Last Sunday I had my IQ tested (I don’t know if they found any yet I’m waiting for the results), just yesterday evening I went from teaching piano to teaching a class on lace knitting, and then to teaching mindfulness knitting meditation. After the meditation class (that went really well) I went back home to eat a salami sandwich and drink beer in front of a particularly gruesome episode of “Buffy – the vampire slayer”.

Today I went from the yarn shop to the health food store walking the whole way. Next to me was one of these very young men in a hoodie with big pants and a woolen hat, and I thought, “What does he think I’m listening to right now?” Well, I guess he didn’t think about me at all but right then my ipod played this:

I really have taken a liking to this particular System of a Down album. Now that I’m listening to it again, it is quite operatic. And then the ipod played this (not heavy at all) only in a version sung by Anita O’Day):

And this just about sums up my life that I really love both of these songs.

And I don’t usually post youtube videos here because I have to admit I don’t do youtube, when you put a video in a post I will usually not watch it. I don’t know why, maybe it’s because I have to turn on the speakers, and then I have to sit there and pay attention until the clip is over but I no longer force myself to.

I also don’t usually write short posts without a defined theme but I thought maybe it’s time to change my “format”. The “long, thoughtful posts”-format doesn’t seem to work for me at the moment.

But I still have layers. See?

I finally managed to write something by writing a first draft in English. My excuse for being more comfortable with writing in English has always been that I’m more used to it because of the blog and the internet but yesterday as I was scribbling down my draft on a piece of grocery list at midnight I thought again and I think that I take writing in English a bit lighter because it feels like paying with toy money. It feels a bit less real and therefore less threatening.

I told my husband about my feeling that writing in English is a bit less real for me than writing in German (I know it doesn’t feel like that for most of my readers) and he said, “English is your teddy-land!” I don’t know whether you’re familiar with teddy-land, it’s a land that my son invented where all his stuffed animals live. He goes to sleep there because teddy-land is mostly his bed, and my son is emperor of teddy-land.

So, it seems that English is the land where I go to play. I do know that it is a real language and that there are people who speak nothing else but for me it is as if there where teddy-land inside my computer, it’s where all the nice stories and music come from, and they even invented their own language. Plus there are all these nice imaginary people, and there seems to be a lot of knitting and writing in my teddy-land.

Anyways, here is my draft for the short bio:

My name is Susanne. I’m a singing teacher.

I love improvisation which keeps me in the moment, as does mindfulness meditation.

Since I also love to knit I combine the two in mindful knitting.

I told you it was only three sentences. The tricky part was connecting the singing with the knitting, and the meditation.

In German and after several re-writes it turned into:

Mein Name ist Susanne. Ich bin ausgebildete Musikpädagogin und unterrichte seit mehr als zehn Jahren Jazz- und Pop-Gesang.

Mein Interesse gilt dabei besonders dem Bereich der Improvisation, der spontan im Moment entstehenden Musik.

Die Konzentration auf das Jetzt, diesen Moment ist auch das Grundprinzip der Achtsamkeits-Meditation, und dieses Prinzip verbinde ich mit meiner fast lebenslangen Liebe zum Stricken durch “mindful knitting”, Strick-Meditation.

Kreativität hat viele Facetten.

That’s (in toy speak):

My name is Susanne. I am a trained music educator, and have been a singing teacher for jazz and pop for more than ten years.

I’m especially interested in improvisation, spontaneous music made in the moment.

The focus on the now, this moment, is also the guiding principle for mindfulness meditation. I’m combining this principle with my almost life-long love of knitting through “mindful knitting”, knitting meditation.

Creativity has many facets.

See, it turned out to be four sentences in the end.

As for the classes, there will be a lace knitting class (that’s self-explanatory, isn’t it?). I probably will be designing a lace scarf pattern for this, one that starts easy and gets more difficult over the six week class. There will be a class called “knitting as a spiritual way” where we will use knitting as a focus for mindful sitting meditation and we’ll think about how knitting connects people, how it tells stories, and such.

And then there will be the most exciting class for me (never mind that I’m making each of these up as I go along) the circle singing. There will be a one-day workshop where we will be making up songs as we go along. If you want to hear this kind of singing, go to the webe3-site, or go and listen to Bobby McFerrin’s Circlesongs-CD . We’ll stand in a circle, and I’ll make up patterns for the others to sing, then we’ll build patterns upon patterns, and in the end there will be music made by all of us together. If the students are able there even might be a bit of soloing.

So, if you’re living next to M.unich I’d love to see you at these classes. I probably will put up a link to them once they are link-able. The knitting classes will start in October and the circle singing will be November 8th.

Seems that there might be a bit more posting in this place now that the procrastination is out of the way…

I also distinctly remember that the reason for me to move my blog from blogger to my own domain was that blogger no longer allowed me to play my music on my blog because it didn’t accept the code for the player anymore.

So, since music seems to be so important to me, why is it that I don’t make more of it, and don’t post any of it on my blog?

At first I thought I was lazy. And that I’m fooling myself by telling me that I want to be a musician when I grow up. Then there was this day, two weeks ago, when I suddenly felt a bit better than the months before – you know, with the on-going flu – and I sat down and played my piano and sang, and improvised a bit. Something I hadn’t done in months. I did sit down and play during those months but always other people’s songs. Never my own thing.

And then it hit me: I hadn’t been lazy. I had been in constant turmoil, health crisis after parenting crisis, after another. Since fall. It hit me that I took one of the first moments I had, a moment when I felt a bit more myself, and I sat down and made myself some music.

Of course I only sat down twice since then but there might be more space for that in the near future. I hope.

I’m not quite ready to record anything yet, at the moment I feel like someone who hasn’t rode her bicycle all winter long, and now it’s the first time she gets up again. All wobbly and insecure. Nevertheless.

For those of you interested in my music, however little there is, these are the posts where you can hear me sing.

A rare enough occasion these days that my husband took pictures…

I didn’t quite know whether to sell them or not. At the beginning of 2007 we were a bit short on money and space, and I started to sell old books and stuff. And decided that it might be a good idea to find a new home for my congas. Only I never put them up for sale anywhere. Because of the blog post though I got e-mails from people who were interested in them. Only, this never let anywhere. So I resigned myself on keeping them, I love them very much even if they were mostly serving me as a very pretty keyboard stand.

But then I got another e-mail a few months ago from somebody who was interested in them, and yesterday they went away. It feels a bit weird but very good at the same time.

These congas were the only excellent musical instruments I ever bought for myself. I started drumming quite late, when I was almost 20. I had tried a bit in school and was fascinated by African music, and then I went away to Munich to study. There I met a guy who was learning how to play Brazilian music who later became my boyfriend. He was very surprised when I enrolled in the same school as him because to him I was “classical piano” girl. I have never been a good pianist though. In that school congas were our main instruments. We also learned how to play all the smaller percussion instruments that are used in Brazilian music but mostly it was congas. When a bit later I decided to switch my major to music education I had to choose a main musical instrument, and I just went for it and chose drumming. Which, in a way was very funny, because I only had been playing for about a year. Strangely enough it all turned out okay. There were only very few drummers there, and fortunately the professors had no way of telling how easy or difficult anything was that I played for exams, and so I earned my degree by dazzling them with music that looked harder to play than it was. Also, I switched my main instrument to voice, and I even threw in a bit of recorder playing at the exam. At that time the whole institute wasn’t as structured as it became later.

One problem with drumming is that you need quite a bit of equipment. I was very poor at that time, and so I always played instruments borrowed from my boyfriend, or the drum set in university. All that time I longed to have my own drum set, marimbaphone, congas, and surdo.

The summer I bought the congas I had worked for two months in order to buy a computer. I didn’t have one at that time, and it became apparent that I’d need one for doing papers and such. Then a drummer friend visited me and said, “What do you think, which are the best congas?” I immediately answered, “Michel Delaporte”. Those were the ones my conga teacher played and I loved their look, feel and sound. They were ideal for what I loved to play, though they are no good when you’re playing in something like a salsa band because their sound isn’t sharp and penetrating enough for that. I took my friend to the drum store and showed him some congas. He tried them and was disappointed. He played Cuban music which requires a different conga sound. He hated them but I fell in love.

