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! 

Midsommar Musings

No, that’s not misspelled – it’s Swedish for midsummer. And why am I writing it in Swedish? I play a Swedish nyckelharpa, and this time of year there’s usually a midsommar festival in the area where I have been hired to play nyckelharpa. It’s a huge celebration in Sweden, and Swedish Americans also celebrate with music, dancing around a decorated pole much like a Maypole (Junepole?) and eat and drink all day long.

Why is Midsommar such a big festival in Sweden? I expect that when you live that far north, the longest day of the year, as well as the shortest day of the year are bigger events than they are here in the middle of California. The longest day in the farthest parts of Sweden is so long, the twilight blends into dawn.

This year, I was hired to play nyckelharpa for a very special small event by two Swedish American sisters who wanted to share a bit of their heritage with 20 of their friends. It took place in the San Francisco Bay on a tall ship, and it was a very interesting gig! I played with a wonderful multi-instrumentalist who brought just his guitar tuned in DADGAD and a tenor recorder (thanks Jim!)

The Gas Light is a72 foot schooner that can hold up to 49 people.

 

The idea was to play a just for 15 minutes as people boarded, then the ship would motor out to a cove off of Treasure Island, and we’d play an hour concert after they dropped anchor, and then continue with background music as they decorated one of the masts with flowers in the Swedish tradition. The hosts’ chosen music was mostly haunting, exceptionally beautiful tunes, in minor modes, and I knew we would enjoy playing them in the setting of a tall ship.

As all plans are susceptible to change, this was not exactly how it went… The idea of decorating the mast was nixed in light of the wind, and the stay at the cove was shortened to less a half hour with the more interesting option of raising the sails and sailing back rather than motoring.  There were flowers that were brought onboard to decorate, and they ended up making crowns of flowers for the women to wear.

We were all (guests and serving staff included) asked to wear white or off-white and our hosts, being fashion designers, were very much all about the aesthetics. I had to scramble to find off-white to wear – black is my go-to performance color…

As I always do, I had planned for adapting the set list to accommodate any changes, and so we began with around 30 minutes of our background music as people boarded. The little space way up in the bow is where we were set up.

We took a break as the boat motored over to the cove and then set up again topside and played a couple songs. One of our hosts did a toast and then announced we would be raising the sails to sail back. So we took our instruments back down below deck and got ready to play again once we were underway.

Even though the boat had a flat bottom and didn’t lean over as we sailed, it was still a bit of a bumpy, wavy ride, so I found standing up to play easier than sitting. The space we had was a corner with barely enough room for my little chair, so Jim sat on the built-in bench, and placed a music stand in the walkway. 

My nyckelharpa blocked the walkway, so the guests found they had to go around the table to the other side to move about. I used the table as both a music stand (that’s my black binder under the bow) and a nyckelharpa stand… 

I also found that sitting made me lose my balance whereas standing with knees slightly bent and shifting my weight from leg to leg (sort of like dancing) gave me more of a sense of being in control of my balance. So I was getting a great lower body workout as I played!

I was positioned next to the stairs up from the cabin – here’s the view I had over my right shoulder of Captain Steve at the helm:

And here is Jim with the captain as he steers us back to pier 40:

 

 The sails were brought back down as we motored back into the San Francisco South Beach Harpbor.

It was a beautiful day, and a fun gig, despite all the changes. I have missed playing beautiful Swedish music since I haven’t been in a Scandinavian band for several years, so it was great fun to connect with Jim, who provided a solid Swedish groove and some lovely chordal textures, and to pull out not only some of my favorite tunes, but also a few new ones we learned at the hosts’ request. I hope to have more opportunities to present this music with Jim in the future. Let’s not wait until next Midsommar!

Happy Father’s Day!

