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Soft Solo Piano Music (without a price tag!)

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If you were to step into my bedroom at any point in the day, more than half the time you’d find me sitting at my desk, working away at some kind of project. And many times, I’ll have music playing in the background—sometimes quiet instrumental (mostly solo piano) pieces, other times louder ones when I’ve forgotten to turn it down. Because, yeah, that happens too. 🙂

I love listening to music—and sometimes wonder if I listen to it too much!—but it’s something I really enjoy in life. Music lightens the mood, it helps me focus when I’m trying to write, and it’s a beautiful representation of one aspect of God’s wonderful creation.

Over the years, I’ve accumulated a substantial collection of instrumental music, and though I still often resort to online radios, I’ve found myself using my own collection more and more frequently. And the best part of all? I’ve been able to build up my collection for free—and today, I’d like to share my top favorites of the free ones I’ve found with you.

Soft Solo Piano Music (without a price tag)
Credits: Photo by Paige Cody on Unsplash

A note before the list: One thing I always try to make sure of is that the “free” albums I’m downloading have been made available legally. Piracy is NOT something I want to be getting into, and I’m sure you don’t, either! There are quite a few songs on Youtube that are illegally uploaded (although I believe there is a good number that are legal, too—it just depends on the source). But several years ago, I discovered NoiseTrade. NoiseTrade is a place for artists to offer samples of their work to you for free, in exchange for adding you to their newsletter lists. Almost everything on NoiseTrade is stuff I don’t appreciate, but when I was on there recently, I kept track of the gems I found, and that’s what I want to share with you today. As far as I know, these are all put up by the original artists, so they should be legal. Check into it yourself—don’t take my word for it! I’m only sharing these since they have been a blessing to me, and hopefully they will be for you, too!

Unless otherwise stated, these are full solo piano albums. Most are from Christian artists, and many have hymns in them.

My favorites–soothing ones I love to have playing in the background (free on NoiseTrade):

Other nice instrumental albums (free on NoiseTrade):

  • 25 Solo Piano Hymns and Spiritual Songs by Ang Li (not quite as gentle as some I like, but a beautiful collection of hymns old and new—I’ll be keeping this one!)
  • Pursuit by Jana Van Ryn (beautiful worship songs; not as gentle as I like, but I still love this album!)
  • Sea of Glass by David Mahler (this is more instrumental; mainly dulcimer music, all eight songs inspired by the book of Revelations)
  • A Cup of Tea by Judah Banke (solo piano, but not always gentle—a fun one for tea lovers!)
  • Hymns at the Piano and Favorite Tunes at the piano by Frank Carter (not qute as gentle as some artists, but still nice)
  • Piano Collection, Vol 2 by Brandon Musser (Christian artist; not gentle playing, but has quite a few hymn albums—click on his name to see them all)
  • Solo Piano by Phil Madeira (jazz style; but not heavy-handed—nice to have in the background)

BONUS: Other artists I love listening to:

I thought I’d throw this in here, because I always enjoy seeing what other people listen to! This is not a complete list, but hopefully it will give you some more options! The links are to the artist “topic channels” on Youtube, so they aren’t ones I’ve found for free, but you can find them on Spotify or iHeart Radio or wherever else you get your music. These are not in any particular order–I appreciate them all.

Hopefully, that’s helpful! I’ve marveled before at how tensions can be rising over something, and then we turn some good music on, and everyone settles down again. I believe God has built into us an appreciation for good music, and it’s a wonderful way for us to value His goodness and the beauties of His creation more, too.

Do you have any favorite artists—ones I have mentioned, or some I’ve missed? Please share. I’m always on the lookout for more variety!

Lockdown Ramblings and a New Writer’s Tool (Freebie!)

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Well, it’s certainly been an interesting two weeks! After watching all the quarantine notices throughout the States, I wondered how long it would take for that to come to New Zealand. And just a week or week and a half later from when I first heard about it from friends over there, we were notified that New Zealand was to go under lockdown for four weeks. Today is day 13 of lockdown here; we’ve had two Sundays at home now.

