From the Tiny Songs Concert Tiny Set "Songs About Bric-a-Brac"

the little man carved out of wood

stands by the window cross-eyed offering his blessing with an ironic little smile

(listen)

tad neuhaus, ukulele

joanna dane, vocals

Tiny Songs Concert! 10/17/15

After a year of improvising over 100 tiny songs

And after another year of learning to play 28 of them:

(listen)

tad neuhaus, ukelele

joanna dane, vocals, flute

Hope to see you there!

Are You Ready for the Improv 2020's? Guideline #11: Make Signs

Wednesday, May 27th

7pm

The 602 Club

avec artiste extraordinaire

Elyse Mische

for 

Imagine City Park

(only 4 days to go!)

and a tiny song for Nostalgia's sake:

tad neuhaus, guitar

joanna dane, vocals

Tiny Song Forgotten

When you are dealing with tiny songs, it's easy to lose some:

listen

For your very own tiny songs double album, 

please send a self-addressed stamped envelop to: 

Joanna Dane 

℅ The 602 Club

602 N. Lawe Street

Appleton, WI  54911

92 Too Many?

Tad and I have completed a double album of 92 tiny songs.  We designed a cover and wrote some listening tips and are packaging it all up.  

Adam, the first recipient of the tiny songs album, cornered me at a Packer party to say that he likes it, but, as with all this stuff I make, it’s not commercially viable.  He assumes what we all assume these days, that success equals commercial viability and mass recognition. 

Here’s a little story:  A local musician hit stardom, touring with a very popular singer.  He started a wonderful little music festival that is a tremendous success.  So, moving into its third year, one hears grumblings about this man who has brought a new vibrancy to the community, jealousies wrapped up as some kind of truth.  I say congratulations to those of us who have managed to not get famous, to not be recognized on the street.  What a drain that must be, to be constantly approached and asked to give your time, to be scorned because of your hard work, to inevitably become disappointing. 

Music is sound patterns.  We grow comfortable with certain patterns, and the more repetitions, the more memories we attach to them.  Familiar patterns sound “correct” and unfamiliar patterns sound “incorrect.”  Often because of our discomfort with “incorrect”, we reject new patterns without taking the time to notice what they have to offer.

I am interested in the “incorrect” and so it doesn’t surprise me that what I do has not made me money or fame, nor do I think it ever will.  So I find no problem in continuing to make the music and art that I want to make rather than the music and art that others believe I should be making, even though Adam will laugh at me for saying it.

tad neuhaus, guitar

joanna dane, vocals

For your very own tiny songs double album, please send a self-addressed stamped envelop to: 

Joanna Dane 

℅ The 602 Club

602 N. Lawe Street

Appleton, WI  54911

in anticipation of the tiny songs album: thinking of e.e.

I Was Wrong

Feeling Blue?

a tiny song:

tad neuhaus, guitar

joanna dane, vocals

Listen and visit the Feeling Blue? gallery at The 602.

It's Crockpot Season!

from

  Daddy's Best Crockpot Recipes

******

Ribs and Brats

1.  Plug in crockpot.

2.  Turn on high.

3.  Take brats out of package.

4.  Put brats in crockpot.

5.  Take ribs out of package.

6.  Put ribs in crockpot.

7.  Put lid on crockpot.

8.  Open a beer and watch TV until done.

tad neuhaus, guitar and toy piano

joanna dane, vocals

dedicated to Johnnie B.

Coming Soon: Wisdom of Wombats PoPuP Gallery

Come discover your own strange anthem, 

at the Wisdom of Wombats PoPuP Gallery!

featuring Interactive Exhibits:

Factorial Story Writing

A Very Beaver Soundscape

Pin the Tail on Appleton

Found Poetry Writing

Hommage to Alexander Calder

Rae's Keys

Reviving the Exquisite Corpse

Drumming Like a Trucker

Become Your Own Composer

Join Our Wisdom Mask Decorating

and

Crazy People Music Organ Playing

502 West College Avenue

Thursday, April 24th: 5-8pm

Friday, April 25th: Noon-10pm

Saturday, April 26th: Noon-10pm

Sunday, April 27th: Noon-3pm

Appleton, Wisconsin

Hope to see you there!