As Father’s Day approaches, I’ve been reflecting a lot about my Dad who passed away at 91 years old in 2019. Growing up in a musical family, with Mom as a piano teacher, and all four of us kids learning not only piano, but also at least one band or orchestra instrument, there was always a lot of practicing going on. We had to schedule our half hour of piano, plus half hour – hour of other instruments around school, and Mom’s piano students.

At recitals, you can imagine the pressure the “teacher’s children” felt to do our best. This is all leading up to my Dad’s role in our music, and his profound influence on me…

People would ask Dad what he plays, and he would say either “I pay for it all,” or “Someone has to be in the audience.” Always said with a twinkle in his eye. He took pride in hiding the microphone and hiding out in the kitchen to record the recitals. By the time Mom’s students had been in one or two recitals, it was clear that the recitals would be recorded, but it was fun to try to figure out where the mike was hidden…

Both my parents were involved in helping me develop my songwriting skills – Mom would make a comment about the melody, and Dad would talk about content with very specific questions like, “Who are you speaking to in the second verse?”

When my parents had company over, Dad would call me into the living room and ask me to play specific songs that I had written. You can imagine how special that made me feel!

Fast forward to the last 2 or 3 years he was with us, and he’d always introduce my sister and me as “This is my daughter who plays flute, and this is my daughter who plays harp.” Even though he had Alzheimer’s he knew which one of us played which instrument. Music seems to break through the confusion…

I wrote a handful of songs about my Dad in his final years, and recorded them on my Life Stages CD which is available as a CD or mp3s on my website (Life Stages CD (verlene.com), or listen to them on Spotify:

The Tide is about the changing roles as parents age: https://open.spotify.com/track/6eAG2pf8nrL59LChZ4gGUN?si=afb1c9dd8295441e

As Much as Before was written when Dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s: https://open.spotify.com/track/2r19PkMrIDwoAgPrUWXEmE?si=40202659d4e2478f

I Wanna Walk With You: https://open.spotify.com/track/1NWVEXlzpfXfidyDV5DVPo?si=b8b2e96aed304871

This last one, I will be performing at the Gaelic Muses Father’s Day performance at the Wheelhouse of Willow Glen. If you’re in or near the San Jose, CA area, it would be lovely to see you! Arrive early to get a seat and to hear the Father's Day special numbers. Here’s the info: Gaelic Muses in Willow Glen on Father’s Day – Gaelic Muses

Wishing you all a Happy Father’s Day, whether you are able to celebrate with him in person, or only in memories!

Procrastination!

I’ve started to write this blog several times and every time found something that I “needed” to do instead. Has that ever happened to you? 😂

Yes, I’m pretty sure it happens to everyone from time to time, but some are more prone to procrastinate than others. For me, it’s a matter of juggling a lot of things that have no “real” deadline. If there is a deadline, I get it done. But this “weekly” blog is really a soft deadline, so if I miss one or two or several, no heads will roll. But if I don’t learn this new tune for a gig, I will be embarrassed on stage and let my bandmates down. So prioritizing takes place on a daily basis, and while it may seem like procrastination, on further examination, it’s really a matter of shuffling the to-do list in order to make sure the top priority items get done.

I know that for many adult music students, procrastination is a big roadblock to putting in the time on their instruments.

One of my students recently told me that she was having trouble making the time to practice. She kept thinking about the other things that need to get done, and just not sitting down at her harp day after day. She loves to play, and once she sits down to play even just a warmup exercise, she finds she has the time and enjoys it. But the problem is actually sitting down to do it.

We talked about making a to-do list and checking in with it to see if she’s really not practicing because it’s not a priority, or if it’s something else. Other things that keep people from practicing are:

1. Fear of failure
2. Question of the value of it
3. Sense of obligation to do something else
4. Question of one’s right to do it

There may be more – let me know if you can think of other things that would go on this list.