A day later I went into the shop with my computer money and bought the congas he had tested. Without ever having played them myself.

I had just moved to a new apartment. I set up the congas and started to play. I was very happy. I had the best congas in the world. Ten minutes later a neighbor banged on my door. “What are you doing in there? Stop that noise!” She was very angry. Imagine somebody playing very deep, rich, resonating, booming drums in a building where you can here your neighbors sneeze through the walls.

So, since I didn’t have a room to practice in, that basically was it. I didn’t play them much for years. I bought them in 1990, and the first time they saw real action was when my husband and I started a Brazilian band together in 1998. We had that band for about two years before we gave up looking for places to play. There is a demo CD of that band but I think that most of the drumming on that CD was done by my husband since he’s much more precise than me.

You can hear the congas on some of my husband’s recordings. When I told him that they were sold he realized that he had used them much more than me for the last years. Though not enough to justify having them around all the time. (That was the point were I almost canceled the sale at the last minute.)

Yesterday when I helped load them into a car I was not sad as I had thought. I was relieved. For all the years that those congas had stood in my room they had called to me, “Play me! Play me! Play me!”, and I never had. And when I had tried, it sounded horrible. Not playing will do that to your technique.

I’m very happy that they have found a new home, and I hope they will be loved and played there.

Do you know what I did with the money? I ordered a spinning wheel. I know, crazy. We’ll see how that goes.

(Also, I’d like to remind you to send me any posts about social justice that you read or wrote in August until September 7th for the Just Posts. My e-mail is: creativemother AT web DOT de)

Humph.

Did I mention that I still have about a gazillion things to do without even having touched any instrument?

Humph, indeed.

You know, I have bought myself a new recording thingy. And I already used it. Once. In April or so. Since then I have wanted to mix the recording. And I still haven’t done it. But here is the draft of the blog post I intended to write about it:

I actually got my own “connect the mike with the computer”-device last Thursday half a month six weeks ago. It’s called Onyx Satellite, hence this post’s title. [The post should have been called "I got my own satellite".] However, due to life, and yarn expeditions I only unpacked it three days later. And managed to record a very short and not that exciting improvisation. Of course I wanted to present you with something really great but then I thought I’d better just post what I have. Because if I wait for something really great I might never get around to post music on my blog again. Using that thing is much easier than using the big mixer my husband has.

So now I’m doing something that no musician should do. Ever.

I’m posting a raw first take of a boring improvisation. Without having listened to it again.

There.

Nice post, isn’t it? Even if it is a bit incoherent. The only problem is that I then had to listen to the improvisation again, and it had the deadly flaw of being far too soft. Not loud enough. When it started to play on my computer I checked and rechecked three times to see if the loudspeaker was on. So I couldn’t post it.

There was only one thing to do. I recorded another improvisation today. Which is based on a groove idea that I had on May 1. I carried that idea around in my head for more than two months. Then I connected my new recording device, everything was fine, I even remembered to check the levels, and then I sang it. It was beautiful. Really. Unfortunately you can’t hear it because for no good reason the computer didn’t record it. Which I found out after more than two minutes of singing. Then I had twelve minutes left before I had to leave to pick up my son. I recorded the thing again, well, something based on the same groove. I had seven minutes to mix it which is why I’m not completely satisfied with that artificial sounding reverb effect thingie.

But here, finally, is at least some music by me:

Download audio file (improjuly.mp3)

I had wanted to make a new category on this blog like the “Story of the Month”-feature. “Monthly music” or, why not go wild, “Weekly Improvisation”. But, alas, it seems that a month in music is like six months in real life for me. But who knows. Maybe there will be something else before Christmas. Though I’m sure there won’t be 50 songs in 90 days.

A day later I went to another one of Rhiannon’s fabulous improvisation workshops for singers. (I’ve been to quite a few and have written about a few of them in these posts). I was early. (That’s the beauty of going by train, you’re either too early or too late.) By the time the workshop was supposed to begin there was a small cluster of singers standing around in front of the building. Since this was a different location than usual I didn’t know anybody. The other workshops I had attended were all held in the big city, and over the years I have come to know quite a few of the regulars. So, there we stood, nobody quite sure what to do or say. Then Rhiannon arrived by car. She emerged from the car, carrying a basket full of strawberries, greeting me enthusiastically. And that was the first moment where I found myself both in the situation, inside myself, feeling slightly lonely and a bit scared about the workshop and my singing, and outside myself, seeing the scene through the eyes of the other singers who hadn’t met Rhiannon before, who probably were feeling even lonelier and more scared. What they saw was that I was the only one getting a hug. That I was the only one whom the teacher knew.

It didn’t stay that way though. Later there were more singers who had been to workshops before. Most of those I knew. And they knew me. And I’m still surprised when that happens. I’m very used to not being recognized by people. Maybe it’s because I changed my look so much, I don’t know. The workshop itself by the way was marvelous. I had had my doubts before because I have been to so many of these workshops but I went home inspired and much clearer about what I want to do.

A few days later it happened again. I went to the concert Rhiannon gave with two other singers. I was very early because I wanted to have something to eat there before the concert, and I wanted to write the story I had to finish the day after for a writing group assignment. That I went there alone is nothing unusual for me. When I came to the venue I was greeted by a woman coming towards me from the other side. (I think that maybe singers are especially prone to greet people from something like 20 meters away.) It took me about 15 meters of going towards her to realize that she hadn’t greeted somebody behind me. And that I know her. (I’m sorry, she used to be blonde, and now she’s brunette. Also I couldn’t see her face at first.) But the same thing happened to me three or four times in the course of the evening. Somebody was saying hello to me and every time I’d think they meant somebody behind me.

I entered the jazz club where the band was doing soundcheck. As I went down the stairs I heard, “Hi! It’s Susanne!” from the stage. Amplified. I sat down, I had my dinner, I wrote about half of the story, and I met a lot of singers that I know. It was the same thing over again. I knew about a third of all the people in the room. But to me I was there alone, spending a lot of time sitting at my table with nobody to talk to. To the other people sitting at my table I probably was part of the “in-crowd”. Going here and there, hugging people, and talking. Telling stories of other concerts and other workshops. This seeing myself from the inside and the outside at once confuses me. The images don’t quite match. What’s the truth, me being part of a group amidst friendly faces, or me sitting apart, taking something to read with me because I’m on my own with nobody to talk with?

Two days later I went to a meeting of my writer’s group. Again, a group that I know, people that I like. And then there were the many nice comments on my blog. And I realized that though I feel as if I never fit in I am part of this friendly little corner of the blog-world nonetheless. And I had another moment of seeing myself from the inside and the outside at the same time again that week when I stayed in front of kindergarten to chat with another mother. I suddenly realized that I looked like those mothers I had seen standing there before, the ones of whom I thought they were big friends and had known each others for ages. Well, it seems that if you just stay somewhere for a bit of time you’ll get to know people and then you look like you have friends.

So, I’m not as lonely as I often feel. But then I still don’t have many friends. I’d still love to find a friend who loves the same things I do but that might be a little difficult. Even my husband has interests different from mine. When we first met we were pleasantly surprised about the similarities (of course). We both love Brazilian music, jazz, and the same piece of Anton Webern that nobody else loves. (Op. 22, you know, the saxophone quartet. What, you don’t know? Well, never mind, nobody does.) Even other Webern-lovers – of which there aren’t that many – regard that to be one of his inferior pieces.

I remember, back when I still studied musicology, how much I longed to have a friend to share everything with. Webern, classical music, Brazilian drumming, jazz, rock music, science fiction novels, and baking. But now I think that maybe that’s a bit too much. (And in all this I really shouldn’t forget to mention my real life friends who are reading this blog. All they hear me yammer about is how I don’t have friends. But they aren’t living nearby. And our interests only intersect so far.)

This whole thing might be a case of unrealistic expectations. But then I really long to find people loving the same things as I. And through the internet that has become much easier by the way. These days I’m spending quite a bit of my time over on ravelry (where I’m creativemother, by the way) discussing various aspects of sock knitting.

So I learned two things: 1) Other people might feel as lonely and isolated as I even if they don’t look like it, and 2) my quest to find people interested in the same things as I has been more successful than I thought. Only there weren’t any interested in exactly the same things or in all of them.

