Music

Wendy Kheiry

Been Practicing (Video Clip)

These are clips of the song Drummer which I wrote while I was in Milwaukee. I’ve been holding rehearsals with myself, and I had fun with this song because I added in some extemporaneous bits. Still catching up a bit after vacation, but almost caught up. Almost.

Wendy Kheiry

Been Practicing

So, I’ve been trying to prepare a few simple songs for open mic night, and got all inspired and distracted from that to try and figure out how to play a long, syncopatedly complicated Tom Waits song.

This song has been on my heavy rotation for a long time and is a story-song with nine verses and the chorus only in there 3 times.

The structure of the song lends itself pretty well for memorization, but I had to really envision a story from the lyrics to try and internalize the unfolding of the story in order to know which verse came next.

I enjoyed the challenge of trying to find a way to play this song for a single acoustic guitar, and recorded this exploration so I could review to see what worked for it and what didn’t so much. Towards the end I play around a little more with ways to adjust the rhythm and talk about the percussive aspect.

As usual, when trying to work out the guitar part, the accuracy and ease of singing the song falls a little bit. It’s like learning anything – if you have part of something worked out really well, and then add in or learn something in addition to what you know, the original bit that had been pretty smooth will become jangled until the new part is well integrated into it.

Wendy Kheiry

Album Release March 8!

Hi everyone,

Infection Trilogy will be released across major platforms on March 8, but you can listen to them early for free on SoundCloud.

Infection Trilogy is a primarily instrumental trio of tracks which, like a story, has a beginning middle, and end.

The virus that is thought, the contagion of dangerous lack of thought occurring right in the middle of a global viral pandemic. A lament for all that we’ve lost, Infection gives wordless voice to the griefs we share, and those too personal to express.

Unamended, Unmended is a haunting track of desolation, isolation, and is uncomfortably eerie. This track will blow fresh air into stagnant areas of the spirit. Keep going!

Darned Socks is multilevel play on words, as well as the resolution to the previous tracks. We do not have to stay where we are, or continue going the direction we’ve been going. We can circle around, backtrack, and revisit that which has not been resolved in ourselves, our communities, our states, our nation, and our world.

We grieve for that which we hope.

Wendy Kheiry

Missed Days

I had a family visit, so took some days off.

My days are filled with work, and art, and music.

Always poetry in my heart.

Short poems on Twitter

Some poems on Facebook

Some dropped with a photo on Instagram

My mornings for writing here are opening up

Life’s eternal balancing act

It’s almost midnight

And I think of you

After this full day

At the close of the night

It’s in the music that I find you

Always waiting

For the great resonation

Wendy Kheiry

When You Were Sober

When you were sober

You eyes were bright like stars

Twinkling in my universe

Even on your downcast days

Being near you was better than not

When you were sober

Your joy infected me with hope

The sweet and caring way you spoke

Melted this icy heart

And then came a night

Of too much drink (says who?)

And angry voicings

And I ran

Became the deer in the forest

A multitude of fear dispersed

Pounding hooves away from danger

And the wolf inside me growled

And the pack awoke

And deer became lupine

There in the dark woods

Circling around to hunt the danger

Protecting the territory

The sacred

The smell of alcohol and anger

Is the smell of rot and death

So the wolf howls

For the days you were sober

Not drowned in drink

The wolf howls

For evenings under moonlit waters

For walks under a canopy of hope

The wolf is howling still