Laura Bruno Lilly

The road ends, but the journey continues...

Page 34 of 41

In Search of a Replacement Classical Guitar Case

April 11, 2015 /

In 1994 I purchased my first custom handmade classical guitar.  A Thomas Prisloe.  Crafted with an Englemann Spruce top, Indian Rosewood sides and back and customized features, it came housed in a Pro Tec International case.

My 1994 Prisloe nestled in its original Pro Tec International case, 2015

My 1994 Prisloe nestled in its original Pro Tec International case, 2015


Both have served me well these past 21 years of gigging, performing, recording, teaching and traveling.
The woods of this guitar have long since opened up, developing a tone quality shaped by the touch of my fingers and style of playing.  The case remains a stalwart protector of its charge.
Heavily padded, yet extremely lightweight and durable, this case kept the Prisloe at a consistent temperature and humidity level as well as safe and secure during transport.  It didn’t show signs of falling apart until we ended our between homes journey in July 2012. Continue reading

A Suitcase Full of Chocolate

April 6, 2015 /

Quote symbol“A SUITCASE FULL OF CHOCOLATE” is the film about the life of SOFIA COSMA (1914-2011), a devoted mother, a modest woman of great personal character, a great pianist, and the ultimate survivor. Born at the outbreak of World War I, this remarkable musician began a brilliant career as a prize winner in the Viennese International Piano Competition of 1933. Hitler’s invasion of Austria, and Sofia’s subsequent long imprisonment in a Soviet Labor camp, forced her to abandon her music for many years. This is the remarkable story of her ultimate triumph as a mother, a concert artist in the Communist world, then an American citizen with a new life, and a free woman, who returned to Russia to solo with the Moscow Philharmonic. The life of Sofia Cosma is a lesson about Freedom, that precious commodity which most of us take for granted. It is also a lesson about artistry, not fame. Through unbelievable adversity, this musician made music at the highest level, cared for her family, kept her sense of humor, and remained genuinely modest throughout her life.” Lincoln Mayorga

I don’t remember how I came across this intriguingly titled video trailer, but if not for the name, I know I’d have missed it altogether.  I’m glad the chocolate drew me in…Once drawn in, I still haven’t a clue as to what the chocolate connection actually is, but, that’s part of the continuity of the draw for when the video becomes more widely available to a larger audience.  I suspect it has something to do with Sofia’s eventual escape from the Communist world, but that is of course simply my own speculation.

“In an age when we make heroes out of musicians who struggle with drugs, it is rare to encounter one whose life is profoundly inspiring.”  ~ Lincoln Mayorga

Inspiration during a simple Convalescence

March 25, 2015 /

Okay.  So I’m laid up a bit from a pesky back muscle spasm. In my mature wisdom, I know it is nothing as incapacitating as what many of my favorite Wounded Warriors have had to endure in a life less than half the length of my own.  But, when one is on a roll with a project that has been working its way to the top of the slush pile of my creative mind, the intrusion of this mini-disability is an aggravation.
In keeping with a term I earned back during my horse rescue days, I choose to ‘Cowgirl Up.’
Yep, being (he)artistic and horsey walk hand in hand in this lady’s life.
I confess to times of grumpiness, but mostly I’ve been reading lots, listening lots and vegging lots.  Never one to run from the creative crock pot of silence, the waiting is invigorating, but the physical stillness is my undoing!
Here then is a sampling of stuff I love, especially when I can’t position myself on my own practice stool and work on my own music.  Enjoy! Continue reading

Giving Voice (first wind-down)

March 22, 2015 /

This post marks the closing of what I consider to be the first part of my Giving Voice series.  While I have several more relevant articles in various stage of readiness to post, I think it’s time to take a break.  Because Giving Voice is an ongoing series, I intend to resume its ‘focus’ after an undetermined period of time.
Instead of composing some sort of summary post, I thought I’d ‘re-post’ a Swimming with Swans vignette I presented here on the blog in 2013.  Written at the close of our first stay in Las Cruces during our between homes journey, I think it speaks to the issue of ‘street people’ stereotypes in a positive and personal manner.
In doing this, I am also engaging in a blog experiment that I’m not sure will work!  Please bear with me.  Both this wind-down post and the archived vignette-post are presented in ‘sticky note’ fashion.  Theoretically, this first time published post will be ‘sticky-ed’ first and The Prophet and the Gift should follow without changing its original blog posting date.  We’ll see.  😉
Thank you for the many responses I’ve received during this first part of my Giving Voice series via personal e-mail, face-to-face discussions, and of course in the comments section.

No Place Like Home: Working families increasingly homeless

March 15, 2015 /

Quote symbolReporter: Darlene thought she had done everything right, even taking classes for her master’s degree.  She held a good job with the veterans administration for the last 15 years, had savings, college and retirement accounts, and a comfortable suburban home for her three sons…

‘They had never worried about anything.  They never had to go into the kitchen and look into an empty cupboard.  I lived a middle class life all my life.  That’s all I knew. I dropped from middle class to no class.‘  Continue reading

Snippets of an Inner Childhood Soundscape

March 8, 2015 /

Lately I’ve been remembering quiet times as a kid, with a sharp ear for what actually occupied my time. I’m realizing that my prayers, thoughts and stories were all relayed via inner music.  I sang declarations of love to my God, hummed certain discordant intervals when I was scared, and then snappy tunes when happy.

1959 olive green vw bug

1959 olive green vw bug, just like our own family car (we kept it till ~1977. After that, it spent its last days transporting hazardous materials within a local landfill!)


