Quito Compartido

After ditching the hostel in June, I moved into a house in Caballito, Buenos Aires.  There, I met a couple musical people that I loved playing with: David from El Salvador and Margot from France.  David played guitar, and he and I started by playing this song:

Jason Wade - You Belong to Me 
(I'm on vocals and accordion)


We played a whole bunch of other stuff, and then Margot came, and we played more stuff, but unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to record much of what Margot, David and I sang together, and the stuff we did record wasn't our best.  So here are a couple with Margot, and I'm sorry I wasn't able to get better recordings!

Amy Winehouse - No Good
We had never played this one before, either of us.  I am playing guitar, Margot is singing.  Pretty good for a first time!


And from here on out, unless stated otherwise, it's David McKinley on guitar/harmonica, and me on vocals/keyboard/accordion in order of (my) favoritude:

Elvis Prestley - Falling in Love With You


Righteous Brothers - Unchained Melody


Elvis Prestley - Heartbreak Hotel


Ray Charles - Hit the Road, Jack

500 Miles

Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bad Moon Rising


Sixpence None the Richer - Kiss Me


Scorpions - Winds of Change


Sublime - Lovin' is What I Got

This one we had never tried before.  Pretty good for the first time!

DAVID & MY SONGS:
David's Song

David & Sarah - Quito Compartido
We wrote this one night - a night or two before I left


BLOOPERS:
Bitch of the South

David and I wrote this one after I was being particularly complain-y and arrogant.

Jack Johnson - Better Together

Bob Marley - Redemption Song.

David kept insisting we do Jack Johnson and Bob Marley.  I ruin everything.

Zombies

C&D

MuFuckers Named David

What Am I Doing?

The Garden Abides

While I was in Argentina, I was lucky enough to join a rock band from Neuquen, Argentina called The Garden Abides.

I played accordion (of course,) and a little bit of keyboard and a teensy bit of back-up vocals.  (An "Aaaah" in one song).


The band was 7 people: (left to right, top row first:) Pato (bass), Jero (lead guitar), Jesus (electronics/ guitar/extra percussion), me (accordion), Seba (vocals/guitar), Yaco (drums), and Naty (keyboard/extra percussion).

 They had already come out with an album (Blossom Riders on a Two Week Dimension)

... Actually, maybe I should start at the beginning.  This is a cool example of how bad stuff turns good.

When I was working at the hostel Tango Backpackers in Buenos Aires, I met these two people: Jesus and Naty, who said they were in a band in Neuquen.   I laughed and said if they needed an accordion player, to let them know.

Later that evening, I went to a tango lesson.  This was possibly the worst tango lesson I'd ever had.  Or really, the worst learning experience I'd ever had.  I was trying out this new place on Avenida de Mayo for the first time.  The teacher was really mean, and my partner, who incidentally, was far worse than me, kept trying to correct me.  (The thing about tango dancing is that if the leader can't lead, the follower is lost.)  I ended up leaving the class early, and crying on the subte home.  Anyhow, I come storming into the hostel, and Den saw how upset I was (I'm not exactly a closed book), and offered me a beer.  I took it, and went up to the roof to play accordion and drink a beer all alone.  Finally, I got tired of myself, and went into the roof kitchen to eat my food.  But of course, someone had stolen it, and so I had no food.  The grocery stores in Buenos Aires close at 8, so I was clean out of luck.  I said something disparing, and the people eating at the tables asked me what was wrong.  (It was 4/6ths of the existing band - Seba, Jero, Naty and Seba).  I told them, and they invited me to share their food.  This was only the first of many examples of this group's generosity and kindness.  Then, they got out their musical instruments, and we jammed.  I ended up getting a recording of our jam.  These are very rough.  Scroll down if you want to listen to more fine-tuned stuff.


The Beatles - Hide Your Love Away

Manamana

Nirvana - The Man Who Sold the World & David Bowie - Major Tom

Mr. Hippo!

