Musical Musings -- New Rememberings

I am realizing today that the last time I wrote a blog post was over a year ago. July 2025 in fact. I had written in that post that I was going to be focusing on songwriting and had let you know about a singer songwriter concert I was going to be featured in along with 3 other female singer songwriters called Divas Under the Moon in October of that year.

Well, unfortunately, I had a terrible experience that began on August 30^th and took months to resolve.

Either a virus or an allergic reaction left me with laryngitis – no other symptoms at that point, but two days later, I started coughing from the chest on top of the laryngitis. This is not a good combination. The cough was uncontrollable and no over-the-counter meds were helping. The doctor prescribed something stronger but I broke out in hives. Then she took me off that medication and didn’t prescribe another solution. She wouldn’t see me in the office, and wouldn’t listen to me (actually my husband had to do the talking) so she didn’t take this as a serious issue.

After 3 and a half weeks of coughing with no voice, and no letting up, she finally prescribed an antibiotic and that cleared up the chest infection. She sent me to an otolaryngologist and guess what he found -- two little vocal nodules that were brought on by close to a month of extreme coughing. He prescribed two full months of complete vocal rest.

I had to cancel all my concerts, including Diva Under the Moon, and I had to figure out a way to communicate (without speaking) with my students. I used chat on Zoom, and a text to speech app called Speechify https://speechify.com/ on my iPad for in person students and for concerts in Assisted Living. Instead of singing for those concerts, I played harp instrumentally. The app has several voices to choose from including a few famous people, so Gwyneth Paltrow introduced each tune! And rather than playing for individual patients at Stanford Hospital where it would have been impossible to explain my unwillingness to speak, I was allowed to play in the unit hallways. I had a little card with “laryngitis” to hold up when someone wanted to ask me a question…

In spite of these workarounds, it was still the worst 2 months of my life – not knowing if I’d ever have clear vocal folds again. Singing and teaching require a healthy voice, and I thought my whole performance career in music was going to be reduced to playing background music on my harp…

But there is a happy ending to this story. I went back to the otolaryngologist on January 6^th to have him scope my vocal folds again and the nodules were completely gone – no trace that they had ever been there! I was allowed to speak and sing again. The muscles for singing include the muscles in the larynx and the diaphragm and abdominal muscles for breathing. All these muscles had been out of use for 3 months, so I needed to start building up strength to regain my range, power, and endurance, but I at least was able to start singing again in concerts. Most of these were at the Assisted Living centers and not public, which is why you didn’t get notifications if you’re on my performance mailing list.

And finally, a year after this ordeal, I feel my range and strength has recovered, and I’m back to that focus on the singer songwriter aspect of my musical life.

Remembering again not only how to use my vocal muscles, but also remembering song lyrics, and how to play each original song after not performing them for years, has brought me to the “new rememberings” title of this post. I used that made-up term in a song I wrote about the creative impulse called “Blue on Blue.” Here is a link to the song on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/track/5Zr1hhQGnYyS4KcE26QB3R?si=64f3ddba5eab4daa

You can also find it on Pandora or Apple Music (search Verlene Schermer Blue On Blue).

Here are the lyrics:

There is a blue that is deeper than the sea

An ancient inner ache that shakes the heart of me

There is a blue that is darker than the sky

That pulses in the night through every part of me

 

And I touch the formless void & watch the shaping of a world

As I bring some clarity to the confusion

And I see what I have made and say, “it is good, it is good”

Dark and deep, sky and sea, blue on blue

                       

There is a blue that is bigger than the sea

Surrounds and covers me with womb rememberings

There is a blue that is brighter than the sky

It crowns and fills my mind with new rememberings 

 

And I touch the formless void & watch the shaping of a world

As I bring some clarity to the confusion

And I see what I have made and say, “it is good, it is good”

Big and bright, sea and sky, blue on blue

 

There is a blue that is lonely like the sea

It closes in on me and my fragilities

There is a blue that is endless like the sky

Expanding in my mind with possibilities 

 

And I touch the formless void & watch the shaping of a world

As I bring some clarity to the confusion

And I see what I have made and say, “it is good, it is good”

Day and night, dark and light, blue on blue

 

In my next blog, I’ll post about the progress I’ve been making in reconnecting with other singer songwriters, and my adventures at local open mics!