And now all of a sudden I feel the urge to make a list of the things I’m interested in. It might be a long list. And a bit unfocused.

So. I had lunch, and dessert, and checked e-mail, and read blogs, and then, finally, shoved myself in front of my husband’s big computer with the mixer and everything. I searched for my microphone. I looked for a suitable cable. I looked at the mixer. I pulled one cable out of the mixer and inserted mine. I pushed the little button that sends power to my mike. I opened the software. I was very careful not to change anything that my husband had recorded. I tested the mike. I had no signal. The mixer seemed dead. Ah, there was yet another switch to switch. The mixer showed a green light. Green is good. I tested my mike – no sound. I tried three or four things. Nope. I closed the software and decided to use the smaller, and simpler recording software. I already have worked with this a couple of times on my own. Opened software. Tested mike. Changed preferences. Tested mike. Still nothing. Closed software, disconnected cable, put mike back in box, shut off computer.

Right now I’m very, very frustrated. What I want is my own mixer preferably a small one because I don’t need more than two inputs at once. You might ask why I don’t just ask my husband to help me. He is very good with this equipment thing. And I would be too if I used it more often. But strangely enough I can’t seem to bring myself to ask him. I have to be all alone and by myself to record something. The recording equipment is in his room where he basically does everything that doesn’t involve sleeping, eating or a bathroom. To shut him out is a big thing. And what if I didn’t have anything to show for it later?

I find it hard enough to work on my music in my room when anybody is in the house. I’d like to be able to do recording on impulse. And I can. I have actually recorded vocals through my computer’s built-in microphone. They sound like something recorded over the telephone though.

The reason I find writing easier to fit into my life than music is that music needs a bigger chunk of time. While I can jot down a few sentences and not lose the idea for a blog post, creating music seems to require a certain feeling of free time, of being able to go back and forth, doing something else in between, coming back, trying again. Half an hour of songwriting might mean one hour of playing, and on hour of just sitting there, and staring at the wall.

No wonder that I am drawn that much to knitting these days. Two hours of knitting are two hours of knitting. In the lace stole I’m currently making that would be about 40 rows, or 12 cm of stole. When I’m knitting, even two hours of waiting, riding the train, talking with someone, or watching TV are two hours of knitting. It is as if time magically multiplied itself.

With blogging two hours of writing is one or two posts. With writing songs two hours of song writing might result in having tried a few notes, having crossed out lyrics I wrote some time before, and a bad taste in my mouth.

So I thought improvising might be the thing. But improvising just for myself seems pointless. I’d like to record some things and try overdubbing and such but that comes back down to equipment.

I have to find a solution for this. For now I’ll go off and practice guitar for a while so that I stay ahead of my students.

(Actually, I wrote this ten days ago… Since then my husband has shown me what I did wrong. As soon as he isn’t madly recording music for once I’ll try again.)

1) Music is an obviously important element of your life, talk about how it infuses itself in your daily life.

Well, first thing I teach piano, guitar and singing five days a week. That’s a big part of my life. And while I whine all the time about not practicing that doesn’t mean that I don’t make music. I’d like to come back to playing every day for me without putting pressure on myself…

This question and the next pretty much sum up the main themes in my life right now (apart from knitting). How much space is there in my life for music, how central do I want it to become, and how can I focus more on the joy of it.

2)You recently posted about enjoying the process of creation, in your mind’s eye, what would enjoying the process mean to you? How would it differ than your current process?

I always think that enjoying the process means enjoying every single second of it. Spending every moment of creation in flow. Of course that is a little unrealistic. After I wrote about not enjoying the process I found that really I hadn’t been enjoying much at all because I hadn’t been taking care of my most basic needs.
But then I still dream of a time when I’ll look forward to piano playing without having the feeling that I’d rather do something else instead. When I play I feel very good afterwards and sometimes while doing it.
It also feels a little pointless to make music just for myself. On the other hand playing in bands didn’t work for me at all, and I’m not eager to sing on stage again any time soon.

3) You seem very concerned with the environment. What is the single most important thing to consider when attempting to lessen one’s carbon footprint?

Um, not using planes I’d say. I read an article that a family of four uses more fuel by going on vacation to Spain once a year than by heating their house for the whole year. That doesn’t mean that I’ never ever use planes, I just think carefully about it and I’d never “hop on a plane” to go somewhere else in Germany. (The last time I flew was in 1999. We went to Brazil for two months.)
Otherwise it’s all baby steps around here. Sharing a car with my mother-in-law, using said car only about every other week, using our wood stove, recycling everything (which is very easy around here and you’re practically forced to do it), …

4) If you had 20 words to describe your essence, what would they be?

Um. I don’t know. Every time I attach any kind of label to myself it falls off immediately. I couldn’t even say if I were patient or not. I’m a woman of opposites. Strong forces pulling me in all directions at once. Stubborn for sure. I am both extravert and introvert. Talkative, definitely, though I learned to keep my mouth shut when I’m not interested in a conversation. Both lazy and industrious. I’m becoming nicer and kinder because I practice acting nicer and kinder not because I have changed in a fundamental way. Honest and naive in one way and manipulative in another.
I spent the first twenty years of my life with very firm convictions about who and how I am only to find out that they weren’t true. And then right now I am in the process of reinventing myself and thinking about how I want to spend the second half of my life and what kind of person I want to become and what kind of change is still possible.

5) You have a piece of canvas, some yarn, some paint, some glue, brushes, and an hour, what becomes of it?

Nothing much. I’m hopeless with paint and such. Yarn and needles? Fine. (I have been racking my brain about what I could finish knitting in an hour. Maybe a little doll’s hat.)

So, if anybody is interested in getting interviewed by me, just leave a comment.

Kindergarten rock ‘n’ roll. (With fake English lyrics and incidental music.)

guitar & gear: epiphone mandobird, natural preschooler voice

My son thinks that everybody makes music, records it and has a blog. So of course he wants to make his own CD. (He’d be into blogging too but as for now he can’t read or write.) He already recorded two “songs”, well rather improvisations, a couple of months ago and my parents were duly impressed. A couple of days ago he wanted to go for it again. I opted for the low tech route and recorded his improvisation with the built-in microphone of my computer.

You can hear the same instrument sounding quite different when the father plays it. Of course it’s all in the recording equipment.

Well, time to post another song. You might have noticed that the quality of the recordings is getting worse and worse. That’s because I started with something finished and now the songs I’m putting on the blog are getting sketchier and sketchier. (All the songs I have been posting so far can be seen under the label “hear me sing” in the sidebar.)

This really is like a pencil drawing compared to an oil painting. There should be an intro, there is a big drum-set-shaped hole in the middle of the whole song, there should be horns in the bridge… So, imagine the voice being warm and full, imagine the sorry excuse for an organ sound from my keyboard to be a real b3-hammond. You can also imagine that you’re sitting in a real jazz bar, sipping a glass of red wine while you’re at it.

I started writing this song when my son was ten months old in 2003. Teaching and parenting didn’t leave me with much energy for making music. So I committed to improvise on my piano and sing along with it every day. For ten minutes. When something extraordinary came up in the course of these improvisations I wrote it down.

Then life happened, nothing happened with those ideas until I started committing again two years later. Then I got stuck. My husband recommended recording what I had so far in order to be able to hear what was missing and what could be improved. So I recorded it in spring 2005. And then was now.

This is a song about how all things I create seem to be weird, alien and strange and I can’t help it. It’s also a song about that feeling of calmness and elation you get when you’re totally in the moment of creation. Here’s “Weirdness”:

Download audio file (Weirdness.mp3)

(You need Flash Player to hear it. If you can’t see a “play”-button to click on it (I have tried to fix it but I don’t really know why it didn’t work.) you can go and hear “weirdness” here.)

The second one, “magic” started life as a piece of music my husband had recorded. Then Elspeth did the video. (And it is filmed with the iSight camera of a macbook. Which goes to show that you don’t need much equipment for being creative. See. I told you so.)

With the third project they turned the process around. It’s called wind:

Here is what Elspeth wrote about the process of making it:

Collaborative music/video/spoken word project between Trinidad and Germany. The video was created first in Trinidad and edited with ‘silence’ as the soundtrack. Without seeing the video, Susanne (in Germany) was asked to say something in English about the wind – 20 seconds in length. This narrative was added to the video which was then sent to Gary in Germany who viewed the video and composed the music. The music was then sent back to me to edit into the video.

