New Year - New Blog

Well, a new year does deserve some attention, aside from tax forms. I used to completely ignore new years' resolutions and fresh starts of many kinds, thinking I would only disappoint myself by breaking an agreement with myself, or worse, maybe I thought I was mostly fine the way I was and did not see an immediate need for change. Ha! I was not fine. There were many ways in which I was not "fine." And I'm sure that I've not been alone in that reality. So, I finally have a resolution that I think worth trying to keep, to check in with myself every day to see how "fine" I really am. And perhaps I can get closer to "fine." Or better yet, I could get closer to "feeling great more of the time" if I'd just pay closer attention to how far away I am from that and what I need to do to get there. This is my path for this year, along with the regular good food, good music, good time spent with my family and friends. Thank you everyone for being part of my world and I hope that you enjoy the coming quiet month of January, when light gradually increases, the days are steady and we have a little extra time for reflection.

No musician can be "the next _____." The next....Dylan....the next Madonna....the next Jimi....etc. People who become influentially famous in the music performance world do so because they are a complete original and offer the world something that someone else has not and at a time when they need it. Iconic musicians resonate in original ways, they stir thought and imagination, they inspire other artists. They draw from their own mentors and create a composite, but, they sound completely original. You can identify their voice from out of the air when you first hear it. You can recognize them from a hint of their original persona in visual graphics. They work from their unique place in time and within their time's particular cultural challenges and manifestations. When I read in the press about "the next ______," that really bores me because I know it won't come to pass, for the reasons I have mentioned here.

I spend a fair amount of time online reading posts about the music business and talking with fellow musician friends who are trying to navigate the vagaries of it. I also work on my own activities every day. One thing I find being commonly expressed is frustration at wanting more "success" than one has, whether it be more action, more exposure, more money, more opportunities, more acknowledgment...the list is long. Many compare their own careers to others. Most are sensitive to rejection. And some blame "the way the world is" for their lack of a dream come true. Seems to me that the very desire for things to be different than they are is at the root of this frustration. What kind of an idea is it that things should be different than the reality we are living at the moment? What part of our brain does this come from? Especially for musicians, whose very essence of chosen artistic expression is all about being in the moment...am curious as to why so many musicians drop that gift when we're not in the moment of playing music.

When I come home from a performance and am reflecting on the experience, I ask myself one question..."Did I do my job?" Sometimes I do my job well, but sometimes a performance can dramatically miss the mark. One can never really know going in, it's all an experiment. The best thing I can do is feel well prepared for anything, which means I need to know the music well enough that I can balance playing the music with relating to the other musicians on stage, addressing the audience and being in the moment, all at the same time. Out of my last three performances, they range on my personal scale of success from "not anywhere near to what it could be" to about a 9.5. My lowest point was not at all acceptable and it took me days to recover from it. Was I still not well from the flu? Was it the struggle with the sound system? Was there some under-rehearsed music in the program? I accept that I won't ever really know the combination and degrees of variables that contributed to that difficult performance. Thank goodness I can usually perform soon after an experience like that. I am so appreciative of second chances, a new day, growth spurts, experience and everything else that time can bring to support us on our path.

And so I was asked, "How does a nice little girl like you get involved with things like the music of Utah Phillips?"...and it was a joke. Well, of course it was. But it was a great introduction to how much a of a philosopher I can be, even though I don't dress or look like a stereotypical anything besides a musician, and from the east coast. I had a great time with some students at Westminster College, as we discussed important issues such as folk music, yes, folk music, and music written for societal change. We discussed the Catholic Worker Movement and feeding homeless people. We discussed pacifism. Pacifism...yummmm, is as good as chocolate, it's rich, and is good for everyone, if we'd just try it.

I wrote a song this week. It was the first song that I've written for a while, the infrequency due to my frantic past few months. It takes some space in the mind to write a song, to be still enough to let something grow. It's like making bread. You have the yeast, which is the idea, you mix it with ingredients and it rises and grows into something puffy, if given the right conditions. I'd had this song idea in my mind for 3 years, then all of a sudden it came out. It did require a little research along the way, but I more or less concentrated on it for a good two days after which it was fully formed, baked and browned.
This song is about the legacy of mixing heritages, describing subtle beauty in how generations carry things on. It's based on the history of the Celts intermingling with Hawaiian royalty through marriage. From that joining, and with it a population of Celts on the islands, there began a legacy of people celebrating both cultures. I witnessed it when I first went to Hawaii in 2008. I was performing at a music festival and heard some young girls, most of mixed descents, singing traditional Celtic songs, in tartans and leis. I was struck by one girl especially, as she sang Sally Gardens in a soft Hawaiian-style falsetto, like the breeze off of the ocean. The Scotsman who married Princess Likelike in the 1800s, I'm sure he was not knowing of the possibility of me hearing this young girl sing so many generations later, and then writing about it in song. I'm sure Princess Kaiulani did not expect to be the subject of a chorus composed by a musician writing from the state of Utah, but I'm very glad to have included her in a song. She's a beauty and is worth singing about. It was my pleasure.

I've had the chance to create and share a lot of music with a lot of people over the last few weeks. From singing Robert Burns' songs with Natalie Haas and Christopher Layer in Moab, UT, to touring with the Utah Phillips Tribute CD gang of songwriters throughout the NW states, including Winterfolk 23 in Portland, OR, the past few weeks have been completely engaging. I live for making sound, so despite the traveling, the engagements are worth it. I have a couple of weeks of quiet now, but will enjoy the ringing notes of the past few weeks as they carry me through my tax work.