Category: Personal

A Month In Reverse

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No matter what my aspirations are, my blog continually only gets monthly posting. So, what have I been doing this past May? A month in the life of a mama musician looks something like this:

Friday – Played for hospice clients in North Seattle. Came home for lunch, did reports and corresponding before getting daughter from school. A lovely day, we took our time walking back home.
Thursday – Kind of a mix-up with childcare, but otherwise a very good day.
Wednesday – Great gig with my band, The Daphnes, at Stone Way Cafe. You can catch us there again on Fri. June 23 at 7pm.

Seattle Harpist
The Daphnes

Tuesday – My motivated high school student came at 8am for her lesson so she can get orchestra credit! Home cleaning and organizing, then teaching more students in the afternoon.
Monday – Memorial Day! Enjoyed a hot holiday off with my family at Folklife Festival and got to hear a few friends playing music.
Sunday – Not one, but TWO last minute gigs! I had gotten a call on Friday to play a wedding that another musician cancelled on. Then, at 7:30 am I got a call from a church choral leader in Ballard to sub on keyboard. I ended up doing both performances and had a fabulous, positively fun day. Also last minute: neighbor friends came over for dessert in the backyard.
Saturday – Very hot day. My kiddo was moving quite slowly and no one wanted to go to Folklife Festival that day with me, so we took a walk to Open Books on 45th where I got to nerd out about poetry with staff. Ice cream! Then, Jeppa, Eli and Lutra came over for a backyard picnic dinner.
Friday – Evening recording session for my album with awesome accordionist, Scott Adams!

Seattle Harpist
Scott Adams (accordion) in the studio

Thursday – I have no idea what I did this day.
Wednesday – Wed. Sing! Nate Omdal and I play two sets of bass/harp duets for a cocktail party/art opening in Issaquah.
Tuesday – Played harp for hospice clients and taught students at home studio.
Monday – Went to Bellevue to play two client patient visits as therapeutic musician (one for Providence Hospice, another for Family Best Care)
Sunday – Flew a butterfly-shaped kite with the family at Gasworks Park. A solo eagle soared with it! Mostly a day off, then recorded violin tracks with Julie in the evening.
Saturday – Violin/Harp duets with Janet for a wedding on the MV Skansonia Ferry after going to the 125th Anniversary Carnival for BF Day Elementary School (Seattle’s oldest school) and teaching a morning lesson at Dusty Strings.

Seattle Harpist
on the Skansonia w/Janet

Friday – Content writing and editing for the new Musicians’ Union website.
Thursday – Played a terrific concert at The Neptune Theater with Evan Flory-Barnes’ large ensemble. I love his projects.

Seattle Harpist
Neptune soundcheck

Wednesday – I slept so poorly the night before and had insomnia. I felt like a zombie most of the day, but did some parent volunteering at my daughter’s school anyway, met with her teacher and did some teaching of my own at home studio.
Tuesday – Teaching. Parenting. Rehearsing at Cornish for the Thursday concert.
Monday – Writers In The Schools (WITS) is a wonderful program through Seattle Public Schools. My daughter has learned how to read and write poetry from talented professionals and tonight was the end of year K-3 poetry reading, which couldn’t have been more adorably heartwarming.
Sunday – Mother’s Day. I got some new stylin’ sunglasses because a particular young person always breaks mine.
Saturday – Gamelan Pacific Concert at The Chapel. A positively uplifting event, listening to Indonesian music and featuring a tribute to composer Lou Harrison.
Friday – I had a funeral to play for one of my past hospice clients, at a Catholic ceremony in Bellevue.
Thursday – Chaperoned for my kindergartener’s field trip to Seward Park. It started raining when we got there and never stopped.
Wednesday – Morning hospice clients and afternoon harp students.
Tuesday – Rehearsal with Janet on violin for wedding in a week, picked up my kiddo from school and came straight home to teach students.
Monday – Office day. I usually start off the week with a chunk of time corresponding from the home office, scheduling, and decompressing from weekend gigs.
Sunday – Harp Recital Day! Hosted my first ever harp recital for students with great success.

