Sara's Cover Contest

Hey all cover-ers,
In the midst of my Coffeehouse work, the magnificent Ms. Sara Bareilles posted an awesome opportunity, and I thought I'd share (and possibly participate? mid-June is indeed coming up fast...)

Through TopBlip, which is a launching board for Internet cover artists to get heard, Sara is holding a contest, with some pretty exciting prizes, for someone to do a cover off her new "Once Upon Another Time" EP. Any one of the half-dozen songs is free game, and the winner will be decided via popular vote. The condition is that an entry can't be a recording over a montage of stills, etc. -- they want video of you performing. Doesn't matter if it's a solo performer or a band. I've linked to the contest page below so you can read up...

Sara's a hell of a tough act to follow, but it's sublime material to work with, so if you think you got it, do something with it :)

I'm inclining towards "Lie to Me". I started demoing it yesterday afternoon, and E minor is indeed the sweet spot. Plus, without fail, strings parts are cool to convert to piano.

Get your fill of "Lie to Me" here, and link to the contest page here.

Good luck cover-ers.
xox -MuseTest

Song Listing: "The Coffeehouse Covers"

Finally! I wouldn't admit it if the archiving didn't make it plain as day, but it's officially been four months since MuseTest has posted. I've had my coffee, folks, and I'm back on here with you.

I've spent said four months (excepting the mad rush of Holidays 2011 of course): arranging good songs, arranging even more good songs, and transposing like my life depends on it, which it does, because males like to sing in keys that I can't match.

If you're just joining my blog, the project at hand is a release of cover songs that I've arranged in an "unplugged" style, broken down into an intimate coffeehouse feel. I'm going to share them legally (i.e. this won't be for profit), and I hope you like what you hear.

As promised! Here's the full 'Testing the Muse' lineup of songs. Some cuts were made, including the "Rabbit Heart" cover I was discussing in the previous post (though that may eventually see the sun, another Florence cover won out). And the covers will be:

1. Helena Beat - Foster the People (with samples from Owl City's 'Cave In')
2. Noticed - Mute Math
3. Every Teardrop is a Waterfall/Charlie Brown - Coldplay
4. Cosmic Love - Florence and the Machine
5. Satellite - Dave Matthews Band
6. Must Be Dreaming - Frou Frou
7. The Great Divide - Emmy Rossum
8. I Caught Myself - Paramore
9. When in Rome - Nickel Creek
10. Wrapped Around Your Finger - The Police
11. Take Care - Drake ft. Rihanna
12. This is the Countdown - Mae
13. Dare You to Move - Switchfoot
14. Mars - Natalie Walker (with samples from Mute Math's 'You Are Mine')

I am planning on factoring in 4 extra releases (which will remain nameless for now!)

These covers are primarily acoustic piano and voice. On a few I will be recording my own harmonies and possibly looking to collaborate on vocals. I'm also considering throwing in a few accompanying instruments, to round out the sound on some of the songs, either electronically or in studio with fellow musicians who would like to lend some fun. The idea is to maintain an acoustic heart -- these are intended to be able to be played out live. Stay tuned for shout-outs to collaborate!

Hope this update has been snazzy, and I will now be blogging regularly (and holding myself to that!) as recording sessions progress, and as it's ready for everyone's ears. Check back here for previews of the songs, and...

...You can follow me on Twitter @emerisle104
With love -MuseTest

I must become lion-hearted

Have almost finished compiling my master list of the Coffeehouse Covers :) !! This has been several years in the making. They're pretty much all arranged now, and though some of them are harder than others for me to pull off live, the next step is messing around with Ableton mixing.



I've been the most excited about the recent addition: FloMachine's "Rabbit Heart", which is a spectacular song how she has it, and which rendered down into a very haunting little thing for solo piano and voice. (This would be my third Flo cover, and I'm not exactly sure if I'll cut any -- the others being "Cosmic Love" and "Drumming Song".) I kind of found myself on my own in terms of how to sing the chorus; when it's just you and a piano, it doesn't really make sense to do it how she does it. So I ended up sort of writing a new melody for the chorus, to fit the existing chord progression. I was almost wondering if I just want to put it to an original song entirely. For now, it's going to hide out in Coffeehouse "Rabbit Heart". And then we'll see what happens.

