I am recording an album! I’m so thrilled to be working on my first full-length album of original songs.
Entitled, ‘Keep the Night Dark’, this work is a 12-track album reflective of many musical styles: waltz, jazz, Indian raga, ambient drone, do-wop, classical, neo-folk with added vocal lyrics repurposed from my original poems and inspiration from the writings of contemporary Am. poet Anne Sexton, 17th Cent. British mystic William Blake, 18th Cent. French epicurean Brillat-Savarin, Greek mythology, and the world’s first feminist/poet, Sappho.
All songs of KtND were written over the past five years. I am super excited by stellar musicians participating! – my bandmates in The Daphnes (Nate Omdal, bass and Julie Baldridge, violin), plus two amazing drummers (Greg Campbell and Jeremy Jones) and more mystery surprise sound makers!
Harp repertoire of this kind does not readily exist. KtND reflects my wildly wide range of musical tastes. Because I long to play music that covers a broad scope, it took a break from performing to realize the only composer who could fulfill that desire was me!
While recording at Gallery 1412 last week, Greg asked me if I’d always sung. I did. I had. I had just stopped. For about 15 years. When I studied music in college, I thought I should focus on harp. The harp is a complex instrument and I had much to learn. Since it took so much of my time to study, I didn’t have energy to sing. So that was that.
When I stopped performing 5 years ago for a while to have a child, I found myself singing to her all the time. Then, I would write the songs out or record them. Thus, there’s a thematic feeling all the way through that I think comes from subterranean tide pools of maternal emotion. The album also covers general and mythic mother/daughter relations, and nighttime activities like stargazing at constellations and recognition of light pollution.
Soon, Sonarchy Radio will broadcast a session of KtND songs that The Daphnes recorded in June of this year – Stay tuned!
I will also be doing some fundraising concerts for the album this fall as I begin to wrap up the recording process.
Fundraising Concert of November: Harpy Hour – Tues. November 3rd Stone Way Cafe – 3510 Stone Way Seattle, WA 98103 Happy Hour + Harp Music = Harpy Hour 4-6pm $1 off drinks
Enough already. That’s what you’re thinking, right? Everyone wants to have 150 thumbs up and 1000 likes! Well, I guess that makes me no different. I just want to make sure someone out there’s reading my posts : )
Here I am, waiving my hands in the air saying, “Like me! Like me!”
I do work performing, teaching, accompanying, and recording. Another service I offer is house concerts!
Frequently, I play in either a private person’s house (concert style) or for a fundraiser (in a home or venue). Live harp music can spruce up a party like nothing else! I play either background music, or concert program style (with or without Q&A for the audience to talk directly to me).
A house concert can be in lieu of an audience going to a venue. Instead, the venue is someone’s home. This musician, Shannon Curtis, has made a career for herself playing house concerts. If you, or someone you know, would like to host a harp concert in their home, backyard, or for a fundraiser, I’d love to talk more!
I have experience in making these events happen so its a financial win for all involved.
In a private home, the host either absorbs to cost to hire me and pays me directly; OR a cover at the door is taken, similar to any other concert event.
Say you had a more public facility, perhaps the actual arboretum you’re raising funds for. You charge $12 at the door, expecting 75 people. That’s a gain of $900. I charge between $200-$300 for a one hour house concert (which includes a Q&A session with audience). You might also choose to charge $15. In a private home seating 40 people, that’s still $600 and then I’d suggest us splitting the door. Guests are encouraged to have potluck dinner/appetizers and the host can make additional $ by having a no host bar of donations.
These are just some of the ideas I’d like to offer you, based upon my personal experiences. Please visit my website below to hear my music. I’d be glad to talk more to you about the possibility of playing for your organization or your friends!
With The Sirens of Serpentine, credit: Bruce Clayton Tom
Admittedly, I’m not the greatest at capturing the moment while out gigging. I could do better at photo cataloguing, because I always feel like I’m so lucky to play the most interesting variety of shows, performances, and private concerts! But, sometimes just showing up with a big instrument and a bunch of gear to do my job is work enough. And sometimes I luck out and a professional photographer (or two) comes to save the day! Yay.
Little Harp Big Waves credit: Chris Yetter
May was a highlight month for a variety of performances. The West Seattle Mermaid Parade was a hoot. I was asked by Leslie Rosen, leader of Sirens of Serpentine, to lead a troupe of belly dancers in song for a public performance. She gave me less than 7 minutes of Persian beats. My assignment was to loop it, add harp tracks and make it last for 30minutes. I worked on a pre-recording w/my fully-chromatic harp, but didn’t want to bring that nice big one to the beach. So, I played it on my little 22-string lap harp that has limited (chromatic) capabilities, only it sounded full range – pretty sneaky, eh?