As I mentioned in one of my last posts, I was supposed to go stay with some friends for six weeks while the mother recovered from surgery. I had my bags packed, some by the door, others waiting on the blue table under my window, ten minutes away from when I was planning to leave. And I got a phone call—the surgery had been postponed. So, instead of driving three or four hours that afternoon, I got to unpack everything (but I did list everything I had packed in Workflowy, where I normally keep a packing list), and then got to work at resetting my brain for “lockdown with the family” mode.

I’m so thankful I get to be with everyone during this time—both Dad and my oldest brother are off work, so we’re all here together. It’s been great to just enjoy spending time together! We’ve played games, worked up boxes and boxes of apples into applesauce, canned several boxes of tomatoes, and overall just enjoyed the chance to have undivided time together. We also have a new routine going, which I think all of us are enjoying!

Lockdown Ramblings and a New Writer's Tool (Freebie!)
One thing we’ve enjoyed doing as a family is having a sausage roast by a nearby creek for Sunday lunch. This was one of the views I spotted on our way home last Sunday!

One thing I was hoping for, which hasn’t happened yet, is extra creative time. I’ve spent a lot of afternoons lately working on some sort of preserving job, so I haven’t had as much time as I was hoping.

I did get one thing done, though—a writing tracker I’ve been dreaming of for months now! There’s a writer’s event called the 2020 Author Olympics (supposed to run during the Olympics, but you know…that’s not going to happen this year). It’ll be running from April 15-28, and as always, I’m excited to participate. I did sign up for Camp NaNo this month, too, but well…I haven’t started writing yet, and it’s the 7th already. Planning ahead is helpful, y’all. I should have, and didn’t, and I’m regretting it now.

With the Author Olympics coming up, though, I decided to get the writing tracker finished so I could share it with writers there. And then I thought—why not share it here, too? Here’s the description I shared in the Facebook group (and please join us there, if you’re interested in doing creative writing during lockdown; the more people, the better!):

I used a writing tracker like this during NaNoWriMo last year, and found it super helpful, fun, and motivating, but have made quite a few improvements to it since then.

There are three versions here: A 10k – 100k section, with 500 words per space, a 5k – 50k section, with 250 words per space (for those of us who are slower writers!), and a section with just the blank divided up spirals, for those of us who want to make our own goals (editing, anyone? this might be helpful!).

The pages are letter-sized, but the trackers themselves are in a half-letter size (I find that the most useful personally; it’s the right size to trim down and glue into my bullet journal). Feel free to print out any or all that could be useful to you! And enjoy the quotes, too—just a random collection of different inspiring/thought-provoking ones I’ve picked up over the years!

If you would like a version without quotes and/or see any typos, please let me know. I’m happy to fix and re-upload them.

And feel free to share this with anyone inside or outside this group who might find this helpful!

I’ve included three versions in the Drive file: The half-letter size I referenced above, an A5 version, and one I designed to fit in my Leuchtturm Bullet Journal (because, yes, neither the A5 or the half-size will fit quite the way I want it to in there). Get them here:

View/Download All Three Versions | Half-Letter Size | A5 Size | Leuchtturm (Bullet Journal) Size

I hope it’s helpful for you! And if you have any questions, please ask.

This afternoon, I’m hoping I can spend some time listing all the stories I’ve written over the past 8-10 years that I want to edit. I know there are several that I’ve forgotten in that time; a few months ago, I was trying to count up how many stories I’ve written that are 10,000 words or larger, and Mom reminded me of one I’d missed that I wrote last year—so I think it’s about time to go back and make a list! It will be hard to decide which one to work on first, though.

I hope you’re having a productive time during this lockdown, and hopefully, you’re with your family! Whatever you are doing, I hope you are keeping your eyes on Jesus. He is worthy.

What projects have you been working on these past few weeks?

The Five Minute Tip

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One of the most lasting things I learned from NaNoWriMo in November was how much writing I could accomplish in just five minutes. So today, I’d like to share a simple tip that you’ve probably heard before, but I was reminded of again and have found it so very, very helpful over the past few months!

Set a timer for five minutes, and write as fast as you can in that time.

One of this morning’s tasks was looking for new replacement book covers for a project that I’ve been working on for the last 3-4 years—a complete upgrade and refresh of my book reviews website. It’s a massive job, and I haven’t gotten nearly as far with it as I would have liked, but that’s one of my goals for the year, so I’m tackling it again. Over this last week, I’ve gained a bit of clarity as far as what I can do now while I wait for several other things to fall into place, so I have a bit more steam to push ahead.

While I was looking for covers, I happened to see a search result come up from the current website—and the description of that particular result was my author bio. Which reminds me that I need to put together a quick description for that particular search function on the new website, to be more helpful to the end-user searcher . . . . #SolopreneurDoesItAll

Okay, that’s noted in my ever-increasing list of things to do before launch day.

The Five Minute Tip
We’ve had some gorgeous sunsets this last little while thanks to the smoke from the Australian bushfires!

Now, where was I? Oh, yes. So this bio said something like “I’m the girl who decided to write uninspired reviews instead of inspired fiction.” Something along those lines, anyway—and when I saw it, I remembered how it was something of a personal joke to me at the time. That was my trade-off then, as I put all my writing energy into the website and left the side of me that loves writing fiction in the dust.

But, when I saw that, I realized that’s not me anymore. I’ve come to the place where even though we’re still posting at least three reviews per week on there, and I’m still writing quite a bit for it, fiction writing has its place in my life again.

It’s not big, or grand, but it’s there—and like I proved to myself last November, it’s still vastly important to me. It was important enough to keep writing even while I was taking three trips, losing sleep in preference to writing, and trying to balance my other responsibilities here at home and on the reviews website. Some things fell through the cracks, yes, but this is one thing that isn’t as much on the back burner now as it used to be.

And I’m so very, very thankful!

At this point, I have a daily commitment to write at least a little each day in or for a fictional story. One thing that has helped me with this is a five-minute timer.

This morning, before I sat down to write this blog post, I set the timer for five minutes and wrote in my Biblical historical fiction story. I only got about 160 words in that time, but often I can get up to about 210 or 230 words—I had a bit of research to do before I could continue with that particular scene. I didn’t particularly want to do it then, because I wanted to get on with other things, but since that’s my daily commitment, and told myself I only had to write for those five minutes, I was able to get it done.

Little things, people. Change those little things to give you momentum for the big. You never know—you might end up with a novel at the end of it—as I’m expecting to have in another month or two when I finally get this thing finished! I’m at 60k now . . . and am a little scared to think of how much it will likely be before I’m done!

So yes, I’m writing fiction again—more than I ever used to. Along with trying to keep up with reviews for the website. And I’m thankful to have been given the chance to do both!

Now I need to figure out if it’s possible to edit a novel in just five minutes per day . . . (I think it must be).

Let’s discuss: What little tips like this have made a big difference for you? Are you trying to prioritize something a bit more now than you have in the past, or have you had to put something on the back burner for a while?

 

Writing Inspiration Resources — Where I’m Finding Motivation Right Now

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We’re currently in the thick of moving preparations at the moment. It’s Wednesday; we’re moving Saturday, and there are still some cleaning jobs, final yard clean-up, and last-minute packing to do yet! But we’re getting there.

My writing time lately has been struggling quite a bit. We’ve been spending a lot more time with other people (mostly goodbye meals), and the stress of having things in limbo especially this last week has really made it difficult to focus. I never realized before what part a tidy, “normal” environment plays into my creativity levels! It’s a fascinating thing to think about.

Anyway, I have wanted to continue doing at least a little writing, just to keep the practice in, so I’ve been pushing myself to do 100 words each day in my story. Keeping going in the midst of change is hard, but at the same time it’s also refreshing to have one constant I can count on in my life.

I’ve also been working on “fueling up” as much as possible, and I thought it would be fun to share a few places I’m finding inspiration these days with you!

Writing Inspiration Resources — Where I'm Finding Motivation Right Now

  1. Read updates from other writers. I frequently stop by Lydia Howe’s and Kate Willis’ blogs, because they often talk about writing. Seeing other writers struggle with their stories, fight through, and make progress, has always inspired me, so I’m gleaning as much inspiration from them as possible.
  2. Shawn Smucker’s writing updates. Technically, this should fit under the previous point, but I’ve appreciated the thoughts he’s had to share so much recently that it deserves its own place in the list. 🙂 His goal is to write 1000 words every weekday, and each day before he begins writing he does a short journal entry or pep talk for the day. So far, I’ve found it helpful and encouraging. And it makes me itch to start writing more myself, so YAY!
  3. 2018 Author Olympics. A.M.Heath has apparently come up with this–it’s a self-paced olympics for authors, that runs alongside the winter olympics. I’ve never participated, but I’m hoping I can this year! From the description: “Each author sets their own daily goals in the hopes of earning a virtual medal by the end of the day.”
  4. Three Day Word Wars. Again, something I haven’t participated in yet (schedules don’t always mesh very well!), but this is a community of writers who write as much as they possibly can over a three-day period, send in their final wordcounts, and whoever has the most at the end wins a prize. Pretty fun. I’m hoping I can join in next time, but we’ll see! The next one is running from February 22-24.
  5. Read good books. I’m just over half-way through an apologetic, Cold Case Christianity (I mentioned that in an earlier post sometime). I’m also part-way through a novella that’s taken me over a year to read. As soon as I’ve finished that, I’m planning to read several books from authors I know I love—I always find lots of good inspiration there! Good writing, both non-fiction and fiction, often inspires me to work on writing myself.
  6. Listen to piano music. I’ve loved some of Thad Fiscella’s songs for a long time, and often find his music inspiring.
  7.  Keep writing. As much as I might struggle to have this on the list, it really is helpful. My goal is to do at least 100 words per day. Often, I average just above that, but at least I keep moving a little!

What are you doing to keep yourself inspired and moving in your work right now? Do you struggle to focus when your surroundings are changing?

Midweek Mix-Up #14: Indians, Spotify, and Goal Setting

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Welcome to this week’s version of midweek mix-up! Since I missed Tuesday’s post, I thought I’d share an extra-wonderful resource that I personally love with you today.

Reading this week:

The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare

The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare
Progress: Finished.

This book turned out to be a fascinating read! I loved how Elizabeth Speare showed Matt interacting with the Indians, learning their ways, and how she worked the ending—that was quite sweet. Overall, this is a well-written story about pioneers and the life they led in the mid 1700s.

All of a Kind Family by Sydney Taylor

All of a Kind Family by Sydney Taylor
Progress: Page 63 of 189 (34%)

This book was part of my school work when I was eight or nine. I loved it then—it’s a clean, fun story—and recently realized it should have a place on the website as well! So, time to re-read it! Since this book is for younger children, I’m not finding it quite as enthralling as I did a few years ago, but even so it’s still very enjoyable.

Elsie’s Womanhood by Martha Finley

Elsie’s Womanhood by Martha Finley
Progress: Finished!

As with the other books in this series, Elsie’s Womanhood picks up where Elsie’s Girlhood left off—at the scene where Elsie is finally engaged. This story continues the tale, and while it’s fairly slow at times, there are several interesting diversions with Tom Jackson trying to kill Mr. Travilla—or Elsie, if he can—in order to get revenge for not being able to marry Elsie himself. Then Elsie’s family starts to grow, and the Civil War begins, with friends fighting on both sides. After five long years, the war is over—with many family members dead or permanently changed. This was another great book in the series—I’m looking forward to reading Elsie’s Motherhood!

New book reviews this week:

The Adventures of Unc Billy Possum by Thornton W. Burgess — Fun family read-aloud!
Unc Billy Possum’s greed for fresh eggs gets him into big trouble.

Farewell for a While by Sharon A. Lavy
Dustin and Rebekah, just a few weeks before their wedding date, discover that they have some issues they must work through before they are married.

Moses the Kitten by James Herriot — One of our family’s favorite picture books!
As the vet arrives at Mr Butler’s farm, he finds a kitten huddled in a freezing marsh and takes it to the house for the farmer’s wife to care for.

The Adventures of Mr. Mocker by Thornton W. Burgess — Another fun family read-aloud!
When Mr. Mocker moves to the Green Forest from Ol’ Virginny, he uses his talent of imitating other people’s voices to bring chaos to the animals and birds in his new home.

My Friend Flicka by Mary O’Hara
When day-dreaming Ken is given a colt of his own, his life begins to transform.

This week’s blog post roundup:

Ask Annie: 5 Twitter Mistakes Writers Make and How to Avoid Them (Writer Unboxed) — Super helpful advice. I’ve recently started exploring Twitter (not much, I don’t really “get” how it works, but I can see the potential in it), and this is really helpful. I need to work on no. 2—that’s basically all my Twitter has been used for so far. Woops.

Slip Away and Be With God (Youtube) — This is an excerpt from one of Paul Washer’s sermons. Challenging, to say the least!

The Absolutely Enormous List of Christian History Books {By Grade and Time Period} (Thinking Kids Blog) — This is an absolutely enormous list! So many great-looking books on here, and a wonderful resource for homeschoolers!

Setting Achievable Goals (Heritage Literature) — Great post on goal setting. Reminds me that I ought to add some deadlines to a few projects I’ve got going right now….

The Ultimate Book List For Boys! (The Modest Mom Blog) — Lots of familiar titles here! Great books—and this isn’t only for boys, of course. Many are wonderful for girls as well.

Scene Creation P. 2: 5 Essentials for the Framework of a Scene (Christ is Write) — Good tips here. For non-outliners, some of these things might be difficult, but there are some really helpful ideas here, regardless.

Resource of the week:

EZBlocker (Spotify Ad Blocker)

EZBlocker Screenshot

Truth be told, I love music. Probably a little bit more than I ought. When Grooveshark shut down a few months ago, I wanted to find another customizable music source—Pandora is fine for a while, but being able to control what you listen to is also nice at times.

Enter Spotify. I’d used Spotify—briefly—before, but when I already had music I liked sorted out in Grooveshark, I really didn’t have any reason to add another website to the mix. When Grooveshark was no more, I decided to try Spotify again. And I immediately encountered commercials…lots of commercials. Like, a full minute of them every quarter or half an hour. I got to the place where I could recognize a commercial within the first two seconds or so, and turn the volume off so I wouldn’t have to listen to it. But then, of course, you have to remember to turn it back on as well, and that didn’t always happen right away.

After a while, I was fed up, trying to find something commercial-free. Then I began to wonder if others were annoyed with the problem, and figured that someone probably was, so thus initiated a Google search—which ended in finding EZBlocker. As soon as I installed it, I noticed a difference. Ah, bliss. No more commercials and (incredibly!) with the “Block Banner Ads” setting on, I didn’t even have to see any flashing ads! Wonderful!

Oh, and a couple tips:

  • Apparently, EZBlocker works best with Windows 7 or 8 (I’ve got 8), and there’s been some success with 10 as well. There is an Android version, but no current plans for an iOS version.
  • You only have to open EZBlocker whenever you want to start up Spotify—it will automatically open Spotify for you.
  • To block the banner ads (besides the vocal commercials), open EZBlocker for the first time as an Administrator. You should be able to do that by right-clicking the icon and selecting “Run as Administrator”. Then, check the “Block Banner Ads” box and close and reopen the application.

Question: What is your favorite source for music?

Midweek Mix-Up #13: Romania, Adoniram Judson, and Tools for Writers

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Well, midweek mix-up is a bit late this week. I’ve had a full schedule lately uploading new book reviews, enjoying spring time, and writing the September newsletter. Here I am now, with a few more books for you to peruse!

Reading this week:

Tortured for Christ by Richard Wurmbrand

Tortured for Christ by Richard Wurmbrand
Progress: Finished!

Oh, this book. I love it, and at the same time I hate it. It’s…powerful. Through Richard’s eyes, we see the harsh reality of what it means for many Christians in restricted nations to never be able to know—from one day to the next—what their future is going to look like. What it’s like to always hide—even from your own pastor at times!—that you’re a believer. Richard suffered much under the Communists—when the USSR had control of Romania—and while he doesn’t go into a lot of detail, he shares enough that you can understand where he’s coming from.

This book was great for me to hear, although I hated hearing it the whole way through—the picture it showed me was not pretty at all. It showed me the ugly apathy in my own life, and challenged me more than I ever remember being challenged before. Even though I may never read or listen to a recording of this book again, it’s given me a lot of food for thought—I’ll not be forgetting its message any time soon.

A Different Kind of Courage, by Sarah Holman

A Different Kind of Courage by Sarah Holman
Progress: Finished!