What is interesting is that Susanne had no idea that the location of shooting (Temple in the Sea, Trinidad) is a sacred site where Hindu people are also cremated outdoors on a large open-air pyre. Her words, about the wind taking bits and pieces of her to the sea, reflect what happens when ‘bits’ (smoke, ashes) of the cremated person are carried on the wind to the sea around the Temple.

Video – Elspeth Duncan
Voice – Susanne Fritzsche
Music – Gary Winter

Location: Temple in the Sea, Waterloo, Carapichaima, Trinidad, W.I.

This is what everybody keeps talking about. You start a blog and suddenly you are doing a creative project with somebody halfway around the world.

(For those of you interested, my script stands at 17,200 words. Four more days and 2,800 words to go. Normal blogging will hopefully be resumed soon.)

Usually there are about 15 to 30 participants, mostly female. Or to be precise, one rarely meets a male singer. Each of the participants then takes a seat, the famous singer enters the room, and talks about singing and warming up and technique. Then she proceeds to do some warm-up exercises that leave everybody slightly hoarse. Then she introduces the pianist, or the band if there is one, and asks the first singer to come up front to sing his first song. “Which song?” the singer replies. Well, the one that we were asked to prepare for, including lead sheets for the pianist or band. It said so when we signed up. The singer doesn’t have a song prepared. She doesn’t quite know what a lead sheet is. Somebody produces a “real book”, the bible of jazz standards. The singer doesn’t quite know which song to sing. After much thinking she decides to sing “I got rhythm” (I don’t know why, but they always do). She doesn’t know which key she wants. She decides to sing it in the original key. Bad decision. The original key is too high (it always is because it was written for an opera singer). After about half an hour of this she is finished. On the second day of the workshop it’s my turn. I stand up, get in front, tell the band, “I want to play “I should care” in G, please give me an eight bar intro, I’ll do a solo after the first chorus then you can solo if you want. Then I’ll sing it all through again, and in the end we slow down on cue. A one, a two, a one, two, three, four.” I sing my song, the band doesn’t look at me when they should for the ending but otherwise all is well. I finish. The very famous singer from the United Stated looks at me and says, “Nice voice.” And that’s it.

That was the workshop where I decided not to go to singing workshops again. But that also was the workshop where I met Laila, the woman who organizes Rhiannon’s workshops in Munich. She told me to go because it would be totally different and she was right. When I went to the first of Rhiannon’s workshops in Munich about eleven years ago, it went like this:

There were about fifteen women in the room. Rhiannon entered, said, “Hello, I’m Rhiannon. please sit in a circle.” Then she stood in the middle, closed her eyes and started to sing. Five minutes later everyone in the room was singing with her. And not a song from the “jazz bible” but one that she made up in the moment. This is called circle singing. We pretty much kept up singing for the remainder of the workshop. We did other things too. Stream of consciousness-like exercises with language, dancing, looking at a picture and then singing whatever came to mind. Singing in small groups, singing with everybody, one of us singing and all the others listening. Scores of different exercises all designed to get our creativity and music flowing. We even learned songs. Like “Throw it away“. (The link leads to a recording of me singing it.)

At the first of her workshops there were exercises that I dreaded. Anything to do with language, with moving and singing at the same time and especially the picture-thing. But over the years I have come to love all of them. Of course I’m getting used to this. And then Rhiannon started adding more structure into her exercises. In addition to all the wild, free-flowing, bursting out into song-stuff, we had tasks like soloing for four patterns and then stop. Ah, I love those. That’s quite easy for me.

This workshop of course was different because there were two other teachers. Men! (I don’t mean what you think. No! But male singers. Wow. That’s like finding a female bass player or drummer.) And we even had three male participants. This time we learned a lot about mouth percussion and singing bass. Which I never had done before. Having studied drumming really helped with that.

Oh, and nobody said anything about my weight. And I wore green on Saturday and orange on Sunday. Jeans, t-shirt, and sneakers really is the look for the fashionable singer these days. On Saturday I lacked the really cool and artsy necklace but on Sunday I changed that. And answering some of the comments about why I was so concerned with the way I looked, I’m always concerned with how I look, especially when I’m feeling insecure. When I have to attend something I feel nervous about, my thoughts go to what to wear. At least that’s something I can control. Thanks to limited funding I didn’t turn into someone who buys a whole new wardrobe when feeling anxious, and I totally know that it’s futile and silly. And I don’t have that much clothes anyway. Since I have about three pairs of pants and two skirts, and all my t-shirts look alike, all my thinking and wondering gets down to: orange, red, green or brown?

The two days of the workshop felt very different too me. On Friday evening me and my husband had been at the concert the teachers gave. They were great. The only thing I didn’t like about it (apart from the fact that the waitress forgot my husband’s beer twice) was that the audience was a little over-enthusiastic. I don’t know why but the minute somebody next to me gets all “Ooh!” and”Aah!” with admiration and applauds even when the singer is only taking a sip of water my experience gets tainted by it. Nonetheless I enjoyed the concert tremendously. But when the first day of the workshop came I had decided to stay in my body and concentrate on myself as much as I could.

So I felt a little distant that day, also I was very, very tired. After that day I was mildly happy and knew that the decision to make my own music by myself had been the right one. The next day I felt quite different. I felt safe and open, I looked forward to spend the day with all these great singers. (The evening before I was less enthusiastic and briefly thought of staying home. But this is how these workshops always go for me. The day before last I’m ready to quit.) I went there and sang and was happy, and content. When the workshop was over I was sad to part, and we all hugged each other and (as every time) we promised to meet again and sing together soon.

I’d like to, but for the eleven years I have been attending these workshops I only once met with another of those singers to improvise. It was real special but a little complicated to set up so we never did it again. On Sunday evening I barely could go to sleep I felt like music was bubbling inside of me all the time. When I taught my first singing student on Monday I almost blew her away because my voice was so strong.

So here i probably have it, the answer to my question if I’m really a singer. Yes, I am and my urge to do it is fairly strong. I’d like to close this post by giving heartfelt thanks to the three teachers: Rhiannon, David Worm and Joey Blake. They are touring Europe right now, as a trio (check out their blog) or with Bobby McFerrin’s voicestra.

The last time I went to one of these workshops was exactly two years ago. Same date, same place. And I’ve been thinking about my life then and now. Of course the obvious change is in my son. 2 1/2 is quite different from 4 1/2. And since he’s in preschool now I have my mornings to myself. That’s an improvement for sure. This hasn’t made me as productive as I thought it would. But then two years ago I didn’t have a blog…

But the main change for me (apart from the blog which is really more important to me than I would have thought) is that now I’m about 22 pounds lighter. Of course that’s the most important thing when you go to a singing workshop – the way you look. I can’t believe that this is so much on my mind. Of course it’s totally realistic that most people won’t even notice since they maybe have a mental image of me that’s dating back to ten years ago when I went to the first of these workshops. And if they notice, I feel a little weird when somebody says, “Wow. You sure have lost weight. How did you do it.” Because let’s face it, nobody turned to me two years ago and said, “Wow. You sure have gained weight. How did you do it?” (If you’re interested in how I did it I’ll point you to my “spring dieting“-series which is quite incoherent but trying to cover the topic in length. And no, I didn’t diet, I’m just eating like a healthy person. And meditating.)

Then of course there is the question of what to wear. You know, it should be something that says, “I’m a real cool artist, and fashion conscious but cool enough not to worry overmuch. And although I am a singer and used to be center-stage, my ego isn’t inflated at all.” Do you know where to shop for clothes like this? Well, I’ll go for the same clothes I wear everyday. Though they rather say, “I like comfortable clothes. Stretch jeans and a tee. With sneakers.” When dressing for a workshop it is very important to wear somethings that allows circulation and doesn’t leave you exposed when bending over or dancing.

So apart from my insecurities about that, which are ridiculous, there is my stage fright and the fact that I feel like I’m slowly going nuts. Which is quite normal at this point. I know it, the minute I set foot there and start to sing, everything will be alright. It’s neither the first singing workshop nor the first of Rhiannon’s singing workshops that I’m attending. I’ll probably know a lot of the attendees. I will probably know a lot of the exercises. And since there are three teachers this time (that’s really exiting and new) we will be doing a little more group singing I suppose. Which suits me fine.

