The past few weeks while composing Music and lyrics I feel like I am going through therapy trying to find my correct words to describe how I feel about and also describe people who have always been very close to me. My desire is to discover and reveal honest and positive feelings that describe in music the people and animal-people I really care about.  A performing arts teacher who left a huge impact on me said when I first met him in class that songs are sung monologues. For me that meant that a song should mentally transport its listener into the mind and heart of the singer and composer, and what is sung should be an intelligent and emotional discussion with the listener.  The listener should hopefully consider the experience beneficial, even artistic, but at least educational.  I decided next to write a song about my family.  My family is small but important for me. Here is the chorus: Because we are a family/We love and disagree/And get back up and brush each other off/We don’t let each other fall through the cracks/Because we have each other’s back/I know who will always stand by me/Whatever comes. Like Goldilocks, the chorus is JUST RIGHT and inspired me to write a beautiful melody for the song in the key of B flat.  In fact we are a family who really need each other in so many ways but each also needs his own personal share of independence.  That is where disagreements can creep in.  It is easy to overlook the importance of what we have and are busy living.  Committing to writing about it can reveal a lot. And it happened that way for me.  Actually given that two very important family holidays are imminent in May and June, it was the perfect song to write. I have some down time for a few weeks because of a necessary surgery on my right hand that I had yesterday.  In several more months I will have a follow-up surgery on my left hand.  The procedure resulted from the wear and tear of using my hands intensively for lots of years on the piano and other instruments.  So during this not usual time I will begin dictating the book for a musical I having been planning on writing.  Then I will have two experts in my family add their edits to bring it up to fine writing. I am looking forward to this experience because it will use all the musical experience I have collected in conjunction with relevant personal experiences.  I think I’m ready for this and am looking forward to it.  Once again, thank you to all of you who are reading my blog.  A sincere thank you as well to those of you who are listening to my music on joshuaelimusic.com, soundcloud.com under Joshua Eli Kranz, and on radioairplay.com under my preferred performance name, Joshua Eli, and for watching me perform my music on YouTube.com under Joshua Eli Kranz.  There is no better way to find happiness than to do the things that are personally enjoyable.  This year I am happy to be able to work on composing music, writing lyrics, recording my songs and now writing a small cast book musical. There will be some new music appearing on my listening spots very soon.

Sincerely as always.  Happy Mother’s Day to the mother’s in my audience.  I hope some beautiful music and lyrics while sipping a vanilla latte will contribute to your special day!

Joshua Eli

May 8, 2016