Carl Rubino - Songwriter & PerforminG Songwriter

Over the last year or so, I've been writing songs from time to time in collaboration with other songwriters, from all over the country, using Zoom for virtual co-writing sessions, as well as emailing lyrics and sound files.  

We'd start in any number of different ways.  Sometimes with a song idea, or a title or partially written lyrics.  Sometimes with some fairly well developed lyrics.  I've worked with someone from Arizona,  a couple of songwriters from California (one of whom is VERY well known [more in a later post when the song is released]), one in the Albany area, with projects planned with people in NYC and Nashville, 

Collaboration is an incredibly rewarding, and challenging process, where the end is greater than the sum of its parts; where the creative input from one person stimulates and propels that of the other.

The songs we've created in our co-wriing sessions have been Contemporary folk - Americana - country -and something I'm calling Folk/Jazz. 

Check out a couple of them on my "Music" page: "On The Other Side Of The World" (which I co-wrote remotely with Maria Borges of California) and "How Does That Sound" (which I co-wrote with Dan Navarro [who co-wrote Pat Benatar's hit "We Belong"]).

A few months ago I bought some pretty good digital audio workstation software, and spent some time getting familiar with how it works (no small task). In the next couple of months, I'll be working on record some songs and doing digital releases on streaming services and making downloads available.  I'll also be and doing some down-and-dirty in-studio and live performance videos. 

If you'd like to know when they are recorded and ready to hear, subscribe to my list on the bottom of this page  /home  and you'll hear as soon as the songs are released. 

Hope you like what's coming...Carl

My songwriting muse has been working overtime and I've got a lot of new songs coming down the pike.  Some were wrtitten some time ago, but never recorded, some finished only a few weeks ago, and others that I'm in the process of writing and editing. 

Songs about trains (yea, mandatory, right - and they'll go hand in hand with the photo on my Home page that I shot in the train yard), leavin' (sure, why not?),  other-worldly relationships, finding strength, and lots of other stuff. Contemporary folk - blues - country

In the next few weeks, I'll be moving into some great studio space where I'll be able to set up some recording and video equipment to record these new songs, and do some down-and-dirty in-studio performance videos.

If you'd like to know when they are recorded and ready to hear, subscribe to my list on the bottom of this page  /home  and you'll hear as soon as the songs are released.

Hope you like 'em.  In my humble opinion there are some pretty good songs comin'...Carl

I'm working on planning a series of House Concerts for 2020.  I'll perform in someone’s house, camp or other location  to guests they  invite, with an opportunity for them to hang out with me before and after, all with no fee to you and a simple request at the end for guests to make a contribution to me in whatever amount they feel is appropriate…

It's like seeing a performer who you really like in a small intimate venue, and being able to hang out with them before and after the show to get to know them and learn about them and their music in a way you can't at any other type of performance or by listening to their songs on line or on a cd.

Think you might want to have one? Read more at /house-concerts   

If you’d like to explore this more, drop me an email at mailto:carlrubinomusic@gmail.com with “House Concert” in the subject and I’ll send you the additional information about what house concerts are and how you can have one.

Thanks for thinking of it….Carl

What if you could see live music performances wherever you are, whenever you want, or talk to the people whose music you like about their music, or have a way to see a performer who doesn't come to your area?  

I’m developing a series of live streaming performances, in which you can tune in, see me perform live, talk with me about my music, and even ask questions and interact live.  And I’m also working on creating a series of videos in various lengths from 5 minute “mini-concerts” to 45 minute “sets”, that you can access on demand, anytime, any device, anywhere, as well as accessing prior live streaming performances that you missed or would like to hear and see again..How cool is that? 

And you can get these on a donation basis, paying whatever you feel you want to, or nothing at all.  Coming soon.   And to get notification when they first become ready, Subscribe at the bottom of this page and I'll let you know when it all starts. 

See more on my website at /live-streams-on-demand-videos

Hope you like it....Carl

In an earlier post, I mentioned how an auto accident left me with the inability to play guitar or piano, and sidetracked my songwriting. While that inability lasted for years, before I regained the ability to use fine motor skills required for fingerpicking and flat picking guitar, I regained much of the more gross motor ability of my right hand.  One of the things I took up to satisfy my need to be creative was guitar making.  Yup, why not. 