Like two years before I have the feeling that I don’t really belong there. I’m scared. When I read about the workshop and that it was for advanced singers only I momentarily panicked. Would I be allowed in? That was only my fear speaking. When I phoned the woman who’s organizing the workshop she laughed and said, “You have been part of these workshops for so many years. Are you crazy?” I suppose I am in a way. Last time I kept telling people that there were only professional singers and singing teachers there. Wow. I constantly have to remind myself that I am a singing teacher as well. That though I’m not working as a jazz singer nowadays I could if I wanted to.

I feel like I am changing sizes every other minute. One minute I know what I can do and feel proud for it. The other minute I fell insecure and frightened. In the end it doesn’t matter at all. It isn’t for me to judge. Music is not a competitive sport.

But I have to constantly remind myself about this because when I learned to play the piano it seemed to be about being better and faster and competition. Like when I started studying musicology: There were about 120 students in the room and the professor said, “Only twenty of you will have a job related to music. Only two will work as musicologists.” The funny thing is that I know of at least four other people who were in that room with me, all of them working in some music-related field and three of them working as musicologists.

So why am I writing about this. Nobody wants to hear me debating things in my mind, right? Well, I do because I know that I’m not alone in this. Especially when it comes to creative endeavors we all feel like we’re changing sizes all the time. At least I have the advantage of knowing that everything will feel fine when I’m actually there. And there will be moments when singing will feel like soaring high, and there will be moments when singing will feel like finding a path through the woods with a torch, stumbling over roots and being hit by branches. There will be amazing women there and very few men, there will be people I’ve met before and people I haven’t.

Going there is always very special since singing mostly is quite lonely. There is only one singer in a band. And to meet so many amazing singers (they are always amazing) in such an atmosphere of cordiality and warmth is a privilege.

So while I’m trembling and feeling like I’m going nuts I’m at the same time filled with joy to the brim.

I’m inviting you first, to have a look at the Just Post-roundtable:

As every month, Jen and Mad sent out for posts about social justice. And they’re well worth the read.

But the main topic of this gathering is the unveiling of a brand new blog. A brand new type of blog at that. Interested?

See, after all this talk about blogging and bloggers and such in my house, my husband got interested and started reading. And then he thought, “Why don’t I do something like that?” and so he started his first blog. It is a new type of blog because it is a music blog. A mlog one could say. Every week or so he records something and then posts it on his blog. With beautiful pictures. Sometimes there even are words. He isn’t posting songs though, he is posting improvisations. Just him and an electric guitar, no overdubs, only occasionally a little cutting. He tries to play in the state of flow so they have a meditative aspect, but they’re not often sounding meditative. Or what one thinks of as meditative.

I told you that he had abandoned the thought of making a new CD for now, even though he has spent about two years in preparation for it. Getting the sounds and the equipment, which for electric guitar is inextricably linked, just right. But making CDs on top of everything else, as a “hobby” so to say (as much as I despise that word when used in relation to making music) is a little too much. So I’m very, very happy to announce it here. I hope you hop over and listen to what he plays. For months now I’ve only heard these beautiful improvisations through the wall. Glimpsing only part of it. Now I have the chance, as you have, to hear some of it fully.

Here it comes, the big official unveiling of “psychedelic zen guitar“:

My husband told me that his blogging goal for the next months is to get two comments…

Here, let me get you another (virtual) glass of champagne, click on the image above, set back and enjoy.

(Really, I’d serve you real champagne but you’d have to come over to my place.)

Technorati Tags: guitar, psychedelic zen guitar, zen

In my twenties I played with the idea of song writing again. There were one or two ideas, things in my head and that was it. Despite this long history of longing the first song I ever wrote was a started in 1998. At that time I played in a Brazilian band with my husband, I wrote my dissertation and had just spent the whole year working on a paper for a music educator’s conference that should have boosted my academic career. I started teaching freelance only. And I went to one of Rhiannon’s workshops. I think it was my third or so. At the workshop we did an exercise to write lyrics. Then we got homework: to go home and make a song or an improvisation out of those lyrics or part of them. I loved that. I always thrive when presented with homework like that. Having someone external setting the frame frees me from my inner censor, perfectionist and procrastinator. I went home on the train a melody trilling away in my head.

At home I got the message that the paper I had worked on for nine months and that had been well received at the conference was rejected for publication. I was devastated. I phoned a tutor, I phoned my advisor and I was totally freaked. Then I sat down and wrote a new melody and harmonies. Since this was written for a singer’s workshop it requires a choir. The next day at the workshop I sat down at the piano and taught the other singers the harmony. I was said that I had only part of a song. For the next years it sat in a drawer waiting to be finished. I must have pulled it out from time to time and then put it back. In 2005 I decided to get serious with my music and to record the few songs I had. Since I don’t have a choir I worked again by overdubbing. I’m not entirely happy with the sound, and I’m still not sure if there shouldn’t be other instruments. So this is like a sketch:

I remember

Download audio file (Iremember.mp3)

The lyrics were inspired by a trip we had made the year before to the Greek island Crete. We went there at the beginning of November when tourist season is over but the weather is still mild. Especially when you’re coming from the beginning of German winter.

[Update: I just listened to the song again and have to warn you, the beginning really is out of tune. See, I said it was a sketch. It is getting better later though.]

The following is an improvisation that I recorded in 2002. That’s something that’s “finished” as far as an improvisation can be finished. My husband made his first CD at that time and asked me to do vocal improvisation which he wanted to use as “raw material” for a song. Unfortunately you can’t listen to the song he has made of it. It’s called “Elusive Breath” and only features parts of it.

When he asked me to record something I procrastinated so long about it that he threatened to finish the CD without a song based on my singing. Then he showed me how to work the recording equipment so I could do this all alone, and left the room.

I decided to do something I had learned from Rhiannon. She is doing this exercise in her workshops, and it’s called “three faces front”. Everybody is sitting in a semi-circle and three singers stand in it. They are not allowed to look at each other but they are facing the “audience”. One of them starts improvising and the other two are supposed to “follow” it, harmonize or do counterpoint. After a time someone else leads.

Of course I had to change it since I’m only one singer, not three. This is overdubbed. The voice that starts it was recorded first and the other two I sang afterwards. What you’re hearing here is very long, about 8 minutes. It isn’t cut or anything.

After I recorded it I forgot all about it. (this may have been recorded while I was pregnant, I’m not sure.) When I was in the hospital because our son was born my husband gave me a CD of this improvisation for Christmas. He had taken all the time to mix and master it. This gift was his sign that he wanted to support my music even when we just had had a child.

3 faces

Download audio file (3faces.mp3)

(I have to warn you, it is quite weird.)

Start Again

(Rhiannon wrote: Written for Terry Dobson as he lay in state on David and Nancy’s deck under the great trees with all our prayers for him in the air. Also for Rikki Moss, his partner, whose face told me everything I wrote in these lyrics. Blessed be.)

Start again,
trust your memories to last you
Start again.
Trust your beating heart to open once again,
in the silence,
Start again.

One more time
Wait until the night is over
You’ll still be here
Living out the dreams the dark has brought to light
Trust your wisdom,
Start again.

When the snow, when the chilling snow comes down,
All of life dies down to the ground
Be sure, you can be very, very sure
life will come back once again.

Open up your eyes,
Ask for all you can imagine,
It might just come to you
give in to it, take all that love inside
Of your precious body
Start again.

When there’s trouble,
more than you can bear,
all around you, like a fire,
Let it burn.
I know it’s easier to say than to do,
but what choice can you make but to move,
Move mountains,
Move your body, you can move your mind,
Repair this world,
and forgive.

Trust your heart, just one more time. Take all that love
inside and start again.

Back to the music journal. I took lessons from a fabulous jazz player because I wanted to learn to accompany myself and my students better. And I had just realized that my music depended on strong singing and a weak piano tagging along. So I wanted to improve my piano playing. Before that I had spent ages to find the right pianist. Without luck. And then I found that I had one already in the house. I would like her to play better, but at least she play whenever I want.