Tiny Song #2390 - Have a Namaste Day

roseanna's "happy day"

tad neuhaus, guitar
joanna dane, vocals

Dear Katherina: An Ekphrastic Exercise

Edward Robert Hughes' "The Shrew Katherina"

Tiny Song # 2136: Down By The River

It is a strange phenomenon that when you sit down to write something about yourself, everyone assumes it to be true, and maybe it is, but maybe it isn't.  It's true that there was a red car down by the river, but whether or not it was a Cadillac, I don't really know because I'm not exactly sure what a Cadillac actually looks like even though I've seen many before, I've never bothered to memorize the difference between a Cadillac and say, a Buick, but the ring of the name creates an aura that a Buick does not.  It's true that I found a rabbit's head, but it wasn't by the side of the road, it was on the sidewalk.  At first, I thought it was a little hat someone had dropped, but then I saw that it wasn't a hat, but a head.  I walked by it, slowing just long enough to be disgusted before hurrying on.  But halfway down the block, I slowed again, reconsidering.  It seemed so heartless to leave it, and I've never wanted to be a heartless kind of person.  So I went back and had a closer look.  The head appeared to still have some life left in it, the eye glistening.  And when the breeze came up, the fur vibrated and gave me a shiver.  But then a fly landed right on the eyeball, and what was left of the rabbit didn't even blink.

Why are we so moved by stories "that really happened" and why are we so blind to the fictions of our memories?  I've heard it said that autobiographies were once shelved as fiction.  But nonfiction sells better, and memoirs, like "reality" television are hot commodities.  If I say it was a Cadillac when I'm not sure what kind of car it was, is it now a work of fiction?  What if enough years go by remembering that it was a Cadillac, that I don't even remember that I may have made it up?  Now that I am sure it was a Cadillac, is it a work of nonfiction?  And what about the rabbit's head?  Even though I buried it, it keeps coming back up, a fictional nonfiction, perhaps?  What do these obsessions show us about ourselves?  Why are we so concerned with the truth of a memory when it appears that there is no such thing?  What if I tell you that I didn't actually mistake the rabbit's head for a hat, but just a lump of fuzz, which sounds so clumsy?  Will you accuse me of being a liar?  Who said that what is posted here is the truth, anyway?  If memory serves me correct, I can truthfully say, not me.

Tiny Song # 2183: Ruth May Moore Dane

tad neuhaus, guitar

joanna dane, vocals

In the year 1900,

Ruth May Moore Dane

Graduated from high school

In Skowhegan, Maine.

How can we know

Her hopes and her woes,

She’s as far away as

You are from me,

Lying here next to me.

Snowblower Concerto

She knows it's not wise,

She knows it's not advised,

But that is the nature of the being.

To suit her own follies,

She is not ashamed,

But often does feel guilty.

She says she's through,

But turns back to you,

Learning to accept her foibles.

The bright things she churns,

Through mud creeks and clover

Stun her like the sun at noon.

Hey Ha.  Hey Ha.  Hey Ha.  

Hey Ha.  Hey Ha.

Hey Hey Ha.  Hey Hey Ha.  

Hey Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha. Ha .Ha.

Ha. Ha. Ha. Hey Ha. Hey Ha.  

Hey Ha. 

Hey Ha.

Hey hey hey hey Ha.

Hey hey Ha.

Hey

hey

ha.

Tiny Song #215?, First Version

if you stop worrying about who you want to be,

and be who you already are,

you might find it true,

that there is a way,

that you never noticed before

Andrew Dane live at The Empire Room

A Note to Elyse About The Cat

This song, for example, I had to listen to a dozen times until I started to like it.  But that's the good thing about tiny songs.  To listen to even the longest one a dozen times takes only sixteen minutes and eight seconds.  Did you know that the man who invented (the security code box where you type in elongated letters and numbers that spy bots can't decipher) felt so guilty about all the time people waste on his invention (an average of something like 6.9 seconds a day) that he invented a way to mine the millions of lost seconds by using the typed responses to translate books.!?  Impossible it seems at first, as does drones, eyeglasses with internet connection, and 3D printers, but how readily it makes sense and no longer shocks me unless I stop to really think about it, which I don't.  I wrote a letter that started off by stating that it's been ages since I've written a letter, a thing I used to do quite often.  A dying art, that's true.  But there are so many others being born.  I always wanted to know what it was like to live in a revolutionary time.

The basket is full, the shoes are at the door. The boys don't mind staying if there's gonna be more.  The hat is lost again.  The book is in the mail.  Won't you stop on by soon, there's something I'd like to show you.  The cat is under the bed.  Dinner's on the table.  I'm packing for warm weather.  I might be gone for a while.

tad neuhaus, guitar

joanna dane, vocals

Tiny Song #2084: While Listening to Meredith Monk

tad neuhaus, guitar
joanna dane, vocals