One of my closest friends, Matt, IM’d me today and says... “I’m gonna send you a song that you just need to hear...”. Matt and I have played guitar, together and apart, for the last twenty three years. We were both guitar teachers together in his parents house in NJ back then and now he is teaching guitar in North Carolina. (Matt B. Music) One of his students is a 17 year old girl named Natasha and it turns out that she is one heck of a lyricist! Matt told me a story of how she just brought hundreds of pages of “words” to him at her guitar lesson one day and he instantly read a line that turned into a song called “Bleeding Sky”.

Now, I have to say that my guitar abilities were all because of years of guitar lessons after school and a lot of practice (and that wasn’t even enough) but Matt... he’s just a natural. He can hear a song once on the radio and pick up his guitar and instantly play it almost note perfect! So, he taught me how to really “play” and I taught him what he was actually playing! So, it worked out to be a great combination. So, he gets this song hook in his head and comes up with what I’ve posted here. Now, from what I understand, Natasha didn’t claim to be a singer... or at least she had no idea she could sing. Well, I tell you what, there is some great, natural talent here!

I know this really has nothing to do with photography... but it has to do with creativity. I added an Ireland sunset picture above to add my visual part of the “Bleeding Sky” song title so I guess that counts a little... right? The two versions of the song here are the one that Matt sent me this morning and the second is what I added to it this evening. He and Natasha have about 30 minutes invested in the first version and I put in a couple of hours for the parts I added. (Give me a break... I had to figure it out first! All Matt said was the key of F#m!)

Technology is a wonderful thing! Whether it’s photography or music... we have tools available to us that couldn’t have been imagined twenty or even ten years ago. All I had to do was plug my guitar into my Line6 PODxt and run a USB cable into my Mac and fire up GarageBand! It’s just amazing! (The degree in Audio Engineering I got many years ago helps a bit, too!)

So, take a listen to both versions and let me know what you think... If you like it then send Matt a message as well. He sure would appreciate it!