So, I took piano lessons and opened every single lesson with the traditional call of the adult student, “I feel so bad because I didn’t practice since last time.” As a teacher I know this from the other side too. Take any mother who wants to learn an instrument and all of them have the feeling that they don’t practice enough. Even if they do. Guilt. I think this is a mother thing.

After a couple of months I decided to stop taking lessons and start applying what I had learned. I opened up a fresh notebook and after a few preliminary sentences wrote down my goal to practice and make music in earnest. I didn’t want to continue to just play a couple of songs through twice a week, I wanted to work on my piano skills, or better, on my music skills. I made a plan and a list as always. I wrote down my goals.

I want to make the music that only I can make.

For this I want to improve my technical skills until I don’t have to think about the how anymore.

I want to become able to play what I hear in my head.

I want to feel at home in music.

The basis for my music should be voice and piano.

I want to become a better piano player.

And then I made a plan what I had to do to reach these goals. Improvise on a regular basis, transcribe songs from CD, and so on. I wrote that on Tuesdays and Thursdays I’d practice while my son was in play group, at least two times per week I would practice in the morning while my son played in the same room, and I’d practice on weekends once. And then I started right away.

Each time I played I wrote down when, what, how I felt, and what I wanted to do next. One other thing that I did in the beginning was to give myself stickers for every time I played. And I put the stickers on a calendar that I had in my room where all my students could see them and I told them what they were for. That was motivating! Imagine being a piano teacher and having to tell your students that you didn’t practice the whole week. That never happened.

All the time I was – of course – not content with what I achieved. It never seemed enough. And in a way it is, but in a way that’s how art works. It never is enough. Even if you spend all your waking moments on you art it won’t be enough. And this is what I have kept telling people again and again, “I don’t play enough, I don’t write songs.”

But if I were my own student I would be quite proud of myself. Making music has become a habit again. Only very rarely do three days go by without an entry in my journal. And one has to keep in mind that even if there is no “practice” I usually play some music every workday because I teach. When I teach singing or guitar I play all the time. When I teach piano I often sit and listen for long times but even then I get to play about ten minutes of every thirty.

And my playing has changed. I really feel better as a pianist. My tone has changed. It sounds better. when I started a year ago I was desperate because my piano is bad. And if I had 10,000 € to spare I’d buy another one in a minute, but I’m not desperate about my piano’s sound anymore. Because now I can make it sound better than before.

So during the past year I have been gone from playing one or two songs about twice a week to real practice sessions complete with improvisation, scales and concentration about three to five times a week. Sometimes more. That’s good. I don’t need to put stickers on a chart where my students can see them. And through playing guitar I found a way to make my music portable.

So my next goal is to to even more and not only improvise but make songs again.

Technorati Tags: playing piano, practice, singing, song writing

Throw it away

Download audio file (throwitaway.mp3)

For more music go to “Finally music for you“, a post with all the links to my husband’s songs.

Technorati Tags: music, singing

I’ve been writing a lot about this so it isn’t exactly a secret: I don’t even find making music easy to do. You know, music makes noise. As a child I have been living in a house where the landlords complained about us children all the time. (And they even had children of their own.)We even learned to climb the stairs quiet as mice. So imagine their reaction when we bought a piano. And I actually enjoyed playing so much that they restricted me to one hour per day. Oh, and when we moved to our own house when I was fourteen, my piano sat in the living room and everybody told me to please stop playing so that they could watch TV. Even today, when I’m on stage, I have a strong impulse to apologize for taking up people’s valuable time. And for being loud.

So after years and years of avoiding to call myself a musician, of looking for outside proof, for a license to make music, in the end I found that in the course of those years not only did I make a lot of music without realizing it, I had acquired a degree in music education as well. So, some fifteen years ago I stopped agonizing about it and just started saying that I am a musician. I have a right to it. I’m making music. And I’m earning my money by teaching it.

But I’ve been blocked all the time. I’ve been wanting to write songs since the age of twelve. I started humming something, hadn’t a clue how to catch it, and then I stopped. When it comes to my biggest and most precious dreams I’m easily discouraged. When in university I met somebody who actually wrote songs. AND HE WAS JUST A NORMAL PERSON! I thought, “Well, if he can do it, I might too.” Started walking around with songs in my head, but didn’t know how to write them down or record them. When I tried to write them down, they changed, because writing down music requires much practice. And I didn’t have any recording equipment. So it became a “one day”-thing. One day I’ll write songs.

Then I attended a workshop on vocal improvisation by the fabulous Rhiannon and we had a song writing exercise. We did a writing exercise for the lyrics on one day and were sent home with the homework of setting some of that words to music. Improvisation was allowed and one could take all the other singers and let them sing. Or you could bring an instrument. I loved this exercise. Loved it. I went home with a melody to some of my amazing lyrics going round and round in my head. I couldn’t wait to go to my piano and write the melody and harmony down.

When I came home there was a letter telling me that everything I had done that year to further my academic career had been futile. The work of nine months was dismissed as being not up to standard. Wham! I phoned a friend, I phoned my advisor, I cried, I talked with my husband… My little melody was gone.

But then I did something that I’m really proud of: I sat down at the piano, took the lyrics and made up a new melody. And wrote it down. The next day at the workshop I taught the whole workshop to sing my song fragment in harmony. Rhiannon looked at me and said, “Where did those harmonies come from?” Well, I can’t say.

Then I knew that song writing really mattered to me. And then I promptly forgot and finished my dissertation and and didn’t get my degree after all. I got pregnant and had a son. And then I knew that one day had to be now. Since that workshop every year in November I have made a commitment to myself to write songs. And each fall I’ve written half a song or so. Last year I started in earnest. For Christmas my husband even gave me a card saying that he had founded a club to further my attempts. He gave me his old hard disk recorder and I recorded two of my songs. He mixed them. And then I found that though melodies come easy to me, since I’m a singer who has been doing jazz and improvisation for ages, I was handicapped by my piano skills.

Off I went to take lessons. And that teacher is brilliant and I learned a lot. But instead of writing songs I fell back into student mode and only thought about playing jazz songs on the piano. Then I tried to write songs again. Then I started the blog. And then was now.

Some days ago I had an epiphany: I’ll only learn to write songs if I write them. (Yeah, I know, deep thinking, that.) So I made a commitment to write crappy songs until I know how to do it. And then I’ll have to learn to follow through. Beginnings are very easy for me. Lack of ideas? BWAHAHA! Capture them somewhere? Harder. Finish something? BWAHAHA again. But for a different reason.

You have to see that writing is really much more easy: it’s portable, it doesn’t make a noise and you learn how to do it in school. And also you don’t need equipment. Well, not much anyway.

Technorati Tags: creativity, midlife-crisis, self-help, song writing, writing

I’ll answer this question later, but today I’ll say this. I have come to the not unsurprising conclusion that the world really needs more bad songs. Just imagine, if everyone wrote them. You could swap songs with your friends. You’d have meetings where everybody could sing their songs to each other. This would certainly be fun. And I’m sure that the songs wouldn’t stay bad.

I know a lot of jazz musicians. Not very good jazz musicians. More like myself, the ones that say that they’re “semi-professional” (shudder). All of them keep playing the same songs over and over again. The millionth rendition of “My funny valentine”. A song that I never liked very much. And Chet Baker did it better. I know. He recorded it. But a lot of those somewhat mediocre jazz musicians are also writing their own songs.

And always those songs are more interesting to me than the same old same old jazz standards. They are authentic, they are fresh. What would you be more interested in? A rendition of an old song that you could play along to in your sleep? Or something original by a friend?

But apart from the end-product which might be interesting or not there is something to be said for people being creative. Like all that blog-writing going on. Creative people are happy people. Creativity feeds the soul. There is something ultimately fulfilling in being creative, even if it exhausts you.

So in addition to the myriad of projects that I have going on, I decided to participate in NaNoWriMo this year. That’s National Novel Writing month. Every year in November the insane and crazy sign up to write 50,000 words of a novel in one month.

When I contemplated doing it, my husband made me promise that I would not. Well, not promise, but we had one of those talks, where he talks and talks in his very sincere voice and I nod a lot, and at the end I said, “Okay, you’re right. I won’t do it.” And he said, “It’s your decision. You have to decide.” And I said, “No, you’re right, I won’t be doing it.”

