Song-a-Day May: Open D tuning!

When it comes down to it, as much fun as Song-a-Day has been, we really are trying to learn stuff about how to play and assemble music. Schmitty picked today to teach me about open D tuning. Basically, it's a different way of setting up the relative tones of the strings so that when you strum all the strings, it forms a D major chord. Likewise, holding down all of the strings on the same fret will produce a chord.

This is neat and useful and makes it super easy to play chords...unless you want to play something other than major chords. In that case, you still have to come up with the right finger positions, which is tricky in part because all of the things you learn about how to form minor chords in standard tuning no longer apply.

Serious stuff, people.

All I Want Is A Room Somewhere

I am starting to breathe a sigh of relief as my
basement is now complete, and my house is beginning to have some semblance of order. Gaby has moved her bedroom down to the basement, which freed up her room to become my craft room! Right now, it's mostly empty. I have some cute purple curtains to hang up once I repair the curtain rod. It's basically my desk, my sewing machine, and baskets of yarn and fabric.



The best part is that, unlike my makeshift craft room (that was really my dining room), I now have a closet in which to pack away unused supplies, like my scrapbooking materials, and bags of stuffing and batting.



Also, the fact that it is a proper room with a door makes it much easier to keep out these critters: