Today was an Airport day…not a very good one as it turns out but I went in with a set list that was written to be strictly adhered to…and I did, thinking I would get some recognition and by virtue of that, greenbacks floating in the tip jar.

Made $8. But I only stayed an hour having to sit with a crowd of indifferent people. My focus is to play each song and end it. Pause. Not do the rambling, off the cuff improve that I do at home, which leads to a solid song most or some of the time. No here, I am trying to perform my music.

It’s not well received. It’s like I am not even there. Most just cut a glance at me as they walk by on their way to the TSA screeners. There are people sitting around me who do not applaud when I finish or stop talking as I play and then finish to which they just continue. There was also a group of young outward bound folks who I think were waiting for arrivals and within 5-7 feet of the piano maintain a conversation between six of them, which I was doing my vest to ignore since I am not going to tell them to please shut the fuck up.

And it could be that I am just not that good a musician, a piano player. And I don’t really know the answer to that question since I am in the bubble and cannot say. I sincerely believe that my music comes from years of dedication and creativity that does not try to fit into a perspective.

Which is the lead in for this post, not that I had a disappointing day. Musically, that performance was recorded and is here.

But I have always been transfixed to the work of William Blake. And I picked up a little book about him, “William Blake Now: Why He Matters More Than Ever” by John Higgs. Very cool and interesting in what he says but there is one chapter heading that caught my attention.

“Chapter 6. On Being Remembered. To artist, William Blake can be something like a double edge sword. Like Van Gogh, he is a universally recognized genius who was entirely dismissed in his own time. This makes him a powerful archetype. It can give artists encouragement to keep working during periods when they receive little encouragement. It can, however, be used as an excuse. The danger is that artists might not hone their work to the point that it communicates to others, in the belief that their singular genius will be recognized after they die. It is true that the act of creating something is valid and rewarding regardless of the audience awaiting it, but it also true that work needs to affect others if it is to be considered truly great.”

To be honest, I do not and have not planned an outlet for my music. I don’t really know how. When I seriously started creating songs in 2009, I did so without any regard as to where it would land in public. I still do not know where or how they should land. I have honed some of my ‘expressions’ into named tunes that have a structure that has been anchored with lyrics, and I have played some of them at the White Horse in Black Mountain and at the Asheville Airport. and I go through the motions of trying to “sell” some of it through Bandcamp, but I am lost when it comes to how to do any of it.

I am not even sure if it is any good. Except that when I first started at the Airport, playing for tips in June of 2022, on a couple of weekends I garnished more than $100 bucks in tips, sometimes raking in $60-$80 when it didn’t come in at $100. Now, this summer, from May through July I averaged $27 a performance which is a two hour stint. Some of the difference is strictly a numbers game: the more people that hear me, the more chances I am appreciated. But the success of my $100 gigs brought me to the fact that maybe I have not been as attentive as I should be to my talents. Maybe all those years from 2009 to the present of recording at home, playing relentlessly and embellishing my style of play was about to pay off.

And then I come to this summer when the best weekend I had as a $79 gig and yesterday saw me leaving after an hour with $8. And I am playing for people who mostly ignore me. People are sitting right next to me in the waiting room lobby and they have no exchange with me at all. I have a style of play that allows me to sit down and make it up…I have stopped doing that thinking that was not conducive and have come to the piano with a set list and a start and stop point. I end the song. I started yesterday with Decca’s Dance, a little rag piece in four parts which has a stride left hand and I ended it with vacant stares and no applause. Throughout the hour, there was also a group of young outward bound types all standing and talking 5 feet behind me. Not only did I have to ignore them as I played, but then I come to the end to realize they are in fact, ignoring me.

I don’t know what it is. I have centered my existence on being a creative piano player. I think my Bandcamp website shows the veracity and depth of my work. It is not chromatic jazz. It is ballad inspired with the thread of the melody changing within the song multiple times. Most of what I have recorded and labeled was captured in a moment of intense creativity and was not ‘honed’ as suggested above. Some of it has been set to lyrics and yes, those have been ‘honed’ and the words are just as unique as my tunes and which I am very proud of. The difficulty is in the performance and the singing quality. The song structure is secure and the message in the lyrics is strong but my introverted personality does not project.

It is this I am trying to address at the White Horse open mic night. And of course, at the Airport where I don’t sing but do play with a dedicated beginning and ending to each song. Which is why I am hesitant to give up the Airport gig, despite playing to mostly indifference but sometimes a generous $20 tip will float into the jar.

Wednesday night, 4/27/23…rain, soft, fire going, one of my last nights here…music with the rain…trying to upload and organize my catalog for myself and by myself…for two years I have been pursuing two career paths sorta…using my carpentry skills to work on this house and working on my music, meaning both creating new music and cataloging the old. Recently I have discovered all the stuff I recorded in Hampstead that got dumped on the computer but never listened to…at the time, and now as well, I was just creating, playing and working out the details musically. I am putting all of this into the Vault section…going there now…will link up later.

Or I should say, my Creative Jungle.

Etymology. The word jungle originates from the Sanskrit word jaṅgala (Sanskrit: जङ्गल), meaning rough and arid. It came into the English language via Hindi in the 18th century. 

