Song Insight: “Hello, Happy!”

Composer: Greg Hintermeister, ©2007
Arranged: Greg Hintermeister
Performed by: Greg Hintermeister
Recorded: 2007 in Hint of Light Studios
Emotions: Hope, Happy, Smiles, Anticipation, Summer Fun

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Background:  

Sometimes I'm happy.

Really happy.

Like an un-tethered burst of happy that celebrates everything around me. I love those times. Like today…or like the day I wrote this song.

Now, there are times when I’m sad, too. I honestly think my range of moods is a pre-requisite for being a Hinter. I also think it's a gift. When I'm blue, I get really down, but that’s when I get thoughtful and write a good blog post...or a good song. I also think that without the blue, I wouldn’t know the happy like I do.

When I do find Happy, happy songs come out...like this one. It's just piano, so don't get all distracted waiting for the guitars...There's enough of those in other songs. I find it a challenge to write for a single instrument so every note has to count.

To celebrate when I get to say hello to Happy, let's raise a mug and toast, in no particular order, to some things that make me happy:

• Composing
  The elation when it all comes together and I’m hearing music I love…and that I wrote. It’s jump up and fist-pump happy
• My wife She adds the sparkle to everything on this list
• Guitars
• Adventurous travel
• Oceans
• Lobster
  Or any sea-faring food, really
• Dark beer
• More guitars
• Lost
  Especially season 1
• Late night talks with my oldest son 
• Really dark beer No, not a duplicate. this is a rare find.
• Safaris
  The real African kind
• My youngest son He's a lot like me. I’m so stinking proud and amazed at him. Also makes me sad because I fail him a lot, but that's for a later post
• Playing piano Especially my 'pretty' arrangement of Raiders of the Lost Ark during a wedding prelude. That was some serious Happy
• Driving fast Specifically, driving fast while listening to Eddie and the Cruisers II in my college-days sports car on my way to surprise my then-girlfriend now-wife in Eau Claire
• My music collection …See “driving fast”
• Tequila
  Reposado or Añejo preferably
• My daughters I call them Spitfire and Pistol.  What a journey they’re taking me on!
• Concerts
  Actually depends on the performance. Always worthwhile, but sometimes I get blue because I’m not up there playing with them
• Working outside
  Mowing, gardening, trimming trees, love all of it
• Campfires Marshmallows wrapped in tortillas grilled in campfire pie-maker. Amazing!

I could put a hundred more items in the list.

Funny, but nothing in that list includes technology…something that I spend MOST of my time interacting with during work and while at home.

Maybe that should tell me something.

My faith isn't listed in there, either. But there's a reason for that.

I personally find that having a faith in Jesus makes everything in that list stay Happy. With my faith, I have an anchor, a sense of purpose (that I many times forget but eventually remember). That anchor makes the list fun! Without it, those things in my list would be potential sources of purpose…and would quickly be removed from my ‘fun’ list and move to my ‘obsessive’ or ‘destructive’ list.

So here’s to life, to fun, and to faith.

Here’s to Happy!

Oh, and enjoy the song :-)

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Technical Specifics: 
Recording Unit: Cakewalk MIDI software, Soundscape DAW
Piano: RD-500

I composed this for a live theatre production at the Rochester Community and Technical College called “Imperfect Apple”. It was the opening number where we see the young lead character for the first time giving her wonderful, and happy, outlook on life. We soon learn she faces cancer, and the rest of the play revolves around her thoughts and journey through her treatment.
It was an awesome show!
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