They left for Neuquen the next morning, much to my great sadness, and I thought I'd never hear from them again.  However, a couple weeks later, I got a facebook message from Naty:

Hello Sarah!! Today we came up with an exellent idea, I hope you like it and say yes.....
We'll play our first live concert next december 18th here in Neuquen Capital.
You are invited to that concert....we want you to play the acordion with us on stage.....if you want we can offer you a confortable place to stay in one of our home's (it could be sebastian's for example, that his house is bigger) and the ticket back to Buenos Aires. So, the only thing you have to pay is the bus ticket to get here, and you can stay as much time as you like.
Well, think about it and let us know...(we hope you say yes)
hahahaha but don't fell presure!
kisses

For some reason, I almost didn't go (something to do with the vacation-time of the bf at the time and Neuquen being 17 hours away by bus), but I got my act together, and met them a week ahead of time, rehearsed twice, then did the concert.  So. Much. Fun.

Here are some of the songs I played with the band in Dec in in la Sala Conrado Villegas - I later joined them for another concert in Jan '10 in el Teatro del Viento.  Here are some highlights:

Still Hurts
(I play accordion)

I beat up your ghost, I forget your smile

I’m happy alone, I have all the time

could walk down the street and think of this band

but the pain still hurts

I got a new place, I stopped with the drugs

I bought some stuff and I’m making new songs

I met this girl, I think I’m falling in love

but the pain still hurts

I got a new friend, I could talk to my dad

I don’t miss the way you always smelled

I can defend myself when people are bad

but the pain still hurts

That Night
(accordion)

that night

the way you talked

your face smiling

the guitar on your hands

your cloth and the photo on the elevator

we’re both walking

the things you looked at

we’re sitting together

your hair

your face smiling and the things that bothers you

your touch

your questions

your breath

your smell

that fucking song and the memories

the cars

the waiting

the tea

our cloth

your last look and the night falling down on me

Radiohead - Karma Police
(accordion)

Captain
(accordion)

wake me up before I leave this place

It’s been a while since I’m confused and scared

you know what it takes, you know how to play this game

twenty years have passed and I’m still 

wondering where could you, where could you be

but I’m still here and I’m still hoping to see you again

the time we had it went so fast, like cold

and now the feeling is so absurd and true

everything I was, everything you were it’s gone

twenty years have passed and I’m still 

wondering where could you, where could you be

Becoming
(accordion)

Townes Van Zandt - Waiting Around to Die
(accordion)

Original Townes


Canned Heat - Going up the Country
(keyboard)

Original Canned Heat

Where the Sun Shines
(back up vocals - very feint)

I like to be where the sun shines

I’m never gonna feel this great again

and I won’t waste another word

I’m doing what my feelings say

and all these thoughts I have in my mind

I swear I’m never gonna sell my soul again

I like the deep ocean

that’s the place where the truth really lives

I’m gonna take what you gave me

and I will use it against them

all these thoughts I have in my mind

I swear I’m never gonna sell my soul again

I like the deep ocean

that’s the place where the truth really lives

I’m gonna take what you gave me

and I will use it against them

all these thoughts I have in my mind

I swear I’m never gonna sell my soul again

Here's a video I made of "Illusion".  I'm not in it, but I filmed everything on my panasonic tourist camera, and spent 10 or so hours editing the thing on the horrible video-editing equipment on my computer.
Illusion

They later moved to La Plata, and I only had the opportunity to play in one more concert with them in El Clave (September '10), 

Anyhow, they are some of my favorite people in the world, and inspired me to compose. 

These Lines

by Sarah Passemar




This song began with chords. Sitting in a white, plastic, one-piece factory chair in the backyard concrete patio of the band's new house in La Plata, I began fiddling around with a guitar, and I started writing down the slightly irregular chord progression.  It felt as if the chords already existed, and I only had to figure out which strings to touch on the guitar to make it right. (They probably do in at least 27 different famous songs...)

When I started singing along to the recording I'd made of the chords, I stopped short: - the timing was funky.  It turned out, I'd accidentally written it in 5/4!  I figured it was probably because I had just been screwing around with Dave Brubeck Quartet's jazz piece, "Take Five" on the piano an hour or so before.