Seattle Harpist
Harp Recital (2017)

Saturday – A nice hot spring day. Took daughter to a birthday party. I tried to practice but felt so distracted. A semi-productive day.
Friday – After working on various projects from home, went with the family to a friend’s art opening in Columbia City and I also picked up some money from my last gig at Columbia City Theater.
Thursday – Doctor’s appointment in the morning, and in between parent pick up at school, I taught five students at Dusty Strings.

Poetry & Essay Bibliography

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Autumn means organization, or at least to some people it does! My harp students know that when they come over to my studio, they will invariably see piles of yellow legal pads, music books, sheets of poems, pencils, postcards, to-do lists, headphones, and manila legal files stuffed with more of the same on and surrounding my desk. New studies show, though, that might not be such a bad thing for a creative type like me.

Virtually, things are much cleaner for me. I’ve just compiled a concise bibliography of selected publications and posted them to my website (Recordings & Writing). Its an organized list of selected poems and essays I’ve written, available in one easy to find place – imagine that!

on a clean day, you can see forever
on a clean day, you can see forever

I Quit My Day Job A Year Ago

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This post was originally published at Pyragraph and is reposted here with kind permission.

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Backstage in NYC

A year ago I quit my day job. It was easy to make the announcement and write the first part of my story, because I was excited! However, writing this follow-up has been a lot more challenging.

A little background: The day-job I quit was part-time. It was secure and it complimented my creative career as a musician and poet. So, I was conflicted about leaving. However, I knew that if I stayed any longer, I would never take the chance to see what was behind the other door—the door that led to working on music and writing exclusively, the door that led to me working as a freelancer and calling my own shots. I was miserable with the thought of never knowing what that would feel like.

For various reasons, the clock was ticking. If I was going to jump, it had to be now.

How did I prepare for this? I talked to other full-time musicians and I crafted a business plan. Then, I seriously talked my five-fold business plan over with at least a dozen people, as well as a representative at Seattle Small Business Association. I got green lights. I created an active teaching studio. Also, I became a Certified Clinical Musician (someone who plays particular therapeutic styles of music at the bedside of the sick and dying). The plan was that the day job hours would be taken over by therapeutic work, more or less. Since putting my plan into practice, I still think it’s solid in theory, but several factors beyond my control caused a certain amount of failure.

An important nuance I’ve had to take note of is seasonal fluctuations in work. I have wedding gigs in the summer, but not many students. This past year has shown moments of good fortune—touring with amazing musicians to New York with the successful show, Now I’m Fine—contrasted by disappointments when efforts don’t pay off—I did an intense two-day trade show for state healthcare workers expecting to drum up new clinical music work, but got empty leads, which left me physically and mentally drained.

There have been lots of challenges this first year on my own, but they’ve only pushed me to try something new and get comfortable with making mistakes when they happen.

New things I’ve tried this year and succeeded at:

  • Recording original tunes in studio and at home (in progress)
  • Making a music video
  • Bartered harp lessons for other needed services
  • Led healing harp tones guided meditation workshop

Fallen short:

  • Getting 3-5 therapeutic music accounts (I’ve succeeded so far at only gaining two)
  • Rejected grants

Future goals:

  • Skype harp lessons
  • Self-publishing a multi-instrument album
  • Leading more group workshops
  • More therapeutic music accounts

In one year’s time, I’d say I’m not as rosey-eyed, that is, I may not have taken into account how the highs and lows are much more extreme, which can be more exciting and more scary. Yet still, I’m optimistic by nature, so I always have that working to my advantage. I am very comfortable with turning down offers that are not respectable or reciprocal. I also happen to live in a wealthy city, where there are many resources for artists and people who will pay for artistic services.

My choice to work freelance has really been about my need to fulfill a dream. In his poem, “Harlem,” Langston Hughes asks:

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?

I knew my dreams would lose their strength, or worse yet, cease to exist, if I didn’t answer to their calling. That is what this career choice has been about, because working in the arts is more than just “making a living,” it’s a lifestyle. I like seeing where the mystery unfolds, even if it’s a little terrifying. It’s my path and I own it.

