This will be my tenth album of original songs (140+) since I began performing in Second Life a little more than four years ago and I have decided to make a fuss of it - in part to make up for the complete lack of fuss over the previous nine. 

For the first time I am going to wait until all songs are finished (apart from one) before people get to hear them. Then I will perform a number of shows in SL that include just my new songs. The only song this doesn't apply to is, Venice as I have already put it up on FB for folks to listen to.

This group of songs came in such a rush that there is still something to be completed in almost every song before it is ready to be performed and I am a bit overwhelmed by it at the moment. But by the end of June I should be able to plan the concert dates.

I think this group of songs fit nicely in with the direction my songwriting has been moving over the last four years. I am very content with them overall and I hope some of them will appeal  to the people I write them for - you! I need to be locked in a room, or taken to a beautiful beach house and be waited upon and pampered until the album is completed. Perhaps I just need some gentle prodding :) Go ahead - prod me!

So here then are the working titles of the new songs I hope to finish for this album. We shall see how many made the cut once I get to the new album shows. 

As with most of my albums a number of songs are co-written with, Experiment Rhode.

Thanks for reading

Hugs 'n things

To Another's Heart

Feeling Small

In The Pouring Rain

Stranger At Loves Door

Venice

I Saw A Rocketship

In The Vastness Of Space

Magenta Moons

Murray River Steamboat

I Saw You First

The Soldier

I Am A Child

Leaving Tuscon

Spring And Fall

Not Another

Answers

A Story About Trees

Getting personal with love (punctuate as you please)

I am more inclined to be personal, and wordy, in my blog. More so than I am on FB where there is so much to take in that long updates have to be really interesting to get my attention. Perhaps if you have found your way to my blog you actually have a few minutes to spare. Takes them all :)
I have recently commenced a musical project that I am calling, 20 Love Songs. In short, I want to see how many songs I have written fall into the different categories of (romantic) love that I have known or witnessed. Twenty is just a guess for now. I still don't know whether the project will just be made up of "romantic" love songs or whether I will venture into other types of love.
I am not rushing. I am starting out by not being too wordy in my descriptions though I know when I have been thinking about all this there have been times when I thought there was lots and lots that could be written. 
In the beginning I was also very attracted to having another person add their feelings/words about my categories and songs - to save me from having to over analyse my own work and to add a close but entirely separate perspective. I still like the thought of this.
THE START. About three years ago when Experiment first began to put SOAR tunes onto CDs he asked me and Charles for some liner notes to go with the songs that we had written. I love liner notes! But by the time I got started on my third and fourth songs I came to the conclusion that they were all about the same thing - "she up and left me and I wasn't coping very well". This may have been easy for others to see in my early songwriting. Not me :). And in my defence I do, mostly, just write the songs that come out of my heart, mouth, head and I don't try to write about particular things/themes. So at times I do have a bunch of  songs being written that (over) represent similar things.

The truth is that when I was younger I had a very limited appreciation of love, in particular of romantic love. It was deep and passionate for sure but at times all consuming and irrational as well.
THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS. Fact is that over the years, with reflection, with some growing up, with some wasted years, with some life changing experiences, with the help of some remarkable people, I could see love in so many more things and people, and in experiences and situations than I had before. I feel so much better for it is all I can say. And many of these found their way into songs.
WHY THE PROJECT THOUGH. Love is simple and love is complex. Love is for a day or forever. Love is close and distant. Love is obvious and love is hidden. Love is everything and love is boundless. People do fall in love with their first girlfriend/boyfriend and get married and have families and live happily after. Some people may know romantic love every single day of their adult lives while the journey of others is littered with highs and lows. Some people spend more time alone than they do together. But in the stories of our lives, love is love however it has chosen to visit us. This is why the project is about the kinds of love I have known, or observed because one persons experience could never embrace all manner of love.
The project is going to live on my website - easier to do incrementally, and to edit. Easy to find, here.
http://www.brightoh.com/Bright/TWENTY.html

PROGRESS. At the time of doing this blog entry I have the first five categories listed (no logical order to the list yet).
1. Loving the one person forever though you will never see them again.
2. Growing apart without even knowing it.
3. Long distance love.
4. Seeing someone you love being hurt by someone they love.
5. Even when a proposal is rejected - it is still love.
Thanks for reading :)
Hugs
Bright

2012 IN REVIEW - CD3

I am always especially fond of new songs and thus this is the batch of songs that currently receives this extra affection. Inevitably my feelings about some of them change over time, but that is for another day :) Only three out of the thirteen songs included on this CD are yet to be debuted in my shows in, SecondLife. 
I was pleased with what began to flow when this songwriting burst began in mid September so I worked hard to capture as many songs as I could before I ran out of inspiration and energy. Which I did, but not before completing a group of songs I am very fond of.