Verlene

Musical Musings -- Change is afoot

The last time I wrote in this blog, it was all about the new duo, Celtic Moon in January of 2024. Here it is, almost August of 2025, and I realize I have been too busy to write for over a year and a half! Wow. Was I really too busy, or had my focus shifted away from inner musings? Playing in Celtic Moon became such a strong focus, that I forgot that there are other things in my life worth pursuing. 

Now, my collaboration in Celtic Moon with my duo partner, Lynda, has come to an end. She is moving on to play with another group, and I will continue Celtic Moon with my longtime friend and musical colleague, Barbary Grant! But my focus is a bit lighter -- not trying for Celtic Moon stardom, but just having fun playing music with Barbary. We'll do a variety of performances, with the focus on playing Celtic music, but not necessarily limited to jigs and reels. I'll still get to play my numerous instruments, and Barbary brings her multi-instrumental talents to the duo, along with her beautiful singing voice. So we'll still have the stunning vocal harmonies and diversity of instrumentation. 

I've updated the Celtic Moon website to include Barbary, but have left up some videos of past performances with Lynda. I'll start to include videos of the new Celtic Moon, beginning with our performance at the Pleasanton Scottish Games on August 31st. 

Our website is at the same address: Celtic Moon Home Take a look and let me know what you think! 

In the meantime, as I said, this will be a lighter focus, which will allow me to include a focus on my singer/songwriter career. While working with Lynda in Celtic Moon, when I wrote new songs, she was happy for us to perform some of them, particularly if they had a "Celtic Moon" feel to them. But that's not all I write... We recorded a CD that included a remake of my song Rendezvous with the Moon (the content fit us so well) and two of my more recent songs: The Goddesses Three, and This Too Will End. But not all of my songs were a good fit. We still have a lot of CDs (also available as USB drives) if you're interested. You can find the "Shop" link in the menu bar of the Celtic Moon website.

When Lynda decided to move on, I started thinking about what it is I really want to do. And yes, I really still want to play Celtic music and play my variety of instruments, and I can't really perform solo on fiddle, mandolin, or nyckelharpa. So yes, I want to continue playing as Celtic Moon, but in addition, I've been missing playing other styles of music with other musicians, and also playing solo gigs where I can play my original songs in addition to cover tunes in a variety of styles. I was just looking over my CDs and realized that, including the two new ones on the Celtic Moon CD, I have recorded 67 original songs! 

So, as a result, I've redesigned my home page: Verlene Schermer & Karmalu Productions to include my performance offerings: solo, Celtic Moon, Silverwood, Parlez-vous Jazz, and Scandinavian music. I put together a little (well, not so little, as it's nearly 20 minutes long) video showing a bit of 20 different live performances, both solo and with various groups. I play harp, guitar, fiddle/violin, nyckelharpa, and tenor banjo, and of course, sing in several styles. 

I am scheduled to perform in a round-robin style house concert with three other female singer/songwriters in October, and will post details on my website soon! The hostess is calling this concert "Divas Under the Moon." I'll accompany myself on harp and guitar for this concert, and I look forward to sharing the stage with three wonderful singer/songwriters. 

Changes are difficult when they are not self-motivated, but I am moving past the sadness of ending one thing and moving on to the freedom to participate in a variety of musical ventures!

Musical Musings -- Out with the Old, In with the New

I think of myself as pretty up to date – I have designed not only my own website, but also a few others (including the new Celtic Moon website – more on that later!)

But one thing I’m starting to realize is that just like 45s, just like 8-track tapes and cassette tapes, fewer and fewer people own CD players, and I still have boxes and boxes of my 12 CDs waiting to be sold to future fans. Hmm… it looks like no one will have anything to play them on. So, I decided to join the march into the future and make all of my music available as digital downloads. 

Yes, a lot of my music is already on iTunes and Spotify and even Pandora, but if you want to have the full album, in its carefully planned out tune order, plus liner notes, and the cover art, you can now purchase them on my website instead of the physical CDs (yay!) You can check them out at: https://verlene.com/recordings.html.

But hey, this wasn’t going to just be an advertisement about my product. I wanted to talk about obsolescence and new tech.

As we are reorganizing where our “stuff” is going with the new sunroom (photos to follow), I started moving our records to a cabinet closer to the record player (yes, we still have one) and had to move books to other locations to make room. I realized that not only do we never play a record, or a CD, but I also never read these physical books anymore! I opened up one of my favorite Ursula LeGuin books and was dismayed that I really can’t read that print without upping my reading prescription. Thankfully, with my increasingly bad eyesight, I can increase the font size on the kindle app on my iPad, and even increase the brightness if needed.

