Steppin' Out

Of my comfort zone, that is.

After months of deliberating back and forth, should I or shouldn't I? -- I registered for a weekend-long songwriting workshop at the end of this month. I realized that the only thing holding me back (except for the money, and what's money anyway? After all of the shit ScottWalkerCo is pulling in our state, I've developed something of a devil-may-care attitude toward my hard-earned, easily-stolen pay) was my inhibitions. But the thing is -- as I get better on the guitar, I really don't want to just play other people's great songs. I want to write my own, possibly mediocre, songs.

What is the worst case scenario? As with my guitar playing, I fear that I will channel the couple from A Mighty Wind. I will write verses not even worthy of a Hallmark™ card, be like Rod McKuen's younger and much less talented sister, be defined as part of the Sylvia Plath group (that's a high school reference.) And the best case? I will learn and grow, just as I have with my playing. I am much more comfortable on my instrument than I was even 6 months ago. The lesson is, old dogs can learn new tricks.

I preach to my student teachers what a good thing it is for us teachers to put ourselves in the role of being a beginner at something. It really makes you think about what we're asking our young students to do, how they go out on a limb every single day …

So I mailed my registration in and I'll be trucking off to Dodgeville, Wisconsin in a couple of weeks, notebook and guitar in hand, ready to learn songwriting. Breathe in. Breathe out.

A Visit From My Dad

For some reason this memory of my dad popped into my head tonight.

My dad was a connoisseur of opera. Saturday afternoons the radio broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera was always on (and invariably gave me a headache, although the true cause might have been his stinky pipe tobacco.) He was especially fond of Mozart and Gilbert & Sullivan. He had no interest in the popular music of his generation and he seemed totally unaffected by the popular music his kids listened to: Herman's Hermits, the Beatles, Sam Sham and the Pharoahs … their popularity with the younger generation in our house waxed and waned, but never seemed to register on his radar screen -- except for two notable exceptions in my memory:

Sylvia's Mother by Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show and A Horse With No Name by America. There was something about these two songs that he found particularly irksome, enough to comment on it each and every time he heard them. I think he found Sylvia's Mother to just be awfully whiney. I chuckle when I think about his reaction to A Horse With No Name. I can hear his voice saying in a slightly amused and incredulous tone, "What the hell is this song supposed to mean?"

He wasn't narrow in his musical tastes. He gave me my love for Tom Lehrer and the British duo Flanders & Swann. We had Ed McCurdy's and Alan Arkin's recording of bawdy Renaissance songs, When Dalliance Was In Flower. When I was older and had discovered The Bonzo Dog Band, my dad was really taken with their song Hunting Tigers Out in India; their brand of humor was right up his alley.

Thanks Daddy, for making me smile, so many years later.

Musing on Music

As I was chopping onions for dinner tonight, I suddenly realized that I've been taking guitar lessons for 5 years!! I began my lessons shortly after November 2, 2004, and they carried me (just barely) through the despair of BushCo's second term. Although sometimes I am crippled by an overwhelming sense of "I'll never be any good!", I am still plugging away. When I tally up the things that bring me joy in my life, playing guitar is in the top 5. When I play regularly, miraculously, I can hear myself improving. (I need a post-it note on my computer that says, "Before you log in, have you played your guitar today?")

The guitar that I play was a Christmas gift from my dear husband a few years ago. He blindfolded me and drove me to the guitar store. Silly man, he should have remembered that I can read his mind, so I actually had a very good inkling of where we were heading and why. I love the guitar, but even more I loved (and continue to love) the affirmation of me as a musician.

If you have any inclination to learn an instrument, to pick up an instrument that you once played, or to make music of any sort (such as singing) I urge you to do so. Music should be participatory.

P.S. Guitar Hero doesn't count.

The Incomparable, Irreplaceable Warren Zevon

I'm so sick of the coverage Michael Jackson is getting! King of Pop? Warren Zevon was the uncrowned King of Cool. He had incredible talent and wit ... and yeah, he screwed up his life too. But he did it all by himself ... he didn't need a weird entourage that included chimpanzees, somebody else's children, and charlatan medical personnel ... and he straightened himself out at the end.