The inevitably depressing lyrics followed with no trouble.  The idea for this song had vaguely occurred to me a couple months before.

Someone mentioned recently that I should write an upbeat song.  Haha, very funny.

I can't remember the last time I cried
But I'm feeling safe now behind these lines

When I'm alone I feel fine
No one can touch me from here

No
I'm not scared,
I am fine
I am fine
Please don't go
Please don't come
here again
I am fine

When I'm alone I have time
No one can take what is mine

I can't remember the last time I smiled
But these bitter lines go for miles and miles

There is a mark on the wall
And I feel nothing at all...

Angels

or "That Radiohead wannabe song"
by Sarah Passemar


A couple things lent themselves to making this song.  The first was probably a Man Man song I'd never heard before.  The chords called to me, so I copied the chords and stole them.  The second thing was that Pato, Seba and I were working on covering a Radiohead song* a month or so before, and the song was in my head.  The third was that I was interested in the possible concept for the band's second album, and I wanted to try an experiment.

When I finally played it for Seba, I said, "It really sounds like a Radiohead song.  Can you tell which one?"  He said, "Nope."
But then when I played it for Jesus, (without the disclaimer,) he said, "You've been listening to too much Radiohead."

 I don't think this song will be done ever again because of it's similarity to that other song, but I still like it anyhow.

Lyrics:


I beg
of you
To let me have
Some silence
From the wasps
And the stings
of my sorrow
.
Fate
Wherever you go
Wherever you take me
I'll follow
Even though
We've already been
Here before
.
Last night
In my sleep
You gave me words 
of wisdom
Take 
me in
I will follow
.
Come 
my child
Rest 
your head 
on my shoulder
I'll never 
lead you 
astray
.
Just breathe
 in my breath
And let my life
Refill you
You only 
Had
To Ask
.
But I
-No more doubts 
Can't believe
-No more fears 
You're here with me
-Time to o-   pen
within me
-Up your eyes
This can't
-Time to open
can't be real
-Up your thoughts
 Be real
-open your heart 

*(Trivia: if you're a Radiohead fan, try to listen to the song and guess.)

In the Morning

Original chords by Jesus; Guitar played by Seba; voice, arrangement, lyrics by Sarah Passemar



This song has a beginning, like most things except God, and here it is:
My band (The Garden Abides) was improvising in Neuquen, Argentina in December 2009 before our concert, and a tiny portion of the jam was caught on Jesus's poor-quality phone recording.  After which, I completely forgot about it.

When I made my way back to Neuquen the following month, the band said the tune had been stuck in their heads.  So I took the chords that Jesus had composed, and wrote lyrics around Mamina's kitchen table on a blue sheet of scrap paper.  (What is it about scrap paper that inspires the poetic juices to flow like a newly cleaned drainage pipe?)

The next day, Seba, Pato and I went to Pato's house on Lake Pelligrini in Rio Negro, and I put an arrangement together, adding a couple chords and making it weird.  Seba helped me fine tune it, and we recorded it there.  Pato started working on a bass line, and Seba started doing cool slide-guitar bits, but I drank some of the local water and was completely incapacitated, and unable to record the bass line and slidy bits.  I blame the sunrise.



In the morning...
In the morning
I lie in my bed
In the morning
I repeat what you said
in my head

over and over...

Everything can wait
Everything can wait
Everything can wait
until six days from now

Your apricot heart
Was pitted last week
By the garbage truck man

In the morning
I shut out the day
But all of my Dreams
Keep leaking away
Through the cracks in the wall

In the morning
In the morning
In the morning
Still don't know if you lied
And now the morning
ocean's new tide
wants to spill from my eyes

Over and over...

Everything can wait
Everything can wait
Everything can wait
until six years from now

My brain takes its turns through it's
regular waves and I
wish you were here

Darkly Dark

by Sarah Passemar



I agonized over the lyrics of "Darkly Dark,"
I began writing it somewhere in Bolivia, kept working on it for days, tried writing a melody for it, but it wasn't "right" until I was able to sit in front of a keyboard in Neuquen.  Then everything fit, suddenly, and I composed/recorded it in 4-5 hours.