Unexpected
Jasmine
Innocence
Photographs
Pretty Boy
Will You Be
Afterglow
The Garden
Charon's Moon
The Hourglass
Connecticut
Many McLean
Only Yesterday

When I had almost finished writing, Innocence I knew that there was so much more that could be written about this story than would fit into one song. I decided instead to write a separate song, Jasmine to tell more of the story that came before, Innocence. At the same time Experiment and I had been discussing an unnamed song (became, Unexpected) we had begun in mid-2011 but not finished. We hadn't finished it because we felt that the imagery we had used in the lyrics was somehow incomplete and we weren't sure how to solve the problem. However in the context of, Innocence and Jasmine we came to see that it made the ideal first song of what is now a trilogy of songs telling the one love story. Love found unexpectedly in an exotic location, Mandalay!
Photographs followed quickly. A simple idea that took much trial and error to come up with the best set of images to use. When so many lyrics are considered and rejected I am always left with the feeling that maybe we didn't choose all the best ones for the final song. Nonetheless I am very happy with how this song turned out.
Pretty Boy followed with a  tongue in cheek look at where I might be in twelve months time. I haven't sung it in SL yet because it hasn't fitted into the type of shows I have mostly been doing these last few months. The Hourglass almost had the same fate until I debuted it just in the last fortnight. This is a song about, disappointment but I mostly like it because of the overall feel of the song. I will sing it more when I fit it in around complementary songs.
An interesting challenge came next through a wonderful set of lyrics called, Charon's Moon written by, Experiment. This song completed another trilogy, The  Crescent Moon and Raven Moon preceding. I think the feel of the music is right for the intensity of the lyrics. The story woven through the lyrics of these three songs by, Experiment is quite a journey.
Just as the clarity of this wave of songwriting was coming to an end, Connecticut and Mandy McLean fought their way out. I call these two my bonus songs because they could almost have escaped my attention. Connecticut about what thoughts there are when your heart dwells on someone and places from long ago, and Mandy McLean, a tribute to every boy's first girlfriend :)
Only Yesterday was a song commenced in January 2011 and finally completed in December 2012. I returned to the song because it had used some of the same harmony ideas as are used in, Unexpected. I am glad i returned to it. Lyrically it follows a path I have taken in a number of other songs - reflecting on hurtful events in the past and now seeing them in a bigger and sweeter light.
I cannot go past the tale of an unexpected encounter with love to be the name of this album. Innocence.
Thank you for reading and listening. If it were not for you so many of these songs would never have had a reason to be written. I am so glad they were.
Hugs
Bright

2012 IN REVIEW - CD2

My second album of 2012 is mostly made up of scattered songs less connected in time than the songs on the first and third albums.

The Real Part
Mother Dylan
East Of Nowhere
Endlessly
Falling
Eucalypt Candlelight
Where Our Secrets Are
All In A Circle
Friends And Lovers
The Unicorn's Promise

The Real Part is a light look at how falling in love can sweep a simple and indecisive man along. It is in the style of a previous song, 1993, both about how few questions some ask about love when they are young and falling in love. Mother Dylan invokes and combines the maternal spirit to six  unrelated things and suggests that it is very wise to do so. While Endlessly and East Of Nowhere are different styles of song they traverse some of the same themes. A man's final unexpected experience of love, East Of Nowhere, and how love's arrival can be in a moment at the end of a long struggle, in, Endlessly.
Two collaborations with, Experiment follow. The completion of a song begun years before by, EX with the addition by me of some chorus musical and lyrical variations. Aptly titled, Falling. And Eucalypt Candlelight based on Experiments lyrics recalling the sights and sounds and feelings of his youth and how easily they are still recalled now.
Where Our Secrets Are tells how sweetly a man may still remember a girl he loved and have no intention of stopping even though they are no longer together. Interestingly, All In A Circle follows this song with a warning about failing to make choices in love when you still have choices in love! Happily we can follow this with, Friends And Lovers written about two people clearly unaffected by the two previous songs :)
And finally, but specially, a song written by Experiment and I for our sweet and courageous friend, RebelMum. The album shall bear the name of her song, The Unicorn's Promise. Hugs to her :)

And that is it for CD2, complete at ten songs. The final  album for the year features fourteen songs which were written in the same burst of songwriting from September through November. It will be reviewed soon!
Thanks for reading.
Hugs
Bright

2012 IN REVIEW - CD1

About a year ago I blogged about the three albums worth of new songs written in 2011. I commented that at the end of the last burst of songwriting that year that I was exhausted and wasn't sure I had any songs left in me. Happily this was not the case and there were another 3 albums of songs written in 2012.
As a songwriter I have a special interest in songs written in roughly the same period because they represent, one way or another how I was feeling, my influences and what I was capable of musically at the time. One day it will be interesting to go back over them and to see what became of the songs and where they sit amongst all the songs I ever write. But onto CD1/2012.

