Angie Windheim

Painters paint on canvas. Musicians paint on silence.

– Leopold Stokowski

Ben gave the 12-bar blues a different spin and re-recorded. Not sure which version I like better. Guess I’ll just have to put both of them on my iPod 🙂

Ben’s 12-bar blues, take 5 from Brian Windheim on Vimeo.

How cool is it to have your own kid’s recording on your iPod? Serious!  Listen to Ben’s 12-bar blues. He layered the tracks and it’s him playing the bass, the rhythm guitar and the lead guitar on this song. So impressed.

BTW: The picture is of Ben and his friend, Quincy, hanging out before their jazz band performance. Don’t they look awesome? Cool cats.

Ben’s 12-bar blues from Brian Windheim on Vimeo.

Ben had his first live performance with the Laurel Ridge Middle School Jazz Band last night. The event was a high school fundraiser called “Swinging with Spaghetti.” We’re not usually big fans of the spaghetti dinner night, but I’ll have to say that this one was really well done and very well attended.  All of the music was excellent and it was a super festive evening. The kids got lots of grins and applause for playing “The Office” theme song.

Ben is already a stellar guitar player and decided to take on the challenge of learning the electric bass guitar for Jazz Band. I’m very proud at how he powered through the struggles of a new instrument and reading music for the first time. He played great last night and fit right in with the rest of the musicians after just 2 months!

Love the clothes, too. Haven’t seen my boy in a tie since he was 5 at Uncle Chad’s wedding 🙂  Looking and sounding good, kiddo.

Ahhh, remember fifth grade? Girls are kind of cool and kind of scary.  And then, the music teacher makes you perform cheesy songs, play the recorder and hold hands and dance with a GIRL!!!

Joe’s concert tonight was so cute and so funny.  Joe, of course, added the humor. First, he didn’t even want to go. No surprise. Then, when he got there, he hammed it up. Funny expressions, funny gestures and he even went down on his knees and threw his hands up in the air in relief when the dance was done.  Unforgettable as usual. Love that kid.

Oh, boy.  Myron’s got an epic song with this one. He’s tackling Moses and the Plague! Anyways, it’s a fun romp as usual.

Background: Myron LeRoy is Ben’s most excellent guitar instructor and is the featured singer and guitarist. And, in this song, he dragged Randy Sage along on drums.  Randy is Joe’s drum instructor.  Both are a couple of real talents and real good guys.

Give it a look and a listen:

Then Came the Plagues on YouTube

Sam asked me recently,”What’s your most favorite thing to do?” Without even really thinking it over I responded, “Sing…in the car.” Yes, I’m one of those people you see at intersections belting out songs. That, of course, looks hysterical ’cause you can see the mouth moving, but you can’t hear the music! Oh the humiliation 🙂

Anyways, my latest pick for driving sing-a-longs is the Strict Joy CDs from The Swell Season. Who, you say? Have you seen the movie, Once? Did you hear Kris Allen sing “Falling Slowly” on American Idol last year? Hopefully, one of those is helping you out. The two leads for The Swell Season are Glen Hansard (also front man for the Irish band The Frames), and Marketa Irglova, (a classically trained Czech pianist and vocalist).  They came out with the AWESOME  musical movie, Once, a couple of years ago and got on so well, that they just keep writing songs together.

The songs blend great acoustic guitar, great piano, great harmonies and can be both folky, rocking and just really pretty. I have the 2 CD collection that includes the new material and a great live-performance set with the “Falling Slowly” song backed up by an 8th grade choir. Very fun. The collection also came with the live-performance DVD (Glen really does play that guitar he wore a hole in). Brian and I both enjoyed watching it. The DVD includes some interviews and some footage of them working on new material.

So, watch the movie, listen to the CD, and sing, sing, sing!

Brian and I have created a pretty impressive Christmas music collection over the years.  We have classics like Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby and I’d even put Harry Connick Jr in that category.

More modern favorites are Bare-naked Ladies (that one rocks) and Sarah Mclachlan (beautiful).  My absolute favorite is their combo song, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen. I listen to that one over and over and over.

This year I added some indie chick songs with the Hotel Cafe collection. It features Lenka, Sara Bareilles, Colbie Cailat, K.T. Tunstall, etc.  It has a few duds (Katy Perry and Fiona Apple) but overall it’s given me some fresh tunes.

And, I just downloaded the Last Christmas song by the Glee cast.  That song puts me back into the pre-teens when Wham! released it.  I can still clearly imagine the video that MTV ran over, and over, and over.  The Glee cast nailed it and took it up a notch. Sorry George Michael 🙂

Oh, and Brian got the Heat Miser song remade by the Big Bad Voodoo Daddies. It’s great. Don’t even tell me you don’t remember that song from the animated classic The Year without a Santa Claus. That’s by far my favorite of all those old movies.

What are your favorites? I’d hate to be missing any gems out there!

Sam’s second grade concert was so darned cute last night!  It was the first concert at Edy Ridge and the kids really put on a good show. Of course, the best in the bunch was Sam. He was front and center, so it’s a good thing he knew the songs 🙂  Sam had special instrument part as well. Unfortunately, we could only listen to that part.  The instruments were on the floor and we couldn’t see over the HUGE crowd of parents.  Anyways, Sam did great and definitely earned his special dessert to celebrate. He picked strawberry cake with vanilla frosting. Yu-um.

Oh, I should give a shout-out to Dani Aldinger, the music director. She is just awesome with the kids. Sam was lucky enough to have her in kindergarten as well. 2 of the best school concert performances ever. The songs are peppy and the kids have fun.

Ben has played guitar for several years now. Since February though he has developed some awesome blues finger skills thanks to a lot of practice and his instructor, Myron LeRoy.