The song began from the phrase "Darkly Dark," which sat in an "interesting for poetry?" document for some time before I honed in on it.

So this is the second 'serious' song with lyrics I've written.  (The Troll song doesn't count as I can't listen to it without hiding my face behind something.)  

Darkly Dark

A shadow is trespassing
On the garden of my mind
He waits behind my vision
Where he draws a darkly line


And his path solidifies
As his steps unveil the snow
And with savage trepidation
Webbed winds begin to blow


To whom do you belong
Will you let me see your face
For Darkly Dark, you're waiting
Matching footfalls. masked disgrace.


My lips are sealed tightly
By a slender veil of ice
Your whispered words aren't truth
But neither are they lies. 


You plague me with impressions
That you plant inside my mind
You stand inside the garden
That I thought I'd left behind.


To whom do you belong
Will you let me see your face
For Darkly Dark, you're waiting
Matching footfalls. masked disgrace.


To whom do I belong
Would you let me see your face
For Darkly Dark, you're waiting
Matching footfalls. masked disgrace.

Bridgeville Troll

by Sarah Passemar

This song was for our Rural Residency program at Dell'Arte.  We went out to an elementary school deep in the country, interacted with the kids, and had 10 days to create a complete show.  The premise was: a troll steals the community fire truck (yes, I got to ride away on a fire truck cackling maniacally... I can check that off the bucket list), and the rest of the community has to bond together to defeat the troll and get the truck back.  

The song came really easily - simple chords, because I didn't really want to think too hard about playing anything in a moss costume.

Two words: Children's Theater.

OK, a couple more words.  Although I like this song, I'm also a little embarrassed by it.

Rocks & stones and

Tyrent's thrones

I'll throw your bones in the river

A raging flood 

Of roots and mud

And crimson blood by the river

With a stroke of luck

I came and took 

Your fire-truck to my river

I'll ease your strife

With the edge/(with a twist) of my knife

And I'll give your life to the river

You can't fight me

You're down to three

Your history ends at the river

Rock and bone

You'll all stand alone

And I'll turn you to stone by the river

I spent most of the time sewing a headdress out of Spanish moss, blue jay feathers, thistles, and various other nature stuffs, and sewing spanish moss to a sweat shirt.  

The best pics I have of the troll headdress.

Headdress with costume:

A look at the more complete costume:

Group photo on the back of the fire truck:

Almost Lover

by A Fine Frenzy

I listened to this song, figured out the chords, learned it, and recorded it all in the period of a couple hours.  Then I think I performed it that night at Stardough's open mike.

I really like A Fine Frenzy - she's one of my favorite musical artists.  This is from her first album, "One Cell In the Sea" which came out 2007.  She has a new album out called "Bomb In A Birdcage" (2009)

Almost Lover

Your fingertips across my skin
The palm trees swaying in the wind
Images

You sang me Spanish lullabies
The sweetest sadness in your eyes
Clever trick

I never want to see you unhappy
I thought you'd want the same for me

Chorus

Goodbye, my almost lover
Goodbye, my hopeless dream
I'm trying not to think about you
Can't you just let me be?
So long, my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
Should've known you'd bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do

We walked along a crowded street
You took my hand and danced with me
Images

And when you left you kissed my lips
You told me you would never let forget these images, no

I never want to see you unhappy
I thought you'd want the same for me

Chorus

I cannot go to the ocean
I cannot drive the streets at night
I cannot wake up in the morning
Without you on my mind
So you're gone and I'm haunted
And I bet you are just fine
Did I make it that easy
To walk right in and out of my life?

Chours

Melodrama

I'm not going to speak too much about the painful process of this theater piece, except to say that I was miserable and not very much fun to work with during the 5 weeks of our Melodrama section.  (I figured out why I was such a horrid wretch about a year later, in a lovely "Ah Hah!" moment on the roof of the hostel in I was working.)



