creative.mother.thinking

explaining my life to strangers

music

From within and from without

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I have been thinking a bit more about the feeling of not fitting in I wrote about the other day.

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.

Insert strong swear-word here

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Today I was reminded why I’m not recording much. For months now I have been wanting to record at least some improvisations. Today was the day. Because my husband left the house for more than half an hour (which he rarely does). The recording equipment was to be mine.

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.)

Interview by flutter

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Finally, here are the interview questions that Flutter sent me. Despite my initial urge I decided not to write a 1,000 word answer to each one. Though I could have. So, thank you Flutter for these questions.

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.

Like Father Like Son

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fatherandson.JPG

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

guitar & gear: epiphone mandobird, natural preschooler voice

son.JPG

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.

Hear me sing of weirdness

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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(There seem to have been people who were not able to listen to the song. If the player doesn’t show up or doesn’t work for you, try the link at the bottom of the post, please. Oh, and the songs starts with about 4 seconds of silence…)

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”:

[audio: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 Wind

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I already told you that my husband has become a blogger too. Over at psychedelic zen guitar he pairs gorgeous photos with breath-taking guitar improvisations. Recently he started collaborating with Elspeth Duncan who blogs at now is wow. They have teamed up three times so far. Their first collaboration doesn’t really have a name yet. If you want you can choose one since it’s still showing at a blog near you. Interestingly the video and music were created independently of one another. But they match perfectly nonetheless.

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.)