So, I now have several boxes of CDs and several boxes of books that are going to try to find a new home. The record albums we will keep for posterity or because they’re not available online. (A lot of obscure ones in the collection.) We’re just not ready to let them go!

Another great use for the iPad is putting my sheet music on it so I can carry one slim iPad instead of a heavy binder. And it would be one single item for all the types of performances I do instead of a bookshelf full of binders. But I’m still getting used to using the foot switch for page changes. The cool thing about using the iPad is that it’s back lit, so that means we can leave our music stand lights home as well. And one unknown is whether I can see the screen on an outdoor gig. Lynda (my Celtic Moon bandmate) is also working toward upgrading to music on the iPad, but once we’re ready to try them out on a gig, we’ll still bring our big binders for “just in case.”

More new tech: In Celtic Moon, we started playing with my drum machine and Lynda’s looper and are looking forward to being able to add to our sonic palette with this new tech. We will sacrifice some spontaneity with mechanical rhythm devices, so we won’t overuse them! This is less an “out with the old” and more “in with the new.”

In other Celtic Moon news, we’ve added to our videos several tunes from our three recent performances at Wheelhouse of Willow Glen, and they can be seen on our YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@CelticMoonDuo) or on our website: https://www.celticmoonduo.com/videos.html. We’ve added a number of new tunes to our repertoire that are great fun!

And while you’re on our website, you’ll see our new logo designed by our wonderful artist friend, Deb Knodel. Here it is if don’t want to take the time now to visit the website:

Lynda has sent an email to our fan list and wrote up a lovely description of the significance of each element of the logo:

Red for passion,

Silver for innovation and grace,

a Moon for feminine energy and mystery,

a Wolf for wisdom and communication,

a Shooting Star for imagination,

a Celtic knot for interconnection!

The logo is proudly displayed on every page of our website, and we hope to make it available on a few fun products soon as well. What products do you think we should offer?

Here are some ideas:

T-shirts

Coffee mugs

Tote bags

Pins

Hats

If you can think of other products that would be fun to put this logo on, please let me know! (email info@verlene.com).

Oh, yes, I promised a few photos of the Sunroom progress for those who have followed the recent blog posts. Flooring is in, and we’ve move some of our furniture into it, and I’ve purchased cabinets for my book publishing, sewing, and art supplies. The cats are loving the new space and the rug that will most likely hide any evidence of kitty barf…

Still to come, sofa and chairs, more cabinetry and in the spring, new landscaping with native plants, a walkway, and maybe a water feature!

Musical Musings -- Let There Be Light!

Hanukkah is an 8-day festival that celebrates a miracle of light during a dark time of opposition. This year Hanukkah began on December 7^th and will conclude on the 15^th.  The first night of Hanukkah represents the day over 2000 years ago when the Jews reclaimed the temple of Jerusalem after it had been desecrated by the invading Syrians. There was only enough consecrated oil to light the candelabra for one day, and the miracle was that it stayed lit for 8 days while they cleansed and rededicated the temple. And so, each night of the festival, another candle is lit in remembrance.

In addition to the Jewish holiday, long before people started putting up lights in their yards, and long before the first Christmas, some winter festivals included some form of light.

“In Pagan times, the celebration was called “Yule” in honor of the Goddess Moon energy, the day she would give birth to the sun. It is also when the days begin to grow longer, and pagan custom was to burn Yule logs as a symbolic way of welcoming back the light.” (from https://tinyurl.com/PaganLights)

So many other holiday traditions have ancient roots, but all are to bring light into the darkness, whether physically or spiritually…

As the days continue to grow shorter this week and next, we are all longing for the light, the longer days, the warmth of the sun… And speaking of sun, our sunroom now has light! The electrician finished hooking everything up and the inspection was passed this morning. It’s ridiculous how much joy it brought us to step out into the sunroom at night and turn on all the lights!

We’ve also painted the wall that is the back wall of the house, and we’re ready for the next step – flooring and window shades. (Yay!)