So, let’s look at each one:

1. Fear of failure – If practicing your instrument means you might fail at “perfecting” the piece, maybe you can consider practicing just a small portion. Get just the first phrase to sound beautiful. Or choose a simpler piece to learn. Find something to practice that you know you can do successfully.
2. Question of the value of it – I think this is different from the fear of failure, in that it’s a mindset that usually comes from somewhere (or someone) else. Does someone in your family think it’s a waste of your time and effort? Is that really what you think?
3. Sense of obligation to do something else – This may be legitimate (my need to learn a tune for the band for example) but it may also be once again imposed from outside (kids need me to bake cookies) or self-imposed (kids need me to bake cookies) and may be tied in with this last one:
4. Question of one’s right to do it – okay, stand up for yourself! You have the right to use your time how you choose. But what some people question is whether it’s worth it to learn an instrument if you think you’ll never be “good enough” to perform. Or maybe it's that you never want to perform, so is it worth it to learn if you never intend to perform? This is tied in with number 2 as well – so first determine if this comes from your own sense of the value of it, or from someone else’s opinion.  Then remember that learning anything new is good for the mind, body, and spirit! Whether you want to play for other people or not, it’s the journey, not the destination that makes this worthwhile. And you have the right to take care of yourself by nourishing all aspects of yourself!

Please know that if you find yourself procrastinating and not getting around to your intended practice sessions, you are not the only one! But perhaps this little list can help to get to the bottom of the issue, and get you going on a more regular practice routine. And when there really are more important things that come up, and you miss a day or two or three, know that it’s a matter of prioritizing, and not a failure on your part!

I’ll be teaching an online workshop on Saturday, June 17^th on “The Practice of Practicing” in case that first reason for procrastination (fear of failure) is what you identify with.  Here is the information:

Saturday, 6/17/23 10:00 am - 12:00 pm pacific time - I will be presenting a two-hour online workshop, "The Practice of Practicing." This is open to all musicians, but will focus on application to harp. (Handouts for applying to guitar are also provided.) If you have felt that no matter how much you practice, the improvement is either slow or non-existent, this gentle class will give you steps to improve your practicing practice... You'll have a step-by-step approach to learning a new piece, troubleshooting an in-progress piece, and polishing a learned piece. You'll also get tips on how to use your current works in progress to create warm-up exercises that will build some much-needed muscle memory. Cost of the workshop: $30 per person. Here’s how to register: https://tinyurl.com/PracticeofPracticing

Happy Mothers Day!

With Mothers Day coming up on Sunday, I want to thank all of the mothers in my life – my own mother in particular (who left this life in 2015), my sister, my cousins, nieces, and all my friends who have sacrificed so much in order to care for and raise their children to become responsible, kind, productive adults!

I performed a concert yesterday at one of the assisted living facilities on my regular rotation, and they had the room set up as a Mother’s Day tea with lovely eats, pink balloons, and a festive, celebratory atmosphere. I had prepared to sing a few songs in honor of the occasion and thought it would be fun to share them with you.

The first is a song that my own mother taught me when I was 4. She had me sing it as she accompanied me on piano at a mother/daughter luncheon at the church. My oh my, was that stage high! I later realized after visiting that room as an adult that the stage was no more than 6 inches! But relatively…

When my mother turned 60, (that would have been in 1990) my sister and I did a little concert for her birthday party. I rewrote the second verse of the song to make it relevant to our mother. So, this little video is from the party, with me singing and playing guitar, and my sister playing flute and singing harmony:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLHwz-CiQUM

I worked up an accompaniment of this on lever harp (lots of leaving out the third of the chord in order to not have to constantly flip levers) and sang it at yesterday’s tea.

I also did a few more that were “mother-honoring” songs, like Wind Beneath My Wings, Turn Around, and Que Sera, Sera. And toward the end of the concert, I performed a song that I had written to honor my mother’s life. I was able to play it for her just days before she passed away. I put together a video with photos and have posted it on YouTube:

https://youtu.be/YQNC1L0oZfs

Wishing you all a happy and meaningful Mother’s Day!