a demo of the song to my sister, and she really liked it. She let the kids listen to it, and they liked it too. Then I decided to cut my own hair, halfway through I was scared, but I couldn’t possibly stop there until it was done. I’ve been dancing around the house a lot these days, with my wireless headphone on, and it helps me sleep better, slim down nicely, and improve my sense of rhythm.

I wrote this song back in Oct 2018. It was the first song I’ve ever written, both lyrics and music, hence the title: Song One. The song sounds like a heartache, but it’s actually about a failed film project. I spent five years to write a movie script, my first ever, for an actress that inspired me, and then another year trying to contact her and make the film. The script was both brilliant and terrible! Looking back, it was no wonder she wasn’t interested! But what shattered me the most was the realization that she was no longer the same person that inspired the script. She had changed with time and became quite a dull version of herself. And there was nothing left for me to do.

So I put the project aside, and almost immediately started to write poems and songs, which I’d never done before, as a much needed new outlet. There wasn’t much ambition at the beginning. Almost none. But one song came, and then another, and another…

The very first song I wrote was actually Song Zero (Angel Mine), with lyrics by Hank Williams, from his lost notebook. I used 3 simple chords: [C], [F], [G] to write the music, recorded it on my iPhone, and sent it to my family. They seemed to like it. My oldest sister said if I’d had proper training, I could’ve been a musician! Mom said it would’ve conveyed more emotions if I’d written my own lyrics!

I thought to myself, “Hmm, Big Sis, I think I can write music with no proper training!” “Hmm, Mom… I didn’t even know if I could write music, let alone both music AND lyrics!” But what Mom said made me think, and so I tried it. And thus Song One (You’re Far Gone) was written. At the time I didn’t have much sense of rhythm, and didn’t know how to arrange a song in a time signature. So I wrote the song with no time signature, and played the guitar with a simple down strum on every beat. I still did that for a long time afterwards, only until recently when I started to focus on learning more about rhythms and time signatures. So I added a rhythm to the song.

These days I’m quite happy writing and singing my own songs. And sometimes I fancy the day when I can call myself a musician.

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Song One (You’re Far Gone)
Written and performed by Gnocchi Artyst.
Subtitled in English and Vietnamese.
Copyright © 2019 — Please do not use without permission.
Gnocchi Artyst – Song Twelve (How Much Is A Good Song Worth?)

Visit my music and poetry site at: https://HelloSaturday.com

Hello Saturday!

The danger of being family or friend to an artist is you don’t know when they’re gonna put you in a song! 🙂

My family and the people around me are nice people. And they love me very much. My parents are artistic themselves, but they have their fears. They consider an artistic endeavour frivolous: if it doesn’t make money, it’s best to stay as a hobby! Or if one really wants to pursue it, one’d better be trained professionally.

I try to reject both notions!

I started this path because I had something to say. And as long as I still feel that strong need to bare my soul to you, dear world, I WILL find a way to express it, using whatever little I’ve got.

And I want to see how far I can go with it!

For me, this path is strangely both a need AND a choice.

– A need because if I don’t do it, I feel miserable!

– A choice because I can do many other things well, and have earned a comfortable living doing them.

I’m certainly not a starving artist, who can’t do anything else! But that means that taking this path is a strong need, and for that matter, a strong choice.

It’s easy to say, “Don’t worry about others’ opinions.” The thing is when that opinion comes from a person you love, it matters! The greater the love, the more it will devastate.

* * *

Being an artist, I feel like a self-involved egomaniac sometimes. And I feel lucky that my family and friends do care about my works.

It hasn’t always been like that, though! My family hasn’t always been comfortable with my songs. One of my sisters kept sending me motivational stuff, but refused to listen to my songs. I told her, “Stop sending me these stuff! Just listen my songs and let me know what you think, for goodness’s sake!” So she started listening to the songs, just so that I wouldn’t yell at her anymore. But eventually she came to like them very much, and has been giving me great constructive feedback since. I consider that a true success, I’ve earned myself a real fan!

* * *

The thing that worries me the most is having nothing to say. I think that’s the thing that haunts most artists, that the well inside has dried up. And it can happen anytime, at any stage of an artist’s career.

People think because I have this “talent”, I could whip out a song, whenever I want to, just like that! The thing is it is just as mysterious to me as it is to you how a song comes to me. How did I get that line? Or that melody? I don’t know! They just came.

Many times they woke me up in the middle of the night, and I had to get up to jot them down quickly before I forgot. Then the next day I sat down and worked on getting to know them.

* * *

This song is mainly Pentatonic (5 note scale), because I like the sweet sounding and simplicity of it. It’s only until near the end of the song that I break out of the scale to reach for some heights.

With this song, I tried to improve my time-keeping and rhythm-playing. And I feel I’m closer to become a musician because of that.

There were quite a few mistakes in this recording, but I wanted to start another song already, so I just accepted it as it was.

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Song Twelve (How Much Is A Good Song Worth?)
Written and performed by Gnocchi Artyst (Feb 2020).
Subtitled in English and Vietnamese.
Copyright © 2020 — Please do not use without permission.
Gnocchi Artyst – Song Two (On The Edge) – Version 2

Visit my music and poetry site at: https://HelloSaturday.ca

Hello Saturday!

The original version of Song Two (On The Edge) is rather “vanilla” musically. (Listen to it at: https://youtu.be/PaszcSHWhYM ). It was one of the first few songs I wrote, and I didn’t know much to play around with.

Then the other day I was doodling on the piano, and a strange chord caught my ears. It sounded very different than the other chords. It stirred something up in me. I looked it up online, and it’s called a diminished chord. I thought, hmm…I’d like to use that in a song!

So I sat down and wrote a second version for Song Two (On The Edge), adding a diminished chord to the chord progression to make it a bit more “spicy”, and then ending the song on a suspended chord, which seems rather fitting.

Let me know which version “tastes” better for you!

* My Mom helped me picking out the best recording for this version (Version 2). I had recorded several takes last Friday in Toronto, before leaving for California to spend Thanksgiving holiday with my family. Here I caught a bad cold, that made my head cloudy and my body ache all over. I couldn’t trust my judgement in that state, so I asked Mom for help. Here’re her reviews of the 3 takes I had her listen to:

– Take #1: smooth and easy on the ear, one can listen to it over and over.

– Take #2: not as smooth, but there are subtle accented parts that make you pay attention to the words being sung.

– Take #3: the accented parts are not as refine as those of Take #2.

So Take #2 is Mom’s pick, and that is what you’re listening to here.

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Song Two (On The Edge) – Version 2
Written and performed by Gnocchi Artyst (Nov 2019).
Subtitled in English and Vietnamese.
Copyright © 2019 — Please do not use without permission.