The cycle of  light and dark continues to make its way into my creative thoughts – I had already posted my song Persephone’s Art last December, but if you missed it, here it is: https://tinyurl.com/spotifyPersephone  This is about the seasons, and light and dark, on several levels…

But recently, I got to thinking about a song I had composed about twilight, and the end of the day marking a change of pace. I wrote a four-part a capella arrangement and recorded it with my sister and two dear friends. Here’s a video I made for the song:

Here's the link: https://youtu.be/GsuIernV9hQ

And while it is an old-fashioned concept that twilight should mean that the day’s work is done – because, well, electric lights… We were faced with the issue of the earlier sunset time when Celtic Moon performed in November outside Wheelhouse from 4:30 – 7:30. The sun set at 4:59, so we didn’t even have a full half hour of sun. So, yesterday, we opted to perform inside the Wheelhouse, which provided warmth and light, but a very echoey room.  Here are videos of both the November outside-in-the-dark performance and the December 10^th indoor performance.

November performance: https://youtu.be/RoJwlDXpWB4 

December performance: https://youtu.be/8vAGyqHEiS0

For more videos, visit our website: https://www.celticmoonduo.com/videos.html. Or visit our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@CelticMoonDuo and watch videos on YouTube. Leave comments and click the thumbs up if you feel so inclined. That helps boost the visibility of our videos!

I would love to hear about your experiences with the longer nights and how you are coping with the darkness. Are you decorating your home or workspace with lights? Do you have a tradition you follow?

Love and Light to all, no matter why and how you are celebrating!

The End is the Beginning is the End…

What a fall this has been! I see that my last Musical Musings post was at the end of August. And many things have ended and many things have begun since then.

I have enjoyed playing in the band Gaelic Muses for the past year and a half, and at the end of September, one of our members decided to go a different direction than the band was headed, so we sadly came to an end as a three-piece band. But! That means the beginning of an exciting new duo! We have renamed, rebranded, and revised our set list to include more vocal numbers and even more variety in sounds and textures than before! I got busy building the new website which you can check out here: https://celticmoonduo.com/

Here’s a fancy new QR code:

We’re still in the process of creating the site but all the links are live and ready to browse. In fact, I’d love to hear any comments you might have – even if just to report broken links, missing photos, etc.

I’m now bringing my harp and guitar in addition to the fiddle, nyckelharpa, mandolin, tenor banjo, and concertina, so Lynda and I get to do some harp duo pieces as well as double guitar tunes! Here’s a photo from a recent rehearsal:

 

I had composed a song that became the title track of my CD “Rendezvous with the Moon” and decided that had to be a tune we do. I added harmony that I will sing, and Lynda is playing a lovely strings/piano sound along with my harp. I thought of this song in particular because of the reference to the moon, and a special mention of wolves (notice our little logo on the website). The bridge ends with “The end is the beginning is the end is the beginning is the end…” Here’s the recording from my CD – come to our next performance to hear the two part harmony and rich textures! Click the link or use the QR code below.

https://tinyurl.com/RendezvouswithMoon

 

Another end has been my weekly walks with my sister, Linnette on Fridays. Not just my fractured tibial plateau to blame, but a wonderful new beginning for my Fridays. Actually a return to a regular gig from the pre-pandemic era – I’m back playing bedside music on my double-strung harp at Stanford Hospital for patients, family, and staff! And it’s not really an end to my walks with Linnette, just a reshuffling of scheduling…

We take a selfie on most of our walks – here’s a recent one: 

Last but not least is the end of crowded rooms and lack of storage as we add a sunroom to our little home. We’re excited to have the extra space, and are having a great time shopping Craig’s list for a few furniture items, choosing window shades, and flooring, and watching it take shape! So far, we have a concrete slab floor, walls, ceiling, windows, and sliding doors. Electrical is getting hooked up this week, and flooring and window shades in a couple more weeks. I’m looking forward to moving my sewing machine, book packaging materials, and kitchen table out there! Jon’s looking forward to having a new space to chill and also to work out.

May our endings always lead to new beginnings!

Verlene

Transitions and Transpositions

Many of you have read that I had fractured my knee at the end of June, and the good news is that I had transitioned from wheelchair to crutches to a cane and now can walk short distances unaided! Woohoo!

There were many other transitions that happened because of the accident:

Two months not playing harp at Stanford’s South Bay Cancer Center

Two months not playing harp and singing at the Assisted Living facilities

Learning new skills like how to take a shower sitting down…  And so on.

But I was able to perform at the end of July with Gaelic Muses with my brace.  People had to cart me around, and arriving with my wheelchair and then moving into a chair to perform was a challenge. It’s rather difficult to muster the energy to play lively Celtic music on fiddle while sitting. I’m much happier on my feet!

