For the past few months, it’s been all about the music.
Most of my playing focus has been in rep* upkeep and composing/practicing new pieces for my Swimming with Swans project. Before my back spasms in March, I increased technical practice to two hours a day minimum. Outside the realm of being a student in a rigorous University Music School program where two hours is but a blink, that’s a good amount of time spent on keeping those chops up.
As a working musician, the balance between teaching, playing, practicing, composing, rehearsals, sight reading, learning new rep, collaborations, gigging, performing, recording, and giving presentations is an on-going juggling act. 
These past few years, I’ve been blessed with a space of time that allows me to choose which balls to juggle and for how long.
Since my NaNoRebellion 2014, I’ve been listing out project to-do’s in the form of my “Where I’m At and Where I’m Going” focus sheets. I’m on the fourth such guide, about to compile yet another for the upcoming month. These allow me to jot down specific areas that need to be addressed, quantify what needs to be done and help me to see progress towards completion in a linear fashion.
In other words, they keep me on task.
Since receiving that new and much needed classical guitar case on Earth Day Continue reading
Category: Musical Musings (Page 11 of 12)
My Swimming with Swans project.
Imagine a single sunflower blossom, filling the mind-canvas in O’Keefe fashion.
The center, filled with potential protein tidbits to be harvested after the bloom has died, is the current focus of my Swimming with Swans project. It is the source from which all else emanates.
It’s All About The Music.
Prose, dance/animation, fiber art and documentary infuse individual project-petals emerging from that sunflower center.
My Swimming with Swans project-petals emerging from its music-center
It’s All About The Music.
Recently, I awoke with that O’Keefe-esque visual imprint in my mind’s eye. Often, the Lord speaks to me through such visuals.
It’s All About The Music.
How that basic fact escaped me during the early days of organizing Swimming with Swans: vignettes of our three-year journey between homes can be understood in the reading of its working title. In reigning in the scope of my Swimming with Swans project, first steps were found in the Kevin Powers article I read and wrote about sometime last year. Still, it only addressed the written aspect of my project.
It’s All About The Music.
From the very start of our Between Homes journey and on through to the bittersweet end, music was my calling card. Wherever the work sent us, whatever job opportunity hubby pursued – performing opened doors, initiated relationships and provided supplementary income. The Music also served as a precious tether connection with my true self amidst the current Reality we were navigating.
Early on, a colleague jokingly spoke of our Between Homes lifestyle as my personal sabbatical. While I was certainly immersed in composing, playing, performing and practicing, the circumstance of our journey was not something I’d label as a sabbatical.*
But truly, output gleaned from that Between Homes time resulted in a large body of work. A large body of quality work, some of which has been presented in bits and pieces on this blog in the form of ‘individual prose-project-petals’ as re-edited vignettes, reflections of re-entry into the mainstream, photos of fiber art created as a result of that experience, and the desire to Give Voice to the experiences of others in similar situations across the country.
All to the exclusion of its core element: The Music.
It’s All About The Music.
To be fair,** the sharing of musical projects on a blog is not easily achieved. Posting mp3 audio snippets or pdf score excerpts of works in progress is problematic on many fronts. Copyright protection just doesn’t seem to count for much of anything in this digital age. Aside from that, there is this old timey view of discussing current projects and ideas that I hold as truth. Any creative (he)artist knows what I’m talking about: the dreaded speak it, talk it, discuss it, and it will disappear! In other words, don’t share all the details of a current project or idea during the creating of it or the energy will just vaporize; just do it!
And that’s exactly what I have been doing since the beginning of the New Year…
It’s All About The Music.
Swans on a Misty Lake, by Alex Saberi
With the music in its proper place, Swimming with Swans is fleshing out naturally. It is beginning to glide effortlessly across the lake of completion with strokes of fluid motion, like the swans themselves.
*Definitely something worth writing about more deeply in another post/vignette.
**and in the spirit of full disclosure: the last few months of our three year journey, I walked away from the deepest part of my self-the music- which took longer to heal after our reentry. That time to the beginning of this year represents a period of restoration and reconciliation that is relevant but not appropriate to recount in this post. Possibly open to dialogue further in another one, though.
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
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” 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
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
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, 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
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!
So here it is, Day 4 of NaNoWriMo 2014. I thought I’d send on an update about this year’s writing focus and progress.
I already mentioned that I decided to use November’s NaNo time for a specific project I had in mind to work on and hopefully finish. If not finish, then at the very least bring it forward and closer to completion.
In NaNoWriMo terminology, anything written in the non-fic genre, editing of previous mss drafts, poetry, scripts, blog entries and a myriad of other categories, is considered being a Rebel. When one declares such a status, one’s project is called their NaNo Rebellion.
My NaNo Rebellion in 5 Bullet Points: Continue reading
At the stroke of midnight, October 31st, 2014, I will embark upon my third NaNoWriMo. This year, I’ll be doing what I wanted to do my first NaNo: focusing on completing my non-fiction WIP (Swimming with Swans) for submission in this month long challenge.
In NaNoWriMo lingo this means, I am being a rebel. Continue reading
My hubby Terry’s twin (?)
Those baby blues. That attitude.
My future husband, my lover, my BE-ONE…and oh yes, he looks just like James Taylor.
What’s not to like?
Most of our family and friends know the story of how we met. Truncated version: Terry as best friend of my then fiancé convinces said fiancé to dump me and the rest is history. While it certainly was God’s plan for us to be married, it might not have been exactly His way of getting us together.
Over these past years we have celebrated June 17th in various ways. Our first anniversary we did the ‘eat the frozen wedding cake top’ thing in our little square cinder block married student housing house. Living on love in the midst of typical newlywed poverty those first years proved to produce a firm foundation to our new union; along with three children!
Our tenth anniversary we threw a huge backyard party celebrating the fact that we had made it together that long. Sadly, many we knew who married the same year as we did, were no longer together. This was also the year in which we followed the dream and took a leap of faith in starting our own business. Continue reading
Traditional Eucalyptus Didgeridoo (Ilario Vannucchi)
From: Blue Shoe by Anne Lamott*
‘Want to dance?’ he asked her. ‘I’m probably the only person you know who can dance to the didgeridoo.’Ella thought this over, tugging on her chin like an alchemist.
Mattie opened her fingers slowly to she could peek in at the little rubber shoe, as if examining a poker hand. Harry and Al were talking, and Daniel still held Ella in his arms, turning in slow circles. Mattie watched, listened, breathed in deep and slow: if the sound of the didgeridoo was a color, it would be rich and earthy, plant purple, like eggplant with light behind it.
*really didn’t like the book, but this quote was worth the read.