Here is Mohammed's Radio -- a timeless classic that proves the old saying: the more things change the more they stay the same. Or maybe that we never stopped mucking about in the Middle East.

Time For Some ... JOHNNY CLEGG!

Following My Muse

I just got home from my bi-weekly guitar lesson. More and more I am finding that I look forward to these lessons. What I mean by that is, that although I have been enjoying learning to play, I often feel a sense of shame around lessons: I haven't practiced enough, I'm going to make a fool of myself, and so on and so forth. However, my new teacher is so encouraging and the music that she is giving me to learn is exactly what I want to be learning. It is a very good fit.

As I was driving to my lesson today I was musing about me and the guitar, and I realized that when I'm playing -- when I get into what Mr. Ether calls "the zone" -- it really is playing in the truest childhood sense of the word. When I can let go of my inhibitions, and quit feeling like I'm channeling the Eugene Levy/Catherine O'Hara duo from A Mighty Wind, I feel so happy.

The late, great educator John Holt addressed that in a book he wrote about learning to play the cello as an older adult, Never Too Late. It's been a few years since I read it, but if I remember correctly, he wondered if we set up psychological barriers when we talk about "practicing" an instrument, and would it be different if it was just referred to as "playing." I haven't thought about that for a long time, but I suspect he was onto something.

That's it for now. I have to go and play my guitar.

Guitar Lessons

I love my guitar lessons! I have a 45 minute lesson every other week and I always feel elated when I leave. Full of hope, full of promise. The funny thing is, I always have incredible anxiety leading up to my lesson. The weekend before, when I realize that my lesson is coming up and I haven't played nearly enough. I start to think about calling and canceling just this once. I did that a few times with my old teacher; so far I haven't with the new one.

The day of, I have a bit of a panic attack because I know that I'll have to play my pieces for her. It doesn't help that she is a nationally known singer/songwriter/recording artist. I get all shaky, and the piece that I played at a reasonable speed when I practiced is so s-l-o-w as to be nearly unrecognizable and full of mistakes such as putting my fingers on the wrong strings (at which the kindergarten teacher in me comes out and I say, "Oopsie!")

And then she smiles and tells me that I'm doing great, that I just need to play these things over and over again and I'll get it up to speed, and she loves her adult students. And I leave with a song in my head -- tonight it's Greg Brown's Sleeper as played by Eliza Gilkyson -- and feeling as if, yes, I might someday be a guitar player.

Johnny Clegg

DCup mentioned that she hadn't heard Johnny Clegg, which led me on an obsessive YouTube search for the best videos. Of course, that's no more possible than choosing the best seven albums (see previous post.) So here are a few of my favorite songs.

Scatterlings of Africa



Asimbonanga (We saw him perform this one live. It was the absolute BEST concert I ever attended -- I can still say that 19 years later. The moment when the female singer joined in was so ... powerful.)



I Call Your Name



Third World Child




I could have posted 15 videos and honestly said that each one is a favorite song. This music makes my heart pound. If I had to choose just one artist to listen to, it would be Johnny Clegg.

(My kids are even fans. My daughter just mentioned that, whenever she goes to get her hair cut, the stylist always plays Johnny Clegg just for her.)

OK, enough gushing.

I LOVE This Song!

Hello Bonjour, Michael Franti and Spearhead

Shameless Promotion of a Loved One

Hey, you! Yeah, that's right ... you! The wonderful reader of my blog. My dear spousal unit, a.k.a. Enriched Geranium, has a new album out. Well, actually it's an old album from the eighties -- remember the eighties? -- that has been released on cd for the first time. The Appliances-SFB were a rocking band. Heck, even this dyed-in-the-wool folkie liked them. Liked them? I loved them! They were ahead of their time. If you like rock 'n' roll, I urge you to get a hold of this album (and you can find out where at Enriched Geranium's blog.) You won't be disappointed.