That my music site is directly linked and described by an ancient language is fitting, in that music IS ITSELF an ancient language and I sit at the piano as a translator. And of course, there is the value of that and how it comes to fruition or how it plays out as a pure seed that avails repetition, sentimentality or any other attribute that would limit the enjoyment and/or the absorption.

I have advanced my ‘career’ not in a selfish way, although it would seem from the outside that so much work into something (the Creative Jungle) would be simply self-absorbed and meaningless. I would suggest, as a translator on another level, that I am self-absorbed for the good of the musical moment and have denied meaning to it (profit, motive, applause) simply because to be without value as it is born leads into a world where the most value to it can be assigned at some later point.

None of this is something I do because I need to entertain myself. I have recorded, catalogued (and now promote) these piano pieces as a means by which I have designed a particular type of expression. My music is my expression of what I invented on top of the keyboard landscape. All of them were played at a particular point in time of my Life and are musical ideas stemming from what personal and private (and social) moments that I either had to get away from or run to.

I have not, until now, had the vision or opportunity to allow them or me to enter the market place to earn a living from these songs. I need to change that. I sit here in my temporary home without income, without a job in my career and with a solid life line only coming from my Asheville Airport gig.

Finding a way to make this pay is not only critical but vital to the point of extermination. Loosing my music to the abyss is my greatest fear, along with having my final days and ultimate demise controlled by ‘unfavorable circumstances, which would be bad enough but also worse for Jessica and Naomi.

…they’re cutting down trees, putting up reindeer, singing songs of joy and peace, I wish I had a river
I could skate away on…”

If I have to tell you the song or artist, you may not belong to Planet Earth. Anyway, sitting in my studio and after listening the other say, I accidentally hit the opening chords, which are a take on “Jingle Bells”….anyway, my newest learned tune for the Asheville Airport.

The titles to the left are the album titles of all my hits,…as in life time achievement hits that mark the passage of time. Because that was and is what they signify…spots in the progress of my moving across the Earth, seeking union, finding some, losing most and still dragging that keyboard behind me…more on that later.

So many roads.

Today is October 1, 2022. My last posts were in 2013. That’s nine years between posts. But that does not imply I have not been persistent or busy.

Still, I digress. My music has blossomed since 2013 in way that is not representative of this site until now. My Bandcamp site is more current and viable. That site “sells” my music which would not pay the light bill (or any bill, for that matter) but until recently, that was a lesser concern than just getting my music “out there.”

Now, at this spot in time and space, is my music is not only out there but I am too…out there playing at the Asheville Airport since July 2022. I am not paid but I am allowed to collect tips. On two occasions, in my 2 hour sprint, I collected $115 one day and $105 on another. On some occasions, the jar pulled in only $20, like this last gig but often or not it comes in around $40-$60 for a two hour spot.

More importantly, and what I value the most, are the comments from the people sitting in the lobby area, to which the piano is situated for their listening pleasure. “You brighten up everyone’s day” one kind lady said as she dropped in a $10 spot, coming from behind and commenting to my back…”Very nice” said one as she gave me a pat on the shoulder after dropping in a tip, again from behind. I catch the eye of some standing in the distant TSA Preferred line, looking at me as I play and nodding their head in time with the beat…too far and to close to the checkpoint to come over and drop in a few bucks but I also nod and thank them with a smile.

I have received numerous $20’s, a few $10’s, a number of $5’s and of course the $1’s that often come in clumps of 2-3…I even get loose change.

To say I am embolden is an understatement. I am encouraged to make this my Number One concern, my concerted effort (concert effort) to be responsible for something that people actually place value in, enough to part with a few bucks and a nice comment. I can play my expressive piano music and get in return a measure of another human beings expressive appreciation.

I’ve not been a part of that before. I am not usually complimented on anything. Most of the time, people are indifferent. When I play, some come out and express a kindness I am not used to, but for which I am eternally grateful. My music has opened up a kinder world, a response to something I have held dear and almost secret.

All of this has allowed me to dedicate myself to the one thing that was always part of me in a holy way but dormant and unknown. And now it has been released.

I am happy to welcome you to my site. I have been “serious” about this work since mid 2010. In my Bio off to the left, I explain a bit more about how my Life affected this artistic enterprise but in the welcoming of guests, that would be a bit extraneous.

My albums/CDs/media files are arranged below in the order they were produced. All the music is either original, or original takes from traditional numbers. I intend to get better. I hope I get better. The pages on the albums give some written merit to the effort.

Each CD image is linked to my site where these CDs and the songs are available for purchase.

Part of the reason for this new page (as of 2/14/13), is to announce my entry into songwriting. The last CD, “Sign of the Times” will house original tunes where I have buckled into the HUGE task of penning to the melodies my own fatal poetry…thus, a song and, I hope, a story. My goal in the coming weeks & months is to complete 10-12 numbers, working on established melodies (mostly) and finding a bit of myself, a lot of you and some of what we all share.

I look forward to performing these songs this summer. Dates, times and places to be discovered. Thanks for listening.

All songs, lyrics and art work exist under copyright protection© by Joseph Olschner