Dance Dance Dance credit: Chris Yetter
The event was super playful and drew a big crowd. Everyone in attendance was encouraged to dress like a mermaid. The event was held on a beautiful late spring day on Alki Beach overlooking Elliott Bay. After the dance, the entire crowd (about 100+ people) walked in a parade. It was a cinematic morning, as you can see. Plus, this event was just old-fashioned fun for the sake of fun. No agenda. Just fun. What a concept!
Therapeutic music is live music played at the bedside, where the musician responds to immediate needs of the patient. Vibrations of harp stings applied therapeutically can relieve pain, release anxiety, diminish nausea, stabilize heart rate and body rhythms as well as improve sleep and calm the environment.
Through my training I have played over 45 hours of music at the bedside for 200+ patients. I have played at an outpatient dialysis clinic; a general hospital (for pre- and post- operations and in ICU (intensive care unit); skilled nursing facilities; and for hospice.
HUGE Thanks! First and foremost – thank you dear husband and daughter, you have been with me on this journey all the way… Many hours I have been absent from home to make this certification happen and I know its wasn’t easy to have me gone at suppertime and sometimes bedtime – I love you.
Many thanks to my parents Otto & Nancy, for lending me the money for Level 2 – you have given me the greatest amount of musical support in my life – I love you both so much.
To my awesome mentor Edie Enns (Bremerton, WA) for your unwaivering cheerfulness, career insight and faith in me. Thank you Dee Sweeney (Littleton, CO), program director, for your hard work of managing everything!
Essential Thank you to my internship venues and my patrons of support: NW Kidney Center (Annette Gildeman); Columbia Lutheran Home (Chris Galvin); and Highline Hospital (Kimberly Couret). Without your approval of having me play for your patients/residents, I would have never been able to complete my intern hours.
Thanks Laurie Riley, for starting this program in the first place! Like you, I believe so much in the healing power of music – I would have never guessed that meeting you at Vashon Island Harp Camp 5 years ago would have started all this! – thank you Leslie McMichael for inviting me out. Susan McLain, thank you for the use of “little sister” as I like to call her. Judy Friesem, thank you for letting me talk your ear off. Thanks to my colleagues down at the Musicians’ Union who have been so flexible and supportive of me over the years without really knowing it! – Motter Snell, Warren Johnson, Kirsten James, Nate Omdal, Joan Sandler, Paul Bigman… you stand up for what is just and fair in the world and you’re awesome.
To see a project like this from its start to finish has been more deeply rewarding than I could have imagined. I see this chapter in my life playing therapeutic bedside music as being another tool in my “musical toolkit” – I marvel at the places it has already taken me and I look very forward to the future.
It’s here! April is the month of spring, and as the poet e.e. cummings wrote, “the season dreams dare to do people, and not the other way around.”
Please follow me on my Facebook page for my daily poetry quips this month of April, aka National Poetry Month! I’ll also be doing a poetry book give away, so keep your eyes peeled for more on that.
For four years, I’ve been saying this – “I’m working quietly behind the scenes.”
This was code for: 1) steadily increasing work and 2) hashing out a business plan.
However, because it was behind the scenes work, I couldn’t tell people exactly what that meant, partially because my domestic commitments were taken over with a new baby in 2010; and as a result of that, I had reduced work time. Its hard to work (ie. move your harp out in the work and play music for people) when your instrument, your personal body, your baby (and sometimes your husband who watches that child) don’t actually all fit in the same car.
So, we got a new car last year.
Behind the scenes also meant writing new music, doing a Christmas album recording, writing blogs like this and working a day job – all things that either didn’t require me to leave the house or schlepp a bunch of bags, stands, instruments, etc.
As my child has grown, my time to work has expanded. I am completing my program to become a Certified Clinical Musician. I have finished writing a dozen songs and found a group of musicians to play it; I have been hired by The Sorrento Hotel for a regular monthly night; I’ve been expanding my harp studio of adult and youth students – beginners to intermediate players. Very soon, I plan to go into the recording studio with my original music.
The curtain has opened. No longer am I working quietly behind the scenes. Rather, I would say its the start of a new show for me. Something I’ve set the stage for and rehearsed a bit, but something too I think will bring me surprises, rewards and joy.
DISCLAIMER: I am writing this post to spell out the logic of my negative thought patterns and debunk them.
Every musician has heard it. “Quitting your day job is a bad move.”
Yeah? What was that? I just did.
Let me say that again: I QUIT. MY DAY JOB.
This decision was not arrived at lightly. I should say, I was raised in a Midwestern family where work defines you. Work is something you persevere. You may like it, but that’s not necessarily going to happen. Consider yourself lucky if it does.
I started working part-time at age 14 doing housecleaning, babysitting and playing church organ (Dana Carvey’s SNL “Church Lady Church Chat” came at a VERY unfortunate time for me!). By sixteen I worked two part-time summer jobs. I was not unique to my peers.
