I bought a book of Ella Wheeler Wilcox’s poetry at an antique book store in Vienna, back in 2007 when I traveled there with my grandmother. It was in English, and had a really pretty velvety suede red cover, so I bought it for something like 10 euro. Just happened to be flipping through it the other day, and started experimenting with singing the poetry, instead of just reading it. This is one that came out:
If you look up Ella Wheeler Wilcox on google, you might find the wiki page that mentions her being listed as one of America’s worst poets. But still, I find it fun to have “met” this American midwestern woman during my visit to Austria. Her poetry is realistically optimistic, and she’s a real straight shooter when it comes to matters of romance and relationships. I don’t know much about what makes poetry good or bad, but I do know it’s neat to be able to make up a melody and sing it to the verses of a poem written over a hundred years ago.
More progress on the RC-50, and still loving it. This was my first time trying a whole song in live performance mode. I mean, tonight my only audience was a sleeping Simba, but still I played it as though it were a performance. Up ’til now it’s just been playing with loops and not giving much more than a single thought towards arrangement or structure.
I have to take a break from this Christmas program to show off this clip I found today! Thanks to my friend David, who mentioned the famous Youtube “piano playing cat” to me, right after his daughter drew a picture of a cat playing the piano (which now lives on top of my piano!). As if it wasn’t crazy enough that this cat named Nora–from Cherry Hill, NJ, no less!–truly plays the piano, and is an internet star for it, then this Lithuanian composer comes along and features Nora as his soloist in a concerto written around her music. You people have got to be thinking I’m just crazy obsessed with cats by now, but seriously, this is really special! I applaud the composer, Mindaugas Piecaitis, for recognizing the potential of those homemade video clips, and hats off to Nora’s family for appreciating her music as they do. And ladies and gentlemen, let’s give a big hand to the internet for putting all of these pieces of the puzzle into a common pot, from which we can all find inspiration! This composition is like the product of a worldwide Art X-Tractor, just like the one we had on Main Street during MainX24.
Ok, it’s not Carol of the Bells, and it’s not Wexford Carol… It’s just something I’ve been playing with and wanted to record before I forgot the interesting chordy things I was doing at the beginning. I know the vocals aren’t the greatest, and the piano needs a visit from the tuner. Not much has changed in either of those departments since this blog began two Christmases ago. As it was when I started blogging, I’m still uploading raw, only maybe slightly practiced bits of ideas and arrangements. Most importantly, not second-guessing myself (too much), and just letting it be a record of my days. It’s been really great to look back on all the posts and marvel at the diversity of tracks and videos presented here. I wish I’d started doing this long ago! And a note to myself… I need to do some research and looking to find an affordable recording device to recommend to all my students. It’s a big missing piece in all my teaching and musical meandering. Not enough people out there documenting their musical worlds!
I know, I know, the official twelve days don’t start ’til later, but I’m calling this MY twelve days of Christmas, because I will post twelve different Christmas songs between now and… um… when the wise men get here. I guess.
So that’s the goal. Creative people need projects and goals. Even goofy ones help!
Enjoy this post, celebrating MY first day of Christmas. Day two might come tomorrow, maybe the next day… And I’ll see which Christmas song inspires me then!
I’ve been having such amazing visits with a baby grand in North Chattanooga lately… Such a different experience from playing a 100-year-old upright, and it brings out totally different music from me. Most people around here don’t even associate me with a piano–Heck! I certainly don’t talk about myself as a pianist. Never totally developed that identity, I suppose. But still, it’s one of my happiest places, to be sitting at a piano with unlimited time to explore all the sounds and patterns of chords and notes. Although the dulcimer is my true love, the piano is the thread of continuity that ties me back to my 4-year-old self. How mysterious the keyboard must’ve seemed to me at that time, and how wonderful that I still find mystery in it today. But most of all, as always, I find joy.
Here’s a video of the Esbjorn Svensson Trio, who make me feel like there could (or should!) someday be a jazz trio in my future. File this one under “inspiration.”
Well here’s me skipping a month of blogging, all for starting a folk music school…building local connections stronger, deeper, and more intricately woven than before. It’s been an amazing month since returning from Belgium. For one thing, I hit the ground running with the promotion of the Mountain Music Folk School fall schedule. I’ve been the mad music messenger of Chattanooga, riding around everywhere with my posters and schedules to hand out. Matt’s been right there with me, and so has our business consultant, Mike Harrell. We’re a few more meetings away from having a completed business plan, but we couldn’t wait for that– we decided to jump on this wave of momentum and kick off our first “semester” of group classes. We’re throwing ourselves into this with all our energy, all just to find out the answer to this question: Will the people of Chattanooga support a folk music school, student by student, class by class? It would be too soon to speak now, but let’s just say, so far so good.
I’ve decided that my current job title should be “Community Gatherer”, as I’ve been pulling together first all the teachers to teach our classes and workshops, and now the really fun part of pulling in all the people who might be willing to sign up for a class–or at least sign up on our mailing list. All the lists are growing and growing. Since Casey’s article hit the Times Free Press last Monday, the phone’s been ringing steadily, and all our “gathering” efforts are starting to materialize with real human beings actually stepping up to say, “why yes, I would like to learn to play the banjo!”… and so forth. But also in all our gathering this month, we’ve managed to pull some amazing musicians into our folk school orbit. If our mission is to help these people live musically fulfilling lives, share their knowledge and talent, and help them help others get on board with playing an instrument, heck yeah! We’ll take it! It’s been SO worthwhile so far. I love knowing that a few dozen Chattanoogans (and Chickamaugans, and Ringgolddiggers, and Hixsonians, and RedBankistanis, etc.) are going to spend one hour a week for the next 8 weeks in the presence of patient and passionate musicians like these….
Lon Eldridge. Biologically, he’s 23 years old. Spiritually, he’s 108. When this guy plays and sings, it makes you wonder what kind of soul-swapping took place to stuff the weathered old bluesman into Lon’s body. Lon’s teaching some classes with us this fall, and he’s been such a good sport, coming out with us to all of our wild promotional stunts, like the gig we did at Riverbend last June. Here’s a video clip from that:
Obuobi Ashong. I call him the African gypsy, because he’s been wandering the planet following his musical whims. It is so nice to spend time with someone who cares about nothing more than to play music… and you gotta love the permanent smile look. I think it’s quite the fashion statement. Obuobi will teach a guitar class with us this fall, specifically on this style he plays called “palmwine” music or “highlife.”
Thank you, Chattanooga, for bringing my musical path to a point of intersection with these and other musicians. I’m not taking this for granted!