Well, I changed my mind. So, my challenge is not only to write 50,000 words on a novel in November, but to do it in a way that it doesn’t interfere with the rest of my life and in a way that my husband won’t notice too much. Wait and see.

Technorati Tags: creativity, NaNoWriMo, song writing

Before I began my stage fright was so enormous that I thought I’d be getting sick. Afraid and paralyzed I spent half the day in front of my computer and implemented nice new features into my blog (New! Improved! Better! Subscribe via e-Mail now!) Then setting up and sound check became inevitable. To tell it in front, after sound check I was about to cancel the whole thing.


I played in my husband’s music room (Yes, we do have two music rooms, it’s where we’re working). It’s the biggest room and the one with the PA. (Yeah, another acronym, public address, the amp and speaker system). We (my husband and me) set everything up, plugged in all the cords, and then we didn’t have any keyboard sound at all. Hm. Oh, switch on compressor. Okay, mike functioning, still no keyboard. The keyboard hasn’t got a status light, but when it’s on the same socket as the sound module, it has to have electricity. Well, it should logically have, but plugging the whole thing into another socket mysteriously worked. Relief.

The next problem: feedback. (You know that loud piercing sound, do you?) This is something I’m familiar with since my voice is quite soft when I’m singing low. Therefore you have to have the mike really loud, and then you have a higher danger of feedback. And then we had the additional problem that the room has marvelous acoustics. Like a natural chorus. The only problem with that is that it’s making amplification tricky. So you ask, why amplify? Well, an electrical keyboard does not sound good without an amp, mine doesn’t even have a speaker of its own. And besides I wanted to record the concert. We literally spent hours checking and putting sheets in front of all the windows and reflecting surfaces, and carpets on the floor. In the end we found out that a major problem was the gleaming surface of the keyboard itself reflecting into the back of the microphone. So I had to play with a woolen shawl on the keyboard. After checking the sound I was spent, nothing was going right and my voice felt weak.

Then change, make up, dinner – hang up laundry.

The three people attending (yes, three, never schedule a concert at the end of July directly before summer break) were quite punctual and after a glass or two of champagne (I told you, you’d miss something.) I started. The recording caused additional problems with set up and PA. During the first songs I was a little tense, but then it got better and better.

Sadly there where times when the audience was thinking, “Is she gonna make it?” (because of the piano), and that’s not so good. The audience was friendly and attentive, and my son (3 1/2) spent the whole concert sitting or lying on a chair, and didn’t utter a word. Wow! I’d have thought that he would have had enough at the break, but no. And he didn’t even sleep. When I was done, the babysitter put him to bed. The adults kept on talking and were really tired the next morning.

I’m really happy with this concert. This project was my chance to point others to music that I love dearly, all the way working on my performance issues, and get closure on a project. What I learned doing this (apart from the advice never to schedule something for the end of July again) is:

• once in a while it can be fun to do a bigger project and pull it through,
• a big part of my performance issues was the result of being unfamiliar with the equipment,
• what a difference a good microphone makes,
• that I used to be too sloppy with the preparation,and
• even this time it was not quite enough.

But I’m also seeing that my decision to make a serious commitment to music will eventually elevate me to the next level. Each time that I’m in despair because music requires so much work, I’m seeing that it works the other way round too. When you’re doing the work, you’re getting better. Always. Maybe not instantly, but surely over time.

Addendum: I want to thank my husband too. He freed me of chores so that I could practice and he was my very own personal roadie, mixer, sound engineer and recording engineer.

Technorati Tags: Hauskonzert, Tori Amos

Technocrati Tags: house-concert, Tori Amos, practice

Having abstinated from stage for years I’m trying to become more public again by having a private house-concert. In order to celebrate my almost 40th birthday I will entertain invited guests with Tori Amos-Songs and original compositions. Drinks are on me to put the audience in a benign mood.

Any readers of my blog unable to attend (e.g. because they’re attending BlogHer-conference on another continent, for which I’d reschedule my concert anytime) may read about rehearsals, preparations and the concert itself on this blog. (Anybody near the bavarian capital (that’s Bavaria, Germany, Europe) on July 29 wanting to attend, just drop me an e-mail or comment.)

Now I’m all definite. Now I’ll have to do it, whether I want or not. Me, all alone, solo. Me, my detuned piano, my keyboard and my battered microphone. (It had fallen off an upright piano on a concrete floor years ago. Sounds quite good, considering.)

Am already having stage fright.

This time it was much easier to prepare. I already had a babysitter, my toenails were painted, I didn’t care about my outfit, or about the rehearsal at all, because I already knew that I’d probably not be part of this group anyway. But, apart from being real curious about the group, I wanted to give it a chance, and – maybe my biggest reason – I wanted to know how I’d fare in such surroundings. Improvised dancing and singing.

Not to leave you hanging – I was rather pleased with myself. I went there, even on time. When I left the train I set off in the wrong direction, but the performer who had called me spotted me and gave me a lift. The other interested singer was there. I already know her and like her a lot. So I felt quite comfortable. (Here, I might add that I spent the whole afternoon before in stage fright, eating and reading blogs while avoiding to warm me up.)

I put on my quite-stylish-jazz-pants that are probably six years old, and my really cool legwarmers. Nobody else wore legwarmers of course, but at least I had the right shoes – none. There’s a teacher to this group, one of the reasons why it’s not exactly cheap. He started off doing body-percussion-exercises. Despite his nervousness about the two not-used-to-dancing-singers, we had no problems with that. He didn’t know that we both had been taken drumming lessons years ago. Then we had some exercises like walking through the room all at once, connecting with the others, partner exercises where you react, mirror or contrast the other person’s movements, and then the finale, free improvisation with dancing, singing, and sounds all mixed together.

At first I was a little shy with the moving. The dancers are quite good. But then I remembered the old days of jazz dance class. I just went with the flow, and it was big fun. So I’m really happy, because I don’t have issues with this performing, moving and singing at the same time anymore! It’s just gone!

The reason for this is that I don’t mind anymore. I shut my brain down. I stop thinking, “Oh, how I look! Oh, how stiff I am! Look at her, how elegant and fluent her motions! I could never do that!”. I just go with the flow, and sometimes I stumble because I once was strong enough to do a move like that, but I’m not anymore. And I don’t strive to become a dancer anyway.

So I still have to tell them that I won’t be coming back. I feel bad about it. They are nice girls, but I can’t be spending so much time and energy on a project like that. It’s not my sole project. Not by far. What I want to do with this experience is: a) incorporate more movement into my singing warm-up, b) maybe take a modern dance class once in a while, and c) maybe pick up strength training again. Or not.

I was not to go to the rehearsal-audition for this performance group after all. Because the other singer who had been interested hadn’t called, they decided to reschedule to May 9. Because it would be better to tailor the exercises to two of us. Exercises? I didn’t know I was about to take a class. I was wrong, obviously. When I looked up the group on the web, I found out that it is a dancing class. Participants pay 18€ every time they rehearse. Well, I thought I had reached the stage where people pay me to sing. It’d be okay for me to contribute to the rent of a studio, since I can’t hold dancing rehearsals in my home, but paying a teacher?

I also found out that the group’s search for singers is part of an attempt to get “more professional”. Hm. Ten years ago I made a decision to let people do their attempts to be “more professional” on their own. They may ask me to join, when they already are “professional”. This sounds arrogant, I know, but I had been part of a vocal quintet for five years, meeting every week, and having additional rehearsals before every public appearance, before I realized, we’d probably never become “professional”. I vowed to do most of my praciticing in private and then go to a few rehearsals well prepared.

Also, the experience of the last days has shown me that there is no space in my life for something that involves going out every week. I spent the whole of yesterday in preparation. My stuff, everything for the babysitter,… And if my mother-in-law could not have been babysitting, I would have had to put my son to bed half an hour early, and borrow a car in order to get to the rehearsal not quite on time. How realistic is that? Every time I leave the house in the evenings, it concerns four people: me, my son, who’s used to be put to bed by me, my mother in law, who has to babysit, and my husband, who has to rush after lessons in order to relieve my mother-in-law…

So much for trying to overcome my performance-problem. Oh, by the way, in preparing for that rehearsal, I found that my problem with moving and singing at the same time seems to get better. Maybe it’s only in private, I don’t know, but maybe I don’t care so much anymore, whether I look good, or not.