January to March 2012
Mesmerised
Horses In The Rain
The Angel
The Proposal
Ship Of Dreams
The Sting In The Tail Of Love
Raven Moon
Just When I Had It All
The Mountains Where We Live
From A Whisper
The Rattlesnake And Wolf
Fingertips And Tears
Pick Up The Pieces

Mesmerised and The Angel begin the album with sweet thankfulness for having love in a life. It was no reflection upon any change in my mood that two of the next songs are more emotionally challenging - The Proposal, about a rejected proposal, and, The Sting In The Tail Of Love about a woman who realises deep into a relationship, that she has everything she needs, apart from the right kind of man.
In between there were three songs based on Experiment's lyrics. I hesitantly suggest a theme for each of these until we hear what Experiment has to say :) A reflective look at love in, Horses In The Rain; a deep look into destructive love in, Raven Moon; and Ship Of Dreams a tribute to, the Titanic in the year of the 100th anniversary of her sinking. This song was played during the remembrance service held on SecondLife's very own, Titanic sim. 
Raven Moon is the second song in a trilogy of related songs based on lyrics from, Experiment, including, The Crescent Moon, and Charon's Moon (completed later in 2012). The Sun And The Clock is the/an answer to the feelings expressed in, The Proposal. I am yet to debut it in my SecondLife shows.
Just When I Had It All is a song about that moment, as love is falling apart when suddenly it becomes too difficult to know what to do, or to know whether to stay or to just let go. Perhaps Fingertips And Tears is about the path away from, Just When I Had It All, and the discovery of new love.
Apart from my usual songwriting collaborations with, Experiment on this CD there are two songs co-written with new collaborators! I wrote the music to accompany Whisper Ampan's beautiful lyrics in, From A Whisper, and then MichaelJames Magic, Experiment and I joined forces to write, Pick Up The Pieces from a desire of MJ's to honour the folks of a town in the USA flattened by a tornado not long before.
The Rattlesnake And Wolf is a simple song about the perils of following certain dreams.
The Mountains Where We Live was begun in early 2011 but was not completed until early 2012. I have blogged about this song separately. Welcome to the mountains and to the wonderful joys of life and love :) I so love to sing this song and am so happy it finished out like I hoped it would a year previous. It is my choice for the name of this CD.
CD2/2012 review coming soon.
Thanks for reading!
Hugs
Bright

Shedding some confusion in early 2013

Hi Gang :)
As many of you who go to my shows know I am very happy to have year long goals that I work diligently towards every single day of the year. I also have no fear of failure evidenced by my 2011 year long goal to get a celebrity girlfriend :) The beginning of 2013 requires a few lesser goals to make my life as a SecondLife musician a bit easier.
I use social media to have fun and catch up with friends and help promote my music but I don't want to become LIKE driven. So I'm hoping to keep it simple, friendly and personal for all of us. I'll list all my 2013 social media links at the bottom of this post and I would love for you to keep in contact with me through any that you choose.
SOAR, the band I play in in SecondLife with my mates, Experiment and Charles only played two gigs in 2012 and as a result my performances as a kind of de-facto, SOAR is beginning to create some confusion especially amongst my new friends and fans. To help shed this confusion I am creating a brand new BRIGHT group in SecondLife and creating a new BRIGHT band page in FaceBook. The SOAR group will be there ready for any future SOAR gigs.
It is my hope that SOAR continues to do gigs so that all the friends of SOAR get to enjoy the three of us playing together. In the meantime though I want an unconfused musical focus. Please help me along with this if you can find another group slot for me in SecondLife.
FaceBook LIKES. I did a gig recently where after generously promoting the musician who was to follow me up on stage (as I always do) he got up on stage and referred to me as, "the previous guy" and critiqued some aspects of my performance that were none of his business. I heard what he said but I don't know him or what he was actually trying to say. It could just be another example of the lack of respect for fellow musicians that occurs from time to time in SecondLife. I stand against it. No exceptions. We all have a stake in making our homes, workplaces, lives and worlds respectful places.
So I got thinking. Firstly I am going to change my name (for a bit) to, "The Previous Guy". It is a stunningly good muso/band name :) Secondly, when it comes to my band/musicians page on FB it is going to be on a strict quid pro quo basis. If there isn't mutual respect in the asking for LIKES with fellow musicians/venues/pages, I won't be playing the game.
Thanks for reading :)
Hugs as always to each of you!
Bright/The Previous Guy