Thanks and love always to Miss Florence "and the Machine" Welch, 25, of Camberwell, England. (Excited to listen harder to her new stuff by the way...) Follow this link to her beautiful video for "Rabbit Heart": Florence and the Machine "Rabbit Heart" (2009)

Just the glare...

The following is a magic act. Not really, but that's what they call it when things are made to vanish or teleport across the room or be sawed in two. This evening I've been compelled to turn something inside out. A song, to be exact. But don't worry, it'll remain intact, and hopefully be none the worse for wear when I'm done with it.

How are we off on a tangent again? 
Oh we say what we say
And the poison is breaking our skin
We stray from those things that should sustain us, and our focus is all wrong. This will only open our lives up to those things that can not possibly sustain us.
What's to blame? It's an argument no one can win
Because at best we don't know
And it's wearing us thin
It's not our fault that we are this way. We don't have all the answers, and shouldn't expect to. So we need to stop seeking at dry wells.
We are caught in a wheel spun around on the truth
Maybe we don't need to know
Any more than we have to
There are answers in there somewhere, but take comfort in the fact that they play out in our life without us needing to understand them. We have meaning whether or not we realize it - in fact, in spite of us trying to comprehend.
And we stare at the sun
But we never see anything there
Just the glare has become
All that we'll ever see there
When we try and see the face of God with our eyes on this earth, we can't. When we try for our own sense of omniscience, when we draw a straight line in the wild and use science to explain why the soul moves, we fail utterly. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Heb 11:1). 
The sky is always wondering
What are these arguments about
You'd think we'd have noticed
Our eyes are burning out
We should have learned by now
When we try and gain control, we miss the point, and we condemn ourselves to blindness.


The song is "Stare at the Sun" by Mute Math. (2006)

Photo du jour

I posted on Facebook earlier this week in light of some discussion I'd encountered on the Vietnam War. I would hope that some dialogue can transcend the political frame.

No matter what your stance may be on the nature of a war, there is no higher crime against humanity than to ignore or condemn the suffering and immeasurable sacrifice of the soldier. It is our absolute responsibility to welcome them home with grateful hearts and open arms.

I took this photo at Arlington National Cemetery in the spring of 2010.

His Hat

This was mostly practice with writing in French and subsequently translating to English. Nothing fancy, just a little father-daughter thing. I wrote it in February 2010. Now - for real this time - to bed!!

On voit le chapeau

On voit le chapeau, formidable et grand

Tout gris, toujours à la tete de la table

Le chapeau disparaît pour les prières mais il retourne

Tout même pour contrôler les mots d’autres

On voit aussi

Quand je rend visite pour le dîner

Les petites belles chaussettes

Elles marchent doucement

Presque comme elles ne touchent pas d’escalier sous les pieds

Elles ne font jamais de son

Petites et blondes

Adorant, sans mot, le chapeau à la table

Peut-être elles vont marier des bons chapeaux elles-mêmes

Quand ces fleurs agissent un peu

Un jour au futur

Et elles peuvent marcher doucement, en adorant encore

His Hat

You can see his hat, wide-brimmed and commanding

Slate-gray, always at the head of the table

The hat disappears when they say Grace but comes back all the same

To dominate everyone’s words

I can see also

When I pay them a visit for dinner

The girls’ pretty little stockings

Padding softly

Almost as if they’re not touching the stairs under their feet

They never make a sound

Little blondes

Adoring, without words, the hat at the head of the table

Maybe they’ll marry nice hats themselves

Once the little buds have bloomed a bit

Someday in the future

And they’ll still walk softly, still adoring

Preface and such

So I'm opening this blog. It's official, it's happening, and I'd say the hour is late, but it's actually obscenely early in the morning right now, and I will be needing some bed in a moment. The plan is to ping-pong these entries between snapshots, writing, and chit-chat. Postings that are too scrapbookish for Facebook and too more-than-the-character-count for Twitter. And hopefully music will make it on here, in some form or another. For now, I'm going to close out, get sleep, and post a little fragment of writing.