I haven’t even told me own mother this news yet, because I know she will worry. Not to mention what the rest of my family will think, fueled by the lack of value our society places in art and the artist. I know they mean well, but the time as come for me to step it up a little and do something bold.
This past Christmas, my aunt asked when I was going back to work after the holidays. I said, I haven’t been on a break, I’ve been playing and teaching and working on music. She said, “No. When do you go back to your real job?”
(SIGH!)
Music IS my real job. Its a calling. I’ve tried to avoid the knock at the door, but it won’t go away. That’s sometimes hard to explain, hence this blog entry.
As John Zorn said, “Music is one of the great Mysteries. It gives life. It is not a career, not a business, nor a craft. It is a gift… and a great responsibility. Because one can never know where the creative spark comes from or why it exists, it must be treasured as Mystery.”
And I’ve been trying to say something like this for years, really. Maybe I haven’t been very good at it. Or maybe no one wanted to listen. And after a while, I started to believe it too.
These nay-saying voices were the reason I could never pull it together. I would hear the self-doubt in the back my head saying I wasn’t good enough. Or that I was foolish. Or that music can’t be a career. I was raised on a tough love work ethic and served myself the same medicine. This sort of cautionary view is prevalent in our society. Art and music programs are being gutted and privately funded in public school. One of the reasons I moved to the West Coast was to escape some of that outer-criticsm and lack of fitting in. But then, almost by accident, I landed a really good day job. Something that was music related.
Many friends and colleagues know, I’ve had the same office job for years, a decade to be exact. My position as office secretary at the Seattle Musicians’ Union has offered me security during the 2008 Recession, comfort during a maternity leave, healthcare insurance, and I even got paid jury duty leave two times, not to mention holiday pay and wage increases. It has been more than fair and diplomatic with reasonable hours. A job like this doesn’t come around every day, and in the wake of Right to Work, a job like this has little chance at being created outside of the labor movement (unless something systemically changes in our country on how we value human beings versus how we value hoarding money and power). Through this job, I’ve learned a heck of A LOT about the Seattle music scene, contract negotiation, wages, bargaining, workers’ and musicians’ rights, the labor movement, PROs (performers rights organizations) etc. etc. etc.
But you know what? Its not my calling to sit behind a desk for the rest of my life. I’ve liked this job. It’s taught me a lot, and now its time to move on. I have never taken it for granted, so its been a difficult decision to leave, but, I need to know what it feels like to fly on my own.
Negative chatter be damned.
So, what am I going to do? Well, for the past four years, since having my daughter, I’ve said I’ve been working quietly behind the scenes. This is code for: 1) steadily increasing work and 2) hashing out a business plan!
(As an aside, I think it is terrible that so few universities and conservatories require business classes for Art, Music and Creative Writing majors. It is a total shame to our society. I think many more artists would make the break and be successful if they new how to start. And I know it wouldn’t have taken me this long. If you’re thinking like I’m thinking, read The Right-Brain Business Plan by Jennifer Lee.)
So, here’s my five-fold business plan:
P – Performances (public shows, concerts, restaurant gigs, orchestral/band work, or music held in large venues, halls, lounges, museums, galleries, something where there’s a cover). I’m VERY EXCITED about my new project, The Daphnes, which is a modern harp quartet of original music. We are playing MARCH 7 at The Sorrento Hotel; and MARCH 12 at Egan’s in Ballard. Check out my Concert Calendar please!
R – Recordings (either my own CDs or others.) Some musicians’ albums I’ve recorded for include: Ahamefule Oluo & Soulchilde; Hey Marsailles; The Parenthetical Girls; Jherek Bischoff; Secret Chiefs 3 (for John Zorn’s Masada); Bill Horist and Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. I want to create more room for this sort of work with other musicians and take The Daphnes into the studio very soon!
E – Events, Weddings, and Funerals – corporate & private events (usually I play solo harp or duet combinations of harp+bass; harp+cello, harp+flute, etc. But there’s so much more I’m open to and capable of…) This is a guess, but I think I’ve played around 250 weddings. Indoor. Outdoor. On the side of Snoqualmie Falls.
T – is for Teaching. I dig it. Right now I’ve got students coming to my home studio in Wallingford on Monday afternoons/evenings.
H – Healing. This is my new path! Next month, I will have a certification for playing therapeutic bedside music. My title will be Certified Clinical Musician. Right now, I’m playing Thursdays at a general hospital. I’m looking for more work, particularly with hospices in King County. This new path is wide open and I expect to expand this aspect of my business, and maybe even form an LLC.
I have other little things up my sleeve, but this is the bulk of my news. As of March 31, I will be a free agent of music and writing and other creative happenings. I’m expecting to fly.
Expecting to Fly
I’ll close with a quote by Paulo Coelho that’s inspired me to take the leap: “A boat is safe in the harbor. But this is not the purpose of the boat.”