Website:    www.brightoh.com
Facebook:   http://www.facebook.com/people/Bright-Oh/100002308330373
FB Band Page:  The Bright Oh Fevah
Reverbnation: http://www.reverbnation.com/brightoh
Twitter:   http://twitter.com/brightoh1
Blog:   http://brightoh.blogspot.com/

THE MANDALAY TRILOGY

This week i finally debuted the song, Unexpected which completes "The Mandalay Trilogy". It was a back to front process as, "Unexpected" is the first song in the trilogy. 
Some of the song came quickly - the melody, a few lines of interesting lyrics and the lalalas of the chorus but then the demo spent some time in the SOAR Vault, while Experiment Rhode and i tried out different lyrics. It was the hardest of the three to finish and the finishing of it got overwhelmed by the next two songs.
I have sung the three songs one after the other in my shows but in normal circumstances this won't be the usual case - so I thought I would put all the lyrics here for you to read in sequence.
Thanks for reading. Hugs

UNEXPECTED

Faint Sound of Insects in The Afternoon 
along the streets of ancient Mandalay
where I’m Falling
I’m Falling into love
Yes I’m Falling into love with you

A double Rainbow in a rain soaked Sky 
the smell of incense down a steamy lane
as I’m Falling
as I’m Falling into love
As I’m Falling into love with you

Soft Scent of Jasmine Floats upon The Breeze 
Takes Me To a Place (only) a woman sees
when she's Falling
she's Falling into love
when she's Falling into love with me

Tell me do you want to be my queen 
do you want to run away from the things 
you can't explain anymore

Cooling Purple Mist behind a Waterfall 
soft on our skin as the truth unfolds
that we're Falling
we're Falling into love
we're Falling into love in another world

JASMINE

Jasmine take a walk with me until we reach the sea 
listen as the fisherman's children play happily
and taste the salty air upon my lips and fingertips
then give yourself to me tonight like we were meant to be

So Jasmine from old England let me take soft hold of you 
and whisper what the prophet says about the coming of this day
No coincidence no rhyme no reason or complicated view
just you and i along the beach where the flying fishes play

Quiet Jasmine listen do you hear the things i hear
the early morning chatter rising from dark and ancient streets
the scent of oils and the touch of lace upon these silken sheets
brings me back to paradise to steal another kiss

Jasmine from old England from yesterday and far away
our lives have changed forevermore because of Mandalay
now not a single day will ever pass without the sharing of these words
that you and i have found our place and we will want no more

INNOCENCE

in the moment before waking when you're in another world
i reached out my hand and found you there
and we made a toast to innocence and the things it let us be
as we made our plans we smiled helplessly
would we climb high up to the pagoda
would we ask for buddhas blessings one more time
i don't know, what i would say if i hadn't had today

i remember our first breakfast you and i alone 
skipping along the riverbank like we were still at school
how we made a toast to silliness when laughter told us when
and i found the child within my heart again
then we climbed up to the old pagoda
and thanked holy buddha for his peaceful prayers
then i tried, to find a way to thank you for this day

Now my heart knows the truth and its telling you how
that it wouldn't change  one little thing
my heart, your heart, our hearts, belong to love

When The lights on the horizon Ceased Their Jewelled Display
we pressed against each other where the willows trees swayed
and we made a toast to destiny and all that she would bring 
memorising each and every precious thing
so we danced until morning bid us home
and into each others arms we moved
i don't know, what i would say if i hadn't known today

i saw you on the balcony wrapped in a satin robe
and quietly i watched and admired the unknown
and we drank a toast to each other and all our memories
for we found love in Mandalay and now we can believe
and for every single moment more
i'll give thanks to every god that heaven knows
and then i'll say, in every way i know that i'll never let you go

Thank you, thank you September!

Ahhh September I shall remember you fondly for you gave me so many songs. I mostly have songwriting bursts and have written other blog entries about these. I hope these entries act as a kind of reference point for what i was doing, feeling, thinking, and capable of musically at the time.
From these bursts there are always many more incomplete songs than there are finished ones and if I get back to some and finish them it is nice to be able to look back and see where their beginnings were.
I wrote, "Endlessly" on June 19, 2012 and had not completed another song through July and August, and then September 1, Experiment sent me the lyrics to a song he was working on called "Eucalypt Candlelight" which he and I finished over the next couple of days. After this - another ten completed songs and twenty plus partial songs. Here is the list of the completed songs so you will recognise their names when you hear them in one of my shows. I hope you like some of them. You can listen to "Innocence" by clicking on the title.
I'm still fiddling with some song titles but these will do for now :)


Eucalypt Candlelight
Where Our Secrets Are
Will You Be
All In A Circle
The Unicorns Promise
Friends and Lovers
Unexpected
Jasmine
Innocence
Pretty Boy
Photographs

As always, thanks for reading this far.
Hugs
Bright

Sometimes you're up and sometimes you're down.