For Your Listening Pleasure

I had the pleasure of seeing Tim Eriksen about a year and a half ago. Our local Sacred Harp singing group brought him to town for a workshop, and his singing blew me away. I particularly like his rendition of this old song, Careless Love.

Enjoy!

Two Concerts in Two Evenings

It never rains but it pours, and it is pouring around here, both literally and figuratively. Last night I went to see The Anonymous Four in concert. My friend had given me tickets for my birthday last August; lucky thing I remembered where I put the tickets and when the concert was!

The Anonymous Four are a quartet (duh!) of women who sing mainly American sacred music: sacred harp, shape note, etc. Maybe you have heard them on A Prairie Home Companion and NPR, among other venues. Technically, they were very good. Their harmonies were exquisite and it was a pleasure to hear both old favorites and new songs. But, as my companion for the evening said afterward, perhaps they were a little too good for the style of music they were doing. All of them are classically trained, with real book larnin', music degrees, and everything. And the thing is, the music they performed, largely comes from grassroots traditions. It is community music, and as such, felt a little out of place being performed for an audience of polite middle-aged people in a concert hall. At least that is how I felt, but I have been known to be a little opinionated every now and then.

Tonight I went to hear one of my favorite contemporary singer-songwriters, Kris Delmhorst. She was wonderful, as usual. If you like folkie stuff and have a chance to see her, by all means do. She's based in the Boston area, but criss-crosses the country (and the Atlantic Ocean) pretty frequently. She may be slowing down her touring a little after June, because she's having a baby. (Sigh. Mommy energy: It's just one more reason for me to love her.)

Here's a sample:

A New Musical Obsession: The Be Good Tanyas

I happened to be in our local independent feminist bookstore a couple of weeks ago when they were playing an album by The Be Good Tanyas. I immediately looked up all three of their albums at the library (I always like to listen before I buy) and I am hooked. I think it's the lead singer's voice; it gives me chills. Enjoy!

City of Immigrants - Steve Earle

Steve Earle gets it right. There are very few of us not descended from immigrants to this country. It is time to usher in a new era of compassion and celebration. I love this song.

House Concert

A nice trend around here is the blossoming of house concerts. I've been to a few, but tonight was a first -- a firehouse concert. I went to hear Mary McCaslin, a favorite of mine from waaaay back in the seventies. Unfortunately, there were about a million other musical events happening around town and it was in a temporary firehouse way out on the outskirts of town on the edge of what was once cornfields not so long ago, so it wasn't really well attended. It was a little surreal too, to see the CPR training dummies stacked like logs off to the side of the room. But I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Pink: Dear Mr. President

Thanks to Sminthia for sending this amazing song to me. As she pointed out, there was an almost identical version (minus the images) with a "parental discretion for explicit language" tag. There IS no explicit language in the song. I guess it must mean it's dangerous to question the so-called "commander in chief."

Mr. Ether Rocks ...

... with The Motor Primitives, this past Saturday night at the world class Crystal Corner Bar. The song is "Sundown." It was a good show. The big excitement came when drummer Robin Davies fell off the stage backwards, hitting his head on the way down. He hopped right back up and finished the show, despite a nasty bump. And Mr. Ether had come to the show from his dad's funeral. Are these guys loyal rock 'n' rollers, or what? Enjoy.

Nice news to get in the emotional wasteland otherwise known as "Sunday Night"

A month or so ago I applied to our local Folk Music Society for a scholarship to continue my guitar lessons, and what do you know? I just received a phone call telling me that they are awarding me the scholarship! I'm pretty happy.

Johnny Clegg - Asimbonanga

One more Johnny Clegg video, and then I'll take a break. I promise. My eldest recommended that I put this one up on the blog. (Thanks, honey!) Check out the special guest ...

Scatterlings of Africa -- Johnny Clegg

Watch the dancing. It's so cool.

I also want to say that Johnny Clegg looks like someone who works, not someone who works out. Know what I mean? There's a big difference.