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!
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!
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!”
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.”
Inspired by the recent host of the AWP in Seattle, I’m revisiting some poems. These two poems were published last summer in RASP Anthology
A Blessing (Sunflower)
May you continue to give graces
And bloom again next year.
The bride will want to see you
Growing tall in the golden field
May your head be high
And small creatures
Lift you up with their sweetness
Though they may crawl through life
We are all born with wings
Brown County, 1909
Trouble in the kitchen
With the skillet
Paul dug the outhouse
Too shallow this time
Got a full coop of
Chickens and children
Sure could use a whiskey
But I’m pregnant again
This poem I found while going through some writing circa 2006. It sort of resonates with the narrative brevity of the other two:
(Untitled)
A Hopi woman’s life is now a radio story, her people belong to the air like her loom shaft, that she presses down to even out the wool she hopes the truth will be straight.
I am so excited to announce that my first full-length album “Harp Carols” is now complete for this year’s Christmas season. This is an album dedicated to my mother Nancy, who has been asking for something like this from me for over a decade. You can download it for $7 or purchase the disc for $10.
“Harp Carols” is a collection of ancient noels and features clarinetist Rosalyn DeRoos on the last song. All songs are traditional Christmas carols except track 7, an improvisation on Gabriel Faure’s “Pavane,” and track 10, “Journey to the Magi,” an original tune a la Alice Coltrane with influence by the T.S. Eliot poem.
I am driving listing to a poem on KUOW written by Carolyn Wright. She is a Seattle poet I have taken classes with. I perk up because she is about to read a ghazal (pronounced guzzle), a poetic form I happen to be fond of. I am all ears when the poem subject matter is given, the Newton CT shootings. The poem is called “Ghazal for Emilie Parker”. When Emilie’s father, Robbie Parker, spoke about teaching his 6-year-old daughter Portuguese, she was prompted to write the poem.
I am covered in shivers by the time she finishes reading, a litany of the fallen children’s names concludes the poem and am weeping as I reach my destination. As a new mother, I am extremely concerned about the prevolence of violence in America today. I feel old when I say, “it wasn’t like this when I grew up!”
But it’s true.
Our politicians give me little comfort, even though nearly everyone and every measure I voted for last Fall passed.The Sequester has sent a very poor message to America’s people from Washington D.C. and I feel terrified that like The Sequester, America’s politicians may stalemate how we discuss and move forward with America’s serious problem with gun violence. Its up to all of us to chime in, no matter what our opinions are, and tell our legislators what we’d like to see change. Clearly, something must change, and I hope for it to be a succession of wise, compassionate and brave moves.
Now, I don’t want to get all preachy on you! But do indulge me. I’m going somewhere I promise.
Candace Pert, a reknowned phychopharmacologist, wrote a book called “Molecules of Emotion”. I happen to be half-way through this book, which is required reading for my therapeutic bedside music program. What I thought would be droll, is a surprisingly exciting autobiography of her work at the top of the scientific world in America. Since the mid 1970’s she has been at the forefront of psychopharmacological study (ie. how the brain responds to phychoactive drugs, naturally occurring in our body and otherwise). She has pressed against an all male establishment since the beginning of her brilliant career, and worked on discoveries that effect cancer and AIDS research, as well as researching what parts of the brain are used when our bodies release natural “feel good” endorphins. In the words of spiritualist and M.D. Deepak Chopra,“Pert was one of the first Western scientists who was able to explain the unity of matter and spirit”, aka the mind, body, soul connection.
She In 1975, she was intentionally left out receiving a of a major award because she was a woman. Instead of burying her head in the sand, as she puts it, she confronted many key players, only to be ostricized by her colleagues. Details in her writing of this actually raised my blood pressure! I share this last bit with you because March is Women’s History Month.
I arrive at home, and decide to Google Candace Pert. I can’t believe what I see. Only yesterday she wrote a very compelling take on the Newtown shootings! What timing! You can read it here.
This article provokes an eloquent suggestion that anti-depressant medication of a certain kind, Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitor (SSRI’s) should be looked at as an emotional trigger to mass shooter’s psychologies. She asserts there is just as much concern to bring the use of SSRI’s to this discussion as the NRA and gun lobby issue, video games, media/entertainment’s glorification of violence, the flaws of our mental health system, etc. If this interests you at all, I really do encourage the reading of her article (she as far more scientifically eloquent than I!).
Dr. Pert informed me in an email that the following statement is untrue. However… even correct labeling does little good. That said, she points out that the FDA does not insist that drug companies label SSRIs, which according her cause, can have the side-effect of violence! After reading her article, and knowing the back (her)story of what sort of ethically honorable woman she is, I believe that the FDA and Congress need to put some pressure on drug companies; that anti-depressant medications be initially administered by psychologisists exclusively; and that we check in with ourselves quite seriously about the ways in which we allow big corporate advertising to manipulate our rationale. (How many drug commercials do you see on any given TV break suggesting that you can simply ask your doctor for whatever it is that you want and obtain it?)
(Uhmerica by Regina Spektor is an anthem to my country’s gun fascination. My two-year old daughter is Regina Spektor’s biggest fan and she happens to love this song.)