She’s a member of a performance-group. They are dancers who improvise and sing. She told me about it last year, when we met at a singers workshop on improvisation. Then I thought “A group? Me in a group, are you crazy? Me in a group with dancers?” I only wanted to do my own stuff then.

I still want to make my own music, but during the last year I found myself thinking of performing again. I stopped performing in 1999 or 2000. Not entirely, mind you, we did a couple of birthday parties and such when requested. But we didn’t enjoy it. So we (that’s my husband and me) put our energy into the CDs instead. And later also into the child.

And that seemed to be right, until I found myself over-eager to sing to people at parties or to do jam sessions. And since I’ve decided to work on the things that are difficult for me, I even thought about taking acting classes. Because, I have a little problem with performing:

I can sing in front of people – no problem.
I can talk to a large audience – no problem.
I can even dance in front of people – no problem.
But I can’t do two of these things together. Let alone all three.

When I’m singing in front of a band, there’s no problem with the singing, but I can’t talk to the audience. I’ll sing like crazy, then smile and say a hushed and very soft “thank you”, and then – smile. I’m even able to make a mess of the jazz musician’s traditional “The last song was blablabla, and the next will be blablabla.”
You have to understand, the problem is not the talking. I’ve presented a paper in front of hundreds of people at a conference. With a microphone. Audible, understandable, and well received (until somebody dissed me out of the conference publication, that is). But I can’t talk, when I’m the singer.

The same goes for singing and moving. I have been to a lot of Rhiannon‘s workshop and there you’re always doing things like sing and move at the same time. Improvising. In singing, the improvisation comes quite natural for me. Moving’s a little harder, but possible. But an aquaintance once joked that the minute I was singing, I moved like my feet were nailed to the floor.

Hm. I’ve been working on it. In our late Brazilian Band I was trying to sing, play percussion, and dance samba at the same time. I actually can do it, but the percussion might be a little off time. And somehow it never made the same impression a couple of half-naked Brazilian dancers would have made.

Last summer I visited a workshop for singers on performance. I thought, there I’d learn how to present myself on stage. The workshop was marvellous. I feel much more confident now, because: a) Now I know that I’m not a beginner anymore. (Takes a while for some of us, being a singing teacher could have been a clue.) b) I’m not supposed to move around on stage like a bumblebee, because obviously my respiration type is solar.

This is one of those esoteric theories that I thought to be completely bonkers, but sadly it works. I’m having a couple of singing students, I found almost impossible to teach until I found out that they are breathing different than me. Anyway, a solar type is supposed to do only one thing at a time, and is comfortable only in rest. So I’m doing fine on stage when I’m only standing there and singing. I’m even finding that some artists get away with doing no announcements or only a few. I’m fine with that.

But, finally having the official “you don’t have to move on stage or do anything other than sing”-badge, left me with the freedom to explore this moving-and-singing-at-the-same-time thing too. And so I’m off to go to a rehearsal for an improvisation group of dancers.

So, what’s the most important thing to do for tomorrow?
Right, paint my toenails. And get a babysitter of course. And give myself a singing lesson, and improvise a little. And get hysterical. And find out, where I have to go. But first the nail polish.

The first three songs are off his album Othersight which we finished just in time before our son was born.

after all we had

mindscape (here I’m magically doubled into two singers)

the great red spot

These are from his next album Unfold which was finished last year. Almost all the vocals were recorded during naptime!

falling apart

unexpected

The link to the song “unfold” is broken, so you can’t hear my tricky african backing vocals. I’ll point you there, when it’s fixed.

(Of course, all this is original material, all rights are Gary Winter’s, enjoy but don’t do anything else with it.)

P.S.: Here is the fixed link for the “tricky african backing vocals”:
unfold

Okay, so far. (Five weeks gone by, but who cares.) On the weekend I spent two days trying to learn how to use the recording software. And you know what I’ll be doing this week? Right: continue learning the software. My husband is now able to record stuff, but not to hear it afterwards. Hm.

I try to lift my mood by picturing how marvelously easy it will be to record sketches of songs on my computer. Any time I want to (if my husband doesn’t need the dongle, that is). But may be I’d rather have a little tape recorder with only three buttons.

…

Nah. But I’d like to have my six weeks back.

• they always make their art regardless of circumstances
• they spend all of their day making music
• they are passionate, dramatic and chaotic
• they never tend to things like houswork, laundry or finances

Okay, I lost. But wait! In spite of what everybody knows, the lifes of real, official artists often look quite different. I don’t know about musicians, because they rarely write blogs, but writers seem to have problems finding time to write, too. Even without a day job. Even people like Neil Gaiman, C.J. Cherryh, or Caitlín Kiernan.
I love artist’s blogs, because you can see other people have difficulties too, when they try to do their taxes and write their novel the same day. And writing isn’t even loud. You can write on planes (not comfortably, maybe), but try it with singing.

So I read “The Artist’s Way” and was really relieved that other artist are able to do their own laundry as well. That a longing for peace and tidiness doesn’t mean you’re a square, but that a little quiet time at home may be beneficial to the making of art.

And what happened? My mother told me of some acquaintances and said,

“They are quite unorganized. That’s because they’re artists.”

Me: “But Mommy, I’m an artist too, and I don’t have problems with my appointments.”

Short silence, while I feel like my son when I’m saying “Of course you’re a fire fighter!”

Then she said, “But you’re a down-to-earth person.”

Am I?

Isn’t it nice to have it all explained so clearly?

Maybe I should frame my M.A. in music education … But that’s the same M.A. a friend of mine has, who told me recently „…but I’m not a real musician, not like you.“

Is that the musician’s badge? And how long does it last? When I’m not performing, practicing little, and haven’t written music for half a year? Am I a musician not being very creative or am I a fake?

I asked my husband, how to see the difference, and he said that I’m a musician if I’m making music and a composer if I’m composing. Yeah! How long do the two-and-a-half songs I’ve written so far last? I started too late, but there’s nothing, I can do about this.

If I had one or two own CDs, this would be a little elongated maternity leave. But if you’re starting songwriting right in the middle of your son’s toddler years and then stop for half a year, because you want to improve your piano skills first, so that your songs don’t sound like Bjork’s song for voice and piano on „Medulla“, it’s quite pathetic. I’d say, I’ll only post, when I’ve written something new, but maybe that’s to long a time …

(Addendum: After writing this – a few days ago – I actually started writing a new song! Am really excited.)

But then my real adult mind knows that I have to start somewhere (again) and even 5 minutes will be better than zero minutes. And if you have a real life with child, partner, house, garden, work and friends you often don’t have these essential 2 to 4 hours for music. And when you start doing it for 15 minutes more often than not you end up sitting at the piano as long as you possibly can. And if you don’t you’ve just done the equivalent of a musical warm-up for 15 minutes.

So, I’ll better be going … I’ll be at the piano …

I even considered renaming the blog, since the diaper part of my life has been reduced to one per day (or to be precise – by night) and the music part is not flourishing madly – but I’m hoping for spring.
Have been a wildly optimistic person for all my life regardless of circumstances.

So I’m mothering and making music and doing housework and a million zillion things a day like a lot of women. You’d think that having your preschooler finally in kindergarten would make live easier on the music front, but for now we’re living in constant upheaval. But then, there’s nothing special about this. The whole family is thriving on drama. ‘Though recently we started trying to calm things down. (And we’re almost as successful as this wording.)

So instead of making big, big plans for a big CD of my own, I opted for the babystep of playing the piano every day for at least fifteen minutes (FlyLady-style). Sounds marvelous, doesn’t it? You can almost feel a big musical project taking shape. The reason for this plan was the realization that it’s a little unfair to tell your students to practice without playing yourself, and the maybe more important reason was my realization that my piano-playing just isn’t good enough to make my own songs.
And when I succeeded in playing five times a week, suddenly my playing grew much stronger. I gained a feeling for the piano I never had before. Because my practice was not to be mere playing while thinking about something else, but practicing the same things I always thought boring and practice them mindfully.

I’m feeling quite strange. I, me, sitting at the piano, playing scales and chords and all that “boring” stuff and all the while enjoying myself tremdendously. Who would’ve thought?