Fire & Ice

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Here’s a new ditty for the day: Fire & Ice. This solo harp excerpt is from a longer vocal and multi-instrumental track I’m working on. Today, I have only a few hours to record and I wanted to hear some instant results!

https://soundcloud.com/harppoet/fire-ice-harp-excerpt

I started writing the piece on a snowy December day and eventually added lyrics. You can listen to The Daphnes singing it (at the end of this stream from February 8, 2016)

Who are we but ice / Part of the snow
Who are you to ask / Don’t you know
That we were stars once / And we were on fire
https://monicaschley.com/

I did a little research and Robert Frost wrote a poem of the same name. Nice that he’s got the name to go along with it. His poem is brief too:

Fire & Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
– Robert Frost

 

Making Art and Mothering

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This post was originally published at Pyragraph and is reposted here with kind permission.

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She nursed on the muse at first,
then became her own mother
—Erica Jong, from Self-Portrait

Four years ago, I was digging deep into the music world around me. I was getting calls from jazz, classical and pop ensembles for a regular variety of work and I had just published a book of poetry. I was quite busy and planning for a near future of more of that. Four years ago, I also became a mother. I had no idea what I was about to get into!

Call me naive, but I just wasn’t prepared for the onset of colic in a newborn to last over four months. Every day from 5-8pm my little baby would scream her head off no matter what we did. I thought she was breaking. It was so exhausting that my husband and I began to dread the “witching hour,” as we later learned it is called. That type of mothering dipped severely into my creative flow. I was paralyzed by serious duty, and like so many other artists without an expressive outlet, I got depressed.

Life has definitely improved since that dark winter.

It might have taken me a few years to notice, but I am embracing the fact that though my time to produce/work on my craft has diminished as a mother, the quality of my work and focus on it seems to have increased and improved. I don’t get as much time as I used to, so I make better use of it.

When I was a brand new parent, I was struck with awe at how little time I had for self-care, let alone time to practice my instrument. I searched online for resources from other mothers who are musicians. Indeed, I am not alone out there, but it was difficult to find the self-help/buck-up-kid words I longed for. I needed a mother for my artist me!

About that same time, a mother/musician acquaintance of mine who was living out of the country, started posting on her Facebook page exactly what she did, hour-by-hour, with her two-year-old each day. It was her practice to write out a daily journal of time spent with child/art/family merged together. I thought that was beautiful, and looking back, reading her passages was sort of a turning point for me. I started to do the same in my own private journal—there were good days, challenging days, ideal days, disaster days, and goals to strive for. It also helped me see how I was actually spending my time.

Present day good news: I have a happy four-year-old. I consider that to be the supreme guidepost of any success. Also, my duties have eased up, as she goes to preschool and plays in her imaginary worlds at home. Time has definitely expanded for my creativity to live alongside my mothering duties and I am grateful. Every now and then, I still find it helpful to write out a daily log.

Here’s a recent example of one of our days.

  • 7:00—Woke before the others
  • 7:10—Wrote in my journal
  • 7:30—Made coffee and granola w/berries for the family and me
  • 8:10—Got kiddo dressed
  • 8:45—Prepared sheet music for a rehearsal, tuned and practiced (child playing by herself)
  • 9:30—Went to Musicians’ Union office to photocopy and connect with colleagues (with kiddo)
  • 10:30—Arrived home to rehearse w/ violinist who also has a kiddo—children played; adults played
  • 12:00—Finished rehearsal and hung out for a bit
  • 12:30—Friends left; hubby came home; we all ate lunch together
  • 1:00-1:20—Cleaned up dishes, kitchen and child
  • 1:20-1:45—Hubby took kiddo on a walk so I could message clients/make phone calls
  • 1:45—Got ready to thrift shop and run errands with kiddo
  • 1:55—Abort mission! Bee sting! Child stepped on a bee on the walk!
  • 2:00—Nursed wounded child; applied baking soda compress; ice cream; cartoons
  • 2:20-4:30—Kiddo said she wanted to stay home; worked closely on an activity book together
  • 4:30-6pm—Prepared dinner, ate and cleaned up
  • 6:00-6:30pm—More client emails, writing and invoices
  • 7:00—Drove downtown as a family to hear a musician friend’s house concert
  • 9:15—Dropped off semi-overdue children’s library books
  • 9:30—At home; kiddo fell asleep in the car and plopped peacefully into bed
  • 9:45-11:45—Typed up song lyrics and poems, worked on a writing submission, listened to Self-Employed Happy Hour (a Pyragraph Podcast!), practiced my instrument
  • 11:45-12:00—Read in bed