Convinced that at some option I would regain the ability to play, at least to some extent, I set about learning to build guitars on a learn-as-you-go-self-taught basis.  My first was an electric guitar, influenced greatly by the maple over mahogany bodied guitars like Gibson Les Paul and Pau Reed Smith guitars.  I wanted a guitar which would work well for blues and a bit of jazz, so that's what I set out to build.  I decided on a mahogany body with a book-matched maple "cap" for depth of tone and sustain. After a bit of machine work, I hand carved the body using gouges, hand planes, and card scrapers, hand carved the neck out of a piece of mahogany using draw knives and hand scrapers, forming it by using shaping cards i designed to create the exact neck shape that I wanted in every part of the neck, fitted it with a pair of Seymour Duncan JB pickups, and set and finished the frets. I have to say I was delighted with the end result.  You probably wont hear me playing this since I always perform with acoustic guitars.  But here it is.

With the electric under my belt, I decided to build the "ultimate" acoustic guitar.  I took a workshop on guitar making for this one, since building an acoustic guitar from scratch (as opposed to assembling some sort of a "kit") is far more complex than building an electric guitar.  I decided to make one patterned after a Martin Dreadnaught, using salvaged Brazilliian Rosewood for the back and sides and a beautiful piece of book matched  Adirondack Spruce for the top.  I also decided that, while I was at it, I'd inlay it.  I bought the dovetailed neck and fretboard, but all else I made myself, from planing the back, sides and top to the right dimensions, carving the scalloped bracing, setting and finishing the frets, the doing all the inlay work, and finishing it with sprayed nitro.  I have let several accomplished guitarists play it and they have all remarked that it is one of, if not the, best playing and sounding guitars they have ever played. Here's a photograph of it, and there are more shots of it on my Photos page on this site.  I wont be bringing this out often, but if you do get a chance to be at a performance where I am using it, you are in for a real sonic treat.  It is what I think of as a "refined cannon"...Loud yet precise and delicate at the same time...I love this baby.

And, that ain't all.  I've got a whole lot more guitar making woods to work with down the road. I've got cherry, mahogany, walnut and maple for backs and sides for acoustics, more book matched Adirondack Spruce and some book matched Sitka Spruce for acoustic tops, and for electrics I've got mahogany, maple, basswood and a few other things for the bodies, along with mahogany and maple for necks.  In the works right now is a carved top jazz guitar, and a "tele" type guitar (or two).  I've got no space to work on them at the moment, but that will change. 

It's a great feeling to play a guitar that you made yourself that is just exactly what you want in a guitar...no compromises....

Stay tuned....Carl

Some of you may know that years ago I was diligently pursuing my craft as a songwriter and performer, playing my songs in listening rooms, a festival or two here or there, and songwriter circles in New York and Nashville in pursuit of that illusive dream of landing songs on someone else's albums.  I was beginning to have some small successes, with a song on Car Talk, a song scheduled to open a season of MTV's Road Rules series, a song received significant country radio play in Australia that was recorded on a Nashville country artist's album with most of Alan Jackson's band, and things were looking up.

Then I had an auto accident.  Some say I was lucky to get out of my truck alive.  But I wasn't that lucky.  I broke two small bones in my right hand which left me with an inability to play guitar or piano at all for the better part of a year, and for long after that, left me with such fatigue and loss of strength and dexterity in the hand after playing for only a short time that I could not continue in playing.  For some reason, my lyrical muse went out the window.  Always having a need to find creative outlets in my life, I turned to fine art photography, I really enjoyed it, and still do. You can see some of it if you like at carlrubinphotography.com   But something was missing.  It wasn't the same thing as songwriting and delivering a song to an attentive audience.

I'd started writing again some years after the accident, but something was still missing.  The muse wasn't fully returned  I decided the muse needed to be "tested".  So, I went to the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival, with the idea of listening to the singer/songwriters there to see if I felt I "fit in" and, more importantly, to play in some of the late-night/all night song circles.   I would up playing some of my songs at song circles which were attended by some really good writers, some of whom were performers at the Festival.  And the reactions I got made it clear that it was time to come back.

So, as they say, there's no time like the present....Here I come...

I've got a host of new songs, some completed, some nearly so, that I'll be working on over the next few months.  Some will be posted on my website for listening or download, some will be debuted in upcoming performances (more on that later), and some will no doubt find their way to a second album release down the road.  And, of course, I'll plug some to other artists.  

Hope you stay with me to see how it all unwinds...Carl