Someone, (maybe even your God) planned it this way - that throughout our lives there would be times when we needed a helping hand and other times when we were the helping hand.  Cast an eye around your life at this very moment and you will likely see this thread of human existence being played out. It is a beautiful thing :)
About ten days ago there was a 26 MUSIC MARATHON staged at the Colour Factory in SecondLife to support RebelMum Slade with whatever joy the music would bring, with whatever money it would raise, and to raise awareness of her battle against cancer and her pursuit of a wonderful adventure. The marathon WON on every level - but there is work to be done still.
But first. The music!!!! Just freaking incredible - some of SL's most generous and enjoyable and vibrant musicians - and at their very best. Max Kleene, Sid Slade, Josi Anderton, Theresa Nayer, AMForte, Edward Kyomoon, Tamra Hayden, Shannon Oherlihy, Gina Gracemount, Quantamis, Marky Helstein and SONIX, and the boys from SOAR. Thank you people, SO MUCH!
The organisers! Yep, yep and yep. Imagine trying to organise all of this, and then be there to make it happen. Whisper and Precious - you are such treasures. Hugs. And to the bunch of people who jumped at the chance to help everything along during the 26 hours - i saw what you were doing and it was wonderful. Big hugs to you folks too.
The money! YIKES. In SL linden dollar terms over 500,000 was raised. Around $US1900.
Truly amazing and just another example of people knowing when it is their turn to be the helping hands. Love you all! 
There is a wonderful review of the whole show at www.theparfaitparty.com
The work still to be done. When you read RebelMum's blog you will know what more there is to be done. It will take more money to guide her and drive her on her adventure and more importantly it will take many more words of support and friendship to sustain her through good and bad days alike. Some of us can most easily do the money thing and some of us are more able to do the support and friendship thing - just another of the clever things about life - there is something of enormous value that each of us can do!
RebelMum is a wonderful person and a sweet sweet friend of mine. I commend her heart and her adventure to you. Please take a few minutes to read some more about her, in her own words :)
www.theparfaitparty.com
And as always, thanks for getting to the end of another blog post :)
Hugs
Bright

SONGWRITING FOG

On Friday i played my regular fortnightly gig at the beautiful Under the Willows (incarnation 54d - in joke). My set was after the sweet and relatively new sounds of Amelie Mayr, and one of SL's best known, AcousticEnergy (AE). Max Kleene followed me. It is always such an honour to play at the same shows as these people. See the pic advertising a very special night of shows at Under the Willows this coming Friday - i'd love to see you there :)
During my intro to one of my newest songs, EAST OF NOWHERE i was explaining how i can lose confidence in a song sometimes and that this can delay my debuting of it in my shows and how often i sing it once i have. AE commented that this happens to him too. This is reassuring news and has prompted this blog entry.
Some songs are quickly written and others take an amount of trial and error to finish. For some songs i may been singing them to myself for hour after hour as i work on them, and then somehow, just as they are about complete i lose my feel/confidence for them. It is hard to explain - but have you ever said a single word over and over to yourself and discovered that the word loses all meaning somehow? If you have then this is a bit like how it is. If you haven't then it's impossible to explain. Try it :)
This confidence loss happens even though the people who i use as crash test dummies for my new songs are telling me that the song is ok/good/wonderful. I have blogged before about how Experiment has played this part in my songwriting with incredible accuracy over the years and while i trust his feedback i am the one who has to sing them and i can't sing them unless i believe in them.
Later in the day at my gig at the Colour Factory i decided to put aside this songwriting fog and to debut my newest song, ENDLESSLY and to bring back into my show another new song, THE STING IN THE TAIL OF LOVE that i sang twice a month ago and then dropped from my set list. I am happy to say that they appear to have been well received :)
Sometimes it is simply a matter of singing them live in a show that brings me back closer to the song (something that can't be replicated in my studio at home), and of course the feedback from the people at the show makes so much difference to me and every performer in the world. Thank you sweet peoples :)
So today sometime i am going to take a lesson from all of this, again and finish another song or two that have been languishing in the fog.
WHEEEEEE.
Thanks for reading and getting this far.
Hugs. Bright