This song was from a form of open tuning I used a lot in my playing. It's called DADGAd tuning and I wrote several songs using it in a variety of ways. Canvas Two is of course the title song of this album and it starts setting the tone as a fairly high energy piece. Infusing the harmonics in-between the aggressive strumming pattern was a bit different but I liked the sound of it. At this time I don't have any tablature of the piece but I'm hoping to get that done this year.
Funny thing about this was that when I started playing it, I was only looking to play the harmonic scale using chords in this new open tuning I had found. It's based on a great finger-style player I ran across on the Internet named Andy McGee. The tuning C G D F A# c intrigued me and so I was researching the harmonic scale and this song was born. Not sure if I ever actually played the harmonic scale lol... but alas it's me.
I did this song in Standard tuning Am and the song developed from an intro I had heard. The standard Am progression is in there but I go to some different places in including Em and a couple other chords that I liked. I seldom change much when I play these songs and Sketch 21 is no exception to my stubbornness. Some people don't like minor key songs as they tend to be moody... what's the question?
Another D A D G A d tune that incorporated a little bit of right hand bass tapping before going into what almost comes across to me as a Native American feel. At least when I was writing it, that's how it felt. I was going to record this song on my Baritone guitar in C E A D E c tuning and actually I did, but the harmonics off the 3rd string (D) at the 5th fret are really hard to pull consistently so I ended up playing it in basic D A D G A d tuning on a regular acoustic. I like the song because it's really different and when you play it you have to stay engaged with it.
A very melodic tune done in C G C D G c tuning (basically a Csus2 open chord) that I felt encouraged introspection. It's a song that seems to be easy to predict where it's going and to me is calming as we reflect upon our essence as human beings. I did only this song in this tuning during a period around 2008 where I was writing in a few C variations.
Some songs are just fun to play and Safe Harbor was one of them. The tuning is standard capo 2. The song, like many of my pieces, started as just a sound that I liked. Strumming and sliding from an Asus2 (2nd capo'd fret) to the 5th (capo'd fret) and ad lib'ing some fingering stuff then returning to the 2-5 slide theme. As it matured, I began adding a percussive palm mute inside of the structure to build a more complete feel to it, though the overall feel is one that isn't resolving (which is a Kottke thing) like most of my music, it matured. It's maybe a bit boring to listen to, but it is fun to play!
Zamar "A Hebrew word for making music accompanied by strings" Like several of my songs, as I look back, I really don't know where they came from. As I've said, I start with some basic sound form and it just seems to grow from there. This song does a lot of repeating of parts in an echoing sort of way and well, it just seems like something happening around midnight. Tuning: D A D G A d
Alternate tuning C G D F A# c again. The early years of my life were spent going to bed around 2 am and getting up at 10. Not so much now, now I get to bed around dark and get up before the sun. Truly life brings some changes that we just don't see coming. So now I am considered by many to be an "Early Riser".
The Vestipol tuning of D A D F# A d was probably my first open tuning experiment. This song reflects a certain sadness in that we often travel our lives smiling and engaging those around us without ever feeling like we fit or belong. Sadly, that condition is often what shapes our happiness in life. I believe that we badly need to understand our place not in peer groups, but in our very existence.
Peace my friends, you exist for a reason...
This alternate tuning piece (C G D F A# c) baffles me a bit in that it is unlike most of my other songs. As I struggled through the tabulature I realized as so often happens, exactly what I was functionally unconsciously doing during parts of this song. For instance, I palm then finger mute at the beginning phrase in bar 11 where the tempo changes from 90-126. All that said, the name of the song comes from a vision of crosses on a hill against a late dusk background creating a silhouette on the horizon.
Standard tuned piece that was meant to have a calming effect on the listener. Back in the day (always hated that phrase) when the party was getting, shall we say, "out of hand", it was time to stress gentle waves guy's gentle waves...
Weird title Randy what's that all about? Glad you asked... well
The word Chokmah stands for wisdom in ancient Hebrew. So the title could read "Wisdom Dreamer". You ever have a dream that seemed to be more than a reorganizing of the day's events and thoughts? I'm talking about things that make you want to write it down so you don't forget. Perhaps, those are wisdom dreams...
Again I return to the alternate tuning Vestipol D (D A D F# A d). Two songs in a row about dreaming? What the...? Well okay, I'm fascinated by the whole process of dreaming in general and of course it's a bit deep to discuss here. However, back to this song, I wonder sometimes, who the people are and why they manifest the way they do in my sleeping mind? Did our minds create them? Were they someone from our past long forgotten in our conscious lives? I don't know, all I know is they are Characters in a Dream.
The understood breadth of the cosmos is APPROXIMATELY 92 billion light-years according to some astrophysicists. Chew on that for a bit... the distance from Earth to the Moon is approximately 1.5 light seconds! As I have grown older I've taken more and more time to reflect on the Deep End of Eternity. Be blessed...
As I've gone through life and looked back I can clearly see the path of my decision making. Sometimes my decisions have had better outcomes than others but it certainly has been a ride. You can't fix the past, but you certainly can make decisions in the current moment and those should be carefully considered through the lens of experience. Standard tuning.
This version was done on a Baritone guitar in standard baritone tuning. It was first written on a regular acoustic guitar but I grew to like it better on the Baritone. I'm still captivated by lightening and I've always anticipated the thunder.
I did this song in Standard tuning a long time ago. Probably the mid-eighty's. I was never able to actually come up with a name so during a recording session the engineer asked for the title and I just said to call it "weird song in G"... so he did.
This is loosely based on Peter Lang's "St Charles Shuffle" and is done in tuning C G C G B c. While it has some similarities it is a truly simplified tune with a lot of energy. I believe Peter Lang played his tune in standard tuning not open.
I have a love/hate relationship with holidays. Love to see family and really enjoy the company, but shopping... not so much. Thus the name. The tuning: C G D F A# c again. Fun song regardless of the origin of the inspiration.
Always loved this tune so I got the tablature of it and learned it in the early 1990's. Kottke did quite a few songs in this open C tuning C G C G B c and it lead to a couple of my own songs eventually.
Catchup has nothing to do with catchup, it was just the name that came to mind. The song originated in the early 2000's while we were living in an old farmhouse in Missouri. Like a lot of my stuff it's free flowing and doesn't always follow the rules.Tuning: C G C G B c
When I was a kid, I used to like to climb up in some young Maple trees in northern Wisconsin and let the cool autumn breeze blow me around while I hung on. It was a lot of fun from a much more innocent time. The tuning C G D F A# c was from some tunes I heard by a guy named Andy Mckee and I really found it interesting to compose in.
Standard tuning capo 2. For years I had attempted to learn the Kottke piece "Stealing" and like happens so many times, I ended up with something kinda like the piece but eventually my own tune.
This alternate tuning piece (D A D F# A d) uses a sliding mute technique to bring a level of sophistication and energy to the piece. Not sure I accomplished that but I like the sound.
Standard tuned piece that was again a bit different in structure but fun to play. Never got the tab done for this one. Maybe some day.
A medley formed from pieces and parts of songs that never got completed. This is from a recording I did recently on November 16th, 2025. This recording was done using the new SA2 Atrium guitar prototype from Santarius Acousticals.