I loved this story! Being both a bit of a history nut (thanks, Mom), and a lover of good historical fiction, I was really looking forward to reading this story. I’ve read other books by Sarah before—and loved every single one of them—and this one didn’t disappoint me at all.

Through the eyes of William, we are shown the conflict that would have arisen between families and friends when the American Revolution got underway. I loved seeing that the historical facts didn’t override the story—especially considering how much research went into this book to make it what it is today. William’s story is very relatable—trying to follow God’s will and yet stay in the good graces of everyone else is a struggle I can understand all too well. I also loved the slight romance through the story—it was there, but not overdone. If you want a fascinating perspective of the American Revolution, this is a great resource. (I’ll be writing a full review of A Different Kind of Courage soon, to post on the website.)

Adoniram Judson, Bound for Burma by Janet and Geoff Benge

Adoniram Judson: Bound for Burma by Janet & Geoff Benge
Progress: 95%

This is another great book in the Christian Heroes: Then and Now series. I love how it shows the early life of Adoniram—how he struggled to please his preacher father at times, how he became a Deist for a while (until he heard his Deist friend dying and realized this wasn’t what he thought it was!), and much more. The last part is very sad—because of the poor living conditions in Burma, many of his friends died, and he lost both his first and second wives to sickness and bad diets. Overall, this is a great story, one that would to go along well with any Church history or missionary course. (I’ll be writing a review of this to go on the website soon, too.)

The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare

The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare
Progress: Chapter 10 of 25

While uploading books this week, I noticed that Mom mentioned this book in a review—but she hadn’t reviewed it yet! So since it’s really good, I’m re-reading it with the goal of reviewing it when I’m done. Not a hard job!

Twelve-year-old Matt is in charge of keeping the cabin tidy and ready for his father to bring his mother and siblings out to their new land. Then his gun is stolen, a bear destroys all food supplies when he forgets to properly bar the door, and he is attacked by some swarming bees. How is he going to survive long enough for his father to get back? This is quite the fun adventure story!

New reviews this week:

Granny Han’s Breakfast by Sheila Groves — Wonderful book about faith in God.
When all her money is stolen, Granny must trust God to supply her needs, which He does abundantly.

There’s an Owl in the Shower by Jean Craighead George
While Borden’s dad is out of work because logging has been halted, Borden finds a baby owl in need of help and they raise it.

Kate Shelley and the Midnight Express by Margaret K. Wetterer
When a storm causes a train to crash into a creek, Kate must go for help for the men who were on it.

Flame Over Tara by Madeleine Polland — Great story about St. Patrick.
When Patrick brings the gospel to Ireland, he must win the approval of the High King, Leary, in order for his mission to succeed.

Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey — Favorite childhood story!
Sal and her mother go picking blueberries, and Little Bear and his mother go eating blueberries, on the same hill.

This week’s blog post roundup:

15 Productivity Hacks For Procrastinators (Lifehack) — Good, solid tips. Very helpful article!

Conventions and Obligatory Scenes (Steven Pressfield Online) — This post is writer’s gold. Seriously. It’s a bit on the long side, but worth while reading. (You can see a video version here, if you wish.)

Free Music & Background Sound Resources for Writers (Raychel Rose) — Great sites listed here. Good resource to bookmark and go back to later.

The Next Chapter: I’m No Longer Writing Twice Per Week. Here’s Why (James Clear) — Interesting. I’m enjoying a twice-per-week rhythm, but I enjoy seeing others’ thoughts on how they do their blogging, too.

5 Criteria for Selecting Read-Aloud Books for Children (Year Round Homeschooling) — Good tips for homeschool mothers here!

This week’s resource:

The Story Grid: A Five Part Video Series on the Craft of Story Editing

This is a superb resource for writers! In five fairly short episodes, Shawn Coyne shares his methods for editing. He shows you how to break your story up into bite-sized chunks, see the big picture of where your story is headed, and figure out the loop-holes without feeling overwhelmed at the size of your story.

This series was so good I stopped teaching writing to my brother for a little bit, so he could have the chance to go through this as well.

Note: There are some words used that I don’t consider appropriate, and the story they use as an example isn’t one I’d normally read. Be warned!

What have you been reading lately?