Ready or Not

It's Sunday and a bit of a lazy day here. Today I found a new groove in an old tuning. I wrote a song a couple of weeks ago about Coal. Here in the east coal mining was a major industry that carries a long history of wealth, pain, and suffering. Whole towns grew up around and were named after the mines that fueled their existence. One such mine, Number 9 is the topic of my song. I used a basic tuning, open D in the first versions of the song. Today I found it is a lot more fun to play and sounds cooler in the tuning of DADDAD. I have written several other tunes in this sort of droney tuning. Using the slide and a combination of picking styles gives this song a whole new sound. The song is about a Coal Train Engineer hauling "Number 9 Coal" over the mountain. As he makes the journey he reflects on his life, love, the here after and Numer 9 Coal. I have several great songs now for the solo thing and my next step is to head for some open mic nights and see how they go over. Playing solo is so much different than playing with a band. It's just you and a guitar, but what a way to go... Here is a link to some information about Number 9.