Here’s a photo from the morning gig on July 29:

That weekend of three gigs with Gaelic Muses did a lot to lift my spirits!

In the next few weeks I’ll be transitioning again back to playing at the Cancer Center, the Assisted Living facilities, and even more exciting, after 3 years (due to the pandemic) I will be doing bedside music again at Stanford Hospital! The timing is perfect, since it will be at the 11^th week since the accident (12 weeks should see the bone completely healed).

Now, about transpositions, this is more music related. We had been performing a beautiful original song by my bandmate, Lynda MacNeil, for the past year or so, but she was feeling like rearranging it to really give it the impact it should have. She moved the key from Dm to Am – a perfect transposition for my violin parts! All I have to do is move everything up a string and play as I had. 

But as we found, it was not as easy a transposition for our recorder player, who had been playing two recorders during the final verse. What was interesting to learn is that in order for her to play two recorders at once, since she is using only one hand on each recorder, she is limited to which notes can be played on each with only one hand. So, she’ll need to spend a bit of time to figure out alternatives that would work.

Here's a photo of our marvelous recorder player, Alison Kline, playing two recorders:

 

If you want to hear Gaelic Muses live, (and hear the very cool sound of double recorders) we’ll be performing sets throughout the day at the Pleasanton Scottish Games on Sunday (9/3), and then at Wheelhouse of Willow Glen on 9/10, and the Celtic Tea Shoppe on 9/23.

In addition, I’ll be performing sets with the Harpers Hall Ensemble all day at the Games on Saturday, 9/2. I’ll be also be doing a solo set and a duo version of Gaelic Muses (Lynda and me) that day. We found that transposing a few songs will make them work better with me on harp and Lynda on guitar, so yes, a bit more transposing and life is good!

And Harpers Hall has another performance on 9/24 in Saratoga. So, for me life is transitioning back to my usual active life with lots of fun performances coming up!

If you are not getting my performance announcements and live in the San Francisco Bay Area, please email me at info@verlene.com to request to be added! You can also click on this link to join my mailing list and check the boxes to get emails about performances, or about my books, or recordings, or online workshops!

Summertime Blues

So, this isn't going to be about the song from the 50s by Eddie Cochran, which was also covered by Alan Jackson, and also by The Who... 

But the hook of the song "There ain't no cure for the summertime blues," is something I'm working on disproving...

Why? you ask. I managed to crash my rented electric bike while on vacation in South Lake Tahoe at the end of June, and fractured my tibial plateau, which is the top of one of the shin bones that goes into the knee joint. 😖  Yes, there is a cure for the fracture: No weight on the leg for 6 weeks, then gradual weight once PT starts until it's finally completely mended in 3 to 4 months... 

Whenever I start feeling blue about how long this is going to take, I turn my thoughts to gratitude that I didn't break or even scrape or bruise my hands or arms. As a musician, I can actually continue to play all my instruments. Someone asked me, "Aren't you glad you don't play pedal harp?" Yep, or organ or drum kit. No need to use my leg for any of my instruments. 

So, yes, this fracture limits my ability to get around but I am grateful also for my husband who is between the busy seasons of tax accounting and providing loving care and doing all my chores, and my sister who is willing to relieve Jon from time to time. And I'm very grateful to my bandmates who are going to be helping me with transporting me and my gear to our gigs this weekend and help me with set up. 

I will not be playing harp at the cancer center until I can walk on both legs, but I'm able to teach both private students and my Saturday classes on Zoom. 

So, "It coulda been worse" is the song I've been singing (is there a song with that lyric? If not maybe I should write one!) 

My last blog shared some of the photos I took on that fun Swedish gig on the tall ship (check out that post if you didn't see it). Since then, the host of the party sent more photos and a few short video clips. Here are two short (11 & 12 seconds) videos of us on deck playing Flodens Död:

And here's a 13 second video from below deck playing Lördagsvisa:

Here are a few of the photos she took: 

The gig was fun, and the gigs this coming weekend with Gaelic Muses will also be fun (check my website calendar or the Gaelic Muses website for info and join us if you are in the San Francisco Bay area. Both are in San Jose. Tomorrow is at the Celtic Tea Shoppe for a celebration of both Harry Potter's birthday and Lughnasa!

Wishing you all a happy Lughnasa and wonderful rest of the summer!