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“Science is a process, not so much dramatic results,” Pert says. Any artist will tell you the same is true for their artform. Practicing one’s scales is far from glamorous, but an essential part of the process in order to achieve skill. As a harpist, just tuning alone can get annoying and frustrating, but without it, well… forget about it! Practice IS the practice.
Before reading Pert’s book, I had never thought before that the unknowns of running scientific experiments can be compared to making art. The “creator” has the general idea of what they are going for, but not always know how to get there. One may end up discovering something entirely different than planned. There is beauty and meaning is this type of work.
In the creative process, opening up to unknowns can be raw and unnerving, but they often expose a deeper layer to the task at hand. There are signs along they way that tell you you are going in the right direction. When themes happen in life, they’re like personal mini-movies; subject matters that one should be paying attention to.
This happened to me today when several of my interests and “current themes” intersected in an unsuspecting way – Poetry, Violence in America, Healing Arts, Science. I believe that these signs are guideposts that are pointing me toward the right direction at this time.
Starting this month, I’ll begin interning as a harpist-in-residence at NorthWest Kidney Center, playing calming music for patients and staff. My plan is go forward and work at this and other healthcare facilities and do the same. Which ones? I don’t know, but I’m sure there will be a guidepost for me.
Every Thanksgiving I like to read a poem at the dinner table that has me thinking about the zeitgeist of the time or about the season or about family or the concept of gratitude. You get the picture.
The poem begins: Abundance, Habondia, food for the winter, too much now and survival later. After
the plant bears, it dies into seed.
The blowing grasses nourish us, wheat
and corn and rye, millet and rice, oat
and barley and buckwheat, all the servicable
grasses of the pasture that the cow grazes,
the lamb, the horse, the goat; the grasses
that quicken into meat and cheese and milk,
the humble necessary mute vegetable bees,
the armies of the grasses waving their
golden banners of ripe seed.”
There are many names for the Goddess of Abundance. In this poem, Piercy calls her Habondia. She is also Mother Earth, Demeter, Ceres, and Gaia. Piercy praises the role Earth and of woman. “Praise our choices, sisters, for each doorway / open to us was taken by / squads of fighting / women who paid years of trouble and struggle.”
I chose this poem because of the drastic changes that we as humans are undergoing with regards to technology, social paradigm shifts and political policy. I chose this poem because of the drastic storm that hit the East Coast, Superstorm Sandy, and all of the questions this raises on how and where we live. What does this mean for Earth’s own transformation? I chose this poem because after the recent election we now have more women U.S. senators than ever before! It is a poem that speaks of plentitude, contentment and equanimity.
I praise the Earth this Thanksgiving that I have the opportunity to celebrate with friends and family by eating together. Like most American holidays and the American Dream, it means something a little different to everyone. This year, I chose to celebrate women the world over and give thanks for being born in America with all of our abundant freedoms.
“Doorways are sacred to women for we are the doorways of life and we must choose what comes in and what goes out. Freedom is our real abundance.”
I have been asked by Heather Bentley, to read some new poetry coming up on July 8 at the Royal Room. The evening is called Club Shostakovich, which Trio Pardalote will curate. It is a free evening of chamber music and poetry – sophistication and affordability at their best! Yes. You should come.
I’ve been re-working some older poems this spring and summer, I guess mostly because of limited time. I had been toying with the idea about doing some sort poetry experience, when and opportunity to do something in the field (literally, a field!) came my way. I’ll be sharing “The Salt-Water Erasures” first at Club Shostakovich, and then up at Smoke Farm in Arlington, WA for the Lo-Fi Arts Festival. Yes. You should also make a drive to the farm. It is pretty and large and there are few rules to abide by other than to be a decent human being and enjoy yourself. Pretty much the same as any other day, only at a large remote farm with a few hundred artists, so that’s pretty special.
Here’s a little artist statement of where my head is on this subject these past few weeks:
I have been thinking about water of the body – the human body and the Earth body – and how oceans and humans have salt. The equations of salt in most oceans are about 3%, whereas The Dead Sea is a shocking 33%! The Dead Sea has been noted for its unique saline qualities, dating back to the Ancient Greeks who believed in and had stories of Three Muses (or Fates). Sappho, who was Greek, was the first woman poet that we know of and her poems where originally written on papyrus leaves. Over time, the leaves have decomposed and words are missing from the original poems. All translations of her work that we have today are open for interpretation because of this. Like the ocean, time washes away everything we create, yet some things may remain in fragment. Being a new mother, my creative work time has eroded to small bits during the day here and there, rather than large chunks of time. Conversely, I am interested in the sojourn that the creative process takes when revisiting completed work. I plan to revisit the poems I wrote two years ago, when my daughter was in utero (another body of salt water floating in salt water). I will re-write some of the poems and dub them, The Salt-Water Erasures. Erasures are a method of re-writing poetry by literally erasing some of the original words to create something new, almost fragmentary. Some of the poem will have repetition,which will allow for a certain meditative quality to emerge, the way water lapping continuously has for someone sitting at the beach.