During family trips in the car, I arranged the sounds and rhythms filling my head into satisfying story soundtracks. Sharing the back seat of a VW bug with my baby bro was not the most exciting of adventures.  No, I take that back, we managed to stage plays between fights for space.
He was most talented at wrinkling up his face to accompany the different voices we made up for various characters.  In fact, he’d do my favorite character, Blob, upon personal request.  Yeah, I guess baby brothers came in handy that way.
I had a rich inner life.
my homemade cannoli

My homemade cannoli


And an enriching kid-life. A life filled with colors, aunts, uncles, cannoli, swimming, exploring and dissecting the stinky frogs packed in purchased science kits.
Stars, bonfires and leaves.
Museums, ice skating, tobogganing, and walks with cousins. Day camp, girl scouts.
Ma’s art lessons she gave to all the cousins, the smell of linseed oil mingled with freshly ironed cotton shirts.  Growing gardens – Ma’s flowers, Dad’s tomatoes, and always a peach tree.
Baby bunnies hidden in our front yard, forts built with scraps of plywood, and music.
Always music.
Ma’s opera and dorky Barn Dance albums, the old 78’s and wonderful new LP’s of musical theatre.
Dad’s jazz. Practicing alongside Coltrane, Charlie, cool blues. Crazy kid-dancing to his sax, clarinet, guitar, and cowbell.
Grandpa’s banjo and zampogna*.  You Are My Sunshine sing-alongs.
Laying on my bed at night or looking up at the clouds on a warm spring day, in my quiet times, I didn’t read.  I didn’t color.  Well, yes, I did those.  But mostly, I ‘did my music.’
Even then, ever with me, from the inside out.

My heart, O God, is steadfast; I will sing and make music with all my soul.
~ Psalm 108:1

*more on this instrument in another post…suffice it to say, my love of goats has a family history as well!

Giving Voice: Margaret Thatcher on Unemployment

March 4, 2015 /

I find it interesting that unemployment has been an issue of glaringly huge proportions for quite some time within the free market world.  That there have been sound ways of alleviating it during the course of these past decades, yet left untouched by those in power is disheartening, very telling and ultimately totally inexcusable.
Quote symbol

…Characteristically she covered her own weakest flank – unemployment – by counter-attacking Labour’s  record in the 1970’s. ‘In the end Labour always runs away,’ she jeered in her adoption speech at Finchley on 19 May:

            ‘They are running away from the need to defend their country…They are fleeing from the long overdue reform of the trade unions…They are running out on Europe…Above all, Labour is running away from the true challenge of unemployment.’

Promising to create millions of jobs, she insisted, was ‘no more than an evasion of the real problem’.  Real jobs could only be created by gradually building up a competitive economy with profitable industries that could hold their own in world markets.  ‘We Conservatives believe in working with the grain of human nature, in encouraging people by incentives, not in over-regulating them by too many controls.’ ‘A quick cure,’ she repeated several times in another favourite formulation, ‘is a quack cure.’

Margaret Thatcher circa 1983 (excerpt taken from The Iron Lady by John Campbell, pg 222)

Respite with a Snapdragon

March 1, 2015 /

Contrary to popular belief, I am a snapdragon…

Thus began a post I wrote in September announcing the beginning of my soon to be launched ‘serious series’ now known as Giving Voice.
Several posts and weeks into the series, I just now realized I forgot about my flower promise.  Please accept my humble apologies, and notice I have rectified the situation.  The snapdragon badge displayed in the sidebar links to a little flower quiz.  It’s meant to be a ‘respite’ during the premier presentation of Giving Voice. I think it can also serve as a fun deviation from the severe winter weather most readers have been experiencing this year.
So go on ahead and click on the badge to take the quiz.  If you feel so inclined, let me know how you turn out as a flower in the comments.  I came out a snapdragon after 8 takes in a row.  I’m more partial to giant purple irises, deep red orange poppies, daisies and milkweed blossoms, but hey, a flower by any other name is still a flower!  And they do perk up the gloominess of a grey South Carolina day.snapdragons

Poverty and Beauty, Ugliness and Truth

February 21, 2015 /

a tree grows in brooklyn coverA short while ago, I reread this classic novel.  It’s one of the greats.  What surprised me this time around was that amidst the storyline and lyrical prose, its message speaks to the heart of what I’ve been presenting within my blog series, Giving Voice.
Very timely as the quotes I’ve pulled from within its pages read better than anything I could attempt to pen.
Meant to be read as a single ‘blog post’ the following quotes are from “A Tree Grows In Brooklyn” by Betty Smith.

Quote symbolSince her father’s death, Francie had stopped writing about birds and trees and My Impressions.  Because she missed him so, she had taken to writing little stories about him.  She tried to show that, in spite of his shortcomings, he had been a good father and a kindly man.  She had written three such stories which were marked ‘C’ instead of the usual ‘A.’  The fourth came back with a line telling her to remain after school… Continue reading

Tattered and Torn, Loved and Worn

February 14, 2015 /

One day, years ago, Amy-next-door came to call. She often came to visit with her two little girls in tow to play with my youngest two kiddos as they were all around the same age. This time, she stood holding two paper grocery bags.
“Look what I found!” Amy said as she thrust the two bags into my arms.
Feeling light as a feather for all their fullness, I immediately knew they were filled to the brim with fabrics.
“I found these at a garage sale for $0.75 and I thought you might like to use them.”
More than just neighbors, Amy-next-door and I were enablers…always on the look-out for each other’s vices: she and her buttons, I and my fabrics.
As I began rummaging through the brown paper bags, I noticed they contained more than just scraps or random cuts of material.  There was a huge piece of white cotton flannel, a stack of pre-cut 10 ½ x 10 ½ flannel squares, a handful of 3 ½ x 3 ½ ones and miles of uncut flannel fabrics of varying designs and colors.
This was someone’s UFO (quiltspeak for ‘UnFinished Object’). Continue reading

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