I composed everything in this piece, except for the violin, which Walken Schwigart composed and played.  It worked perfectly with our piece, which took place in a desert, and was very depressing.  Ronlin, our genius tyrant of a professor, actually gave me a shiny, rare compliment about it, which I treasure in the deepest part of my heart.

Hamlet

In the early months of Dell'Arte, we also put on a really awesome fifteen minute production of Hamlet at Dell'Arte which included Ophelia jumping from a high place, dumping her body in a trash can, throwing flour, and the King chowing down on chicken at Ophelia's funeral.  I think it ended up being one of my favorite theater pieces.

In the week and a half we had to throw it together, I quickly composed a bunch of stuff in an hour or so, only 1 of which was used: the "Larded" round.  But here's my favorite of the stuff.


Larded (round) - text by Shakespeare


Larded all with sweet flowers
Which bewept to the ground will not go
With true love's showers

Larded (w/accompaniment)


Dead and Gone (round) text by Shakespeare


She is dead and gone, lady
She is dead and gone
At his heels a grass green turf
At his head a stone.

Fugal Choral - (having fun with multiple vocal layers)


So, I guess I've now got a habit of putting songs from Shakespeare's plays to music.

Theater Camp

When I was a councillor at USPA summer camps in 2008, I met a bunch of really awesome musically talented high school students, and we had fun recording covers. I was able to get to know bands I'd never heard of them, and we covered some familiar bands as well. (I love singing along to songs I don't know - it tests my ability to foresee chord progressions. We'd pop the lyrics up on my laptop and I'd make up the harmonies.) This was also the first summer I'd never really tried "jamming" on the piano before.

I'm only going to put a couple of the covers we did up here, because they aren't rehearsed more than one play-through. Some, not even that.


These Days - Nico:
I think my absolute favorite is done with Serena Berman on melody, Tommy Schulz on guitar, and me on vocal harmony.


Part I - Band of Horses
I'd never heard of Band of Horses before that summer. This is Tommy on guitar and singing, me on harmony, and Taylor Bostwick and Claire Usherson on back-up (I think...)


Fake Plastic Trees - Radiohead
Tommy on guitar and singing, me on harmony, and Evan Boswell Buhmschwack-Greenwald on guitar and singing bits,


House of the Rising Sun - The Animals
Tommy, Evan, and me.


Mad Mad World - The Red Paintings
Tommy, Evan, and me.


Walk into the Sea - Tommy & Sarah
A jam of no consequence. I think it's really pretty, though.

Capstone Project

For my Senior project at Principia College, I put on an hour classical piano concert. This is the live performance in May 2008. I had a pretty dress, and I dyed my hair the day before the concert. It was unarguably burgundy, and I was terrified it looked awful, but it ended up matching the dress perfectly. Cameron Hanses did my hair all pretty. I think she was probably my biggest emotional support during that time. :)

The Music Department apparently convened at one point, and decided I wasn't going to be able to do a full hour, and tried to convince me to cut it down to a 1/2 hour concert.  I knew I would be disappointed with myself if I didn't live up to my full potential, and so I doubled my efforts, determined to prove my worth. When I finally did the concert, my sweet, lovely voice teacher, Sarah Rockebrand who was lending a hand shaping me up, leaned over to Marie, my strict but amazing piano professor, and said, "It's a miracle."   I think the concert was the best I've ever played in my life.

There was also a really funny (in retrospect) debacle to do with the program notes I prepared for the concert.  I had emailed them to someone a night or two before the concert, not bothering to take any more responsibility than that, assuming once I emailed the file, it would be taken care of.

Lo and behold, 5 minutes before the concert, Marie, my amazing (but very strict) piano professor told me there were no program notes.  I was nervous enough, already.  She told me I would have to announce the program to the audience.  I hadn't practiced announcing anything, and didn't know if I would remember the order of the names of the Bach pieces, the numbers of some of the movements, or the french names of the Debussy pieces.  I ended up doing OK, but that was a lesson to me in follow-through.


