New Tune – “Dancing with Fireflies”
To begin the year I composed a little tune that I named "Dancing with Fireflies."
Taking Liberties with the National Anthem
I'm not a fan of singing the national anthem before a baseball game. Patriotism and the anthem have nothing to do with playing a sport. Absolutely nothing. The anthem wasn't even played at Major League Baseball games until 1918. There's nothing magic about the anthem. The lyrics are not compelling today and it's not even a beautiful melody. It is a great excuse for powerful people to push ordinary people around by challenging their patriotism if they resist. That's why, even since the anthem started being played in 1918, no one was able to uproot it and yank it out of baseball games to speed up the games (which desperately need speeding up). In fact, given that there were 2,430 Major League Baseball games played in 2022, assuming that it takes 2 minutes to sing the anthem and given that 65 million American fans attended attended MLB baseball games in 2022, this means that more than 5 Billion person/hours were spent listening to the National Anthem at MLB games in 2022 (5,265,000,000). The song is not a fan favorite. It doesn't stand on its own. I doubt that of those fans ever bought a recording of the national anthem, none of them sing it in the shower, and none of them seek to listen to it as a work of art.
Enter musician Jose Feliciano, who sang the national anthem for Game 5 of the World Series between the Cardinals and the Tigers. Here is Jose's unique version, which is much in keeping with his musical style. I enjoyed it.
But this version was too much for some of the fans, who booed after Jose finished singing. The Tigers even blamed him for the losing that game. Here's what Feliciano had to say about his version of the anthem:
Baseball is permeated with ritual, one of which is the singing of the national anthem, which must be played, or else. And even if one is a gifted musician, it must be song close enough to the standard version, or else. Why? Just because.
Samara Joy and Antonio McClendon Spruce Up “Oh Holy Night”
Adolphe Adams wrote "Oh, Holy Night" back in 1847. I would love to magically bring him back to live so I could see the look on his face when he hears what these extraordinary modern musicians have done to spruce up his composition.
A friend of mine introduced me to Samara's music last night and I was blown away. Especially when her vocals are supported by an incredible group of musicians, including Pascuale Grasso, who must be from another planet. He is that amazing.
Life After Leaf: An Artistic Celebration of Yellowstone’s Dead Trees
Are you looking to buy a unique Christmas gift for friends or family? Consider my newly published art book: Life After Leaf.
In October 2021 I traveled to Yellowstone National Park twice for the purpose of shooting images of the trees. All the images in my book were shot along high altitude hiking trails
Over the years, I have developed Photoshop artistry techniques for digitally blending my images of trees with texture images of rocks, clouds, water and many other natural objects and vignettes that I captured this year. In total, my book draws upon my collection of more than 2,000 images of trees and textures. I use Photoshop to blend the tree and texture layers. I then use additional Photoshop tools such as adjustment layers, masking, gradients, blurring, and lighting techniques to wrestle these abstract images into final form. These techniques often involve considerable trial-and-error and the end product often consists of dozens of PS layers. While working on these images, they sometimes take on a life of their own.
Life After Leaf contains 72 photos taken at Yellowstone National Park along with more than 160 works of art featuring Yellowstone’s dead trees. The price is $45 and shipping is free. I invite you to order your copy at my Digicrylics website.
Or feel free to browse my other artwork at my two art websites, Digicrylics.com and Erichvieth.com.