J.S. Bach - English Suite No.1 in A

I. Prelude


II. Allemande


III. Courante i & ii


IV. Sarabande


V. Bouree i & ii


VI. Gigue


Johannes Brahms - Rhapsody Op.79 No.2


Claude Debussy - Selections from Preludes, Book I

(dansuese de delphes) (the dancers of Delphi)


(la fille aved le cheveux lin) (the girl with the flaxen hair)


(des pas sur la neige) (footsteps in the snow)


(voiles) (sails or veils)


Franz Liszt - Hungarina Rhapsody No.13

Take oh Take

from Shakespeare's Measure for Measure

I think this was the first time I'd ever put something to music. I composed this right before the England Abroad when I was in France in the attic of my grandfather's house around August 2006, with the intention that it might be played during the Measure for Measure production that quarter.

I had JUST started learning guitar, so I barely knew chords, and had trouble getting from chord to chord.

Seth Bleecker was the original voice in the song.

Here is a video of him singing the piece in Measure for Measure rehearsal.

(and yes, it's sideways. apparently, youtube flips them. And I spent so long downloading a program to flip it on my computer, too!)

Take Oh Take these lips away
That so sweetly were forscorned
And those eyes, the break of Day
Lights that do mislead the morn
But these kisses bring again
Seals of love, but sealed in vain


Here is me singing the full piece, maybe a year or so later?

Fenice Fu

by Jacopo Da Bologna

I had just recorded "Thought Horse (Draft)" in winter 07, and now this amazing program on my computer Garage Band was waiting for me to experiment. I'd been going through a phase of Medieval/Renaissance music, so I decided to try learning and recording this song, which is actually meant to be sung by a man and a castrati: a man whose manhood has been taken from him to preserve his sweet pre-teen voice.

So, Ol' Jacopo, who lived in the mid 1300s wrote this song. I think it's a Madrigal.
It was in my NAWM (Norton Anthology of Western Music) (THANK YOU MUSIC HISTORY! SHOUT OUT TO DR. NEAR!) which I had bought for all the cool music.

Thought Horse

(The Pencil Piece)
by Sarah Passemar

I composed this when I was living in the Writing House at Principia college... winter quarter my senior year... ...2007?

It's the first song I ever composed in my life.
Well... besides a little piano ditty when I was in second grade for Odyssey of the Mind that everyone said sounded like the Adams Family theme song, despite the fact that I didn't even know who the Adams Family were.  (Our family had rabbit ears, and thus, our tv only sported 3 channels.)
Oh, yeah, and that hymn assignment thing for Diatonic Harmony class.

But this is the first one that counts.
Say I.
(And so say we all.)

I started by writing the lyrics, then recording the piano part, then the vocals, a bit of guitar, then a bass line (that was the quarter I bought my bass), and then, late at night, I recorded the percussion.  The percussion is pencils being tapped on the desk in a quiet "I don't want to disturb anyone, but I really can't stop making this music 'cause I'm in the zone" kind of way.

It was the first time I had used any sort of recording program, so it sounds a little messy and doesn't quiiiite line up. I had intended to re-record it, which is why it is still titled "Thought Horse (Draft)" (I don't actually really like the title, but it kind of stuck.) When I played it for the band a couple months ago, I explained how I had recorded it, and they dubbed it "The Pencil Piece."


(music players equipt with fancy colors for your viewing pleasure)

The lyrics:


I saddle my thoughts
And go for a ride
Through the foggy fields
Of tomorrow

I follow a path
Familiar and tried
Which I imagine
You've ridden before

Oh, but somehow
It seems that yesterday's lies
Are barricading
My way

And what little that is left
Of our cirulean skies
Is a friendless, godforsaken
Grey

Tomorrow is just
Another yesterday
With little left
Left up to chance

An overcast memory
On constant replay
Living out
A lifeless romance

I guess I should put
Your memory to pasture
But it's hard to change habits
Midstream

But the fragments of you
Are dissolving faster
Than the shrouded whisper
Of a dream