develop my composing, singing, and performing career

It helps with a lot of things, even if he’s largely imaginary. But I guess it’s appropriate for a muse to be part of one’s imagination.

Stand by for poems about and inspired by the muse. I think poetry can fall under the music goal, generally and also specifically in the sense that poems can become songs.

I bought a bunch of CDs over break: Emmylou Harris, Odetta, the Dixie Chicks, and Steeleye Span (w/ Maddy Pryor). Any of these might have songs I’d like to learn. Folky stuff, not all of it super-cliché. It’s all on my iPod, which I listen to all day at work.

Now if I could just find the time to play and sing!

I picked up a very similar Martin dreadnought at the houseparty. Found it a little stiff. Mine, though, still has those new strings that LHC put on it months ago that have scarcely been played, so it sounds all sparkly.

is hardly even in my head anymore. My guitar sits in the living room unplayed, untouched, collecting dust.

I had a sample session with a life coach, who had me repeat, outloud, “I give myself permission to sing.” A couple of times, I’ve actually wanted to sing. This week, I have a virus in my throat, and at times it’s hard even to talk without coughing.

Interesting news on the string quartet front, though…

By the minimal criterion of not screwing up, we actually exceeded our expectations substantially. There were a few dicey moments ahead of ti me. The host was late, we couldn’t sign up, we had a potentially serious health crisis right beforehand, I was pretty stressed out because I heard that a close friend of mine had been hit by a car on his bike (he’s basically in traction), and my friends whom I’d invited dropped like flies today.

But the show must go on. And it did. Not only did I not forget my tricky Hebrew lyrics, and LHC did not forget his chords, we sounded pretty damn good together. I even told a couple of jokes. We got good feedback, though we didn’t particularly need it; we knew we rocked. And in the end several friends turned up, and there were 7 of us for wine and pizza.

Yay! I can do this! Woohoo!

This entry describes the likely composition of the audience.

My guitar is a used Martin dreadnought. I fell in love with its sound and had to have it, but it’s big for me, and now I understand that it’s really sort of the bass version of steel-string acoustic folk guitars.

But although I have learned a fair number of chords, I don’t like to use a pick or strum; I tend more often to arpeggiate the chords with my fingers in my own particular rhythmic style. Plus I really want to learn the theory behind the chords, and how to play melodies (um, learning the names of the strings would be a good start…).

So I think what I need is a nylon-string, classical guitar, and some lessons to go along with it. The latter is the bigger commitment, really, because I barely have time to practice for voice lessons these days. I just have too much job (but that’s separate problem).

The de facto gatekeeper of LHC’s band liked my Psalm 96 setting! Now it’s just up to the lead singer to decide :-/ .

though we interrupted it when a slight change in the weather suggested it was OK to try playing tennis. It wasn’t, and then we were both too cranky to continue with the music.

Still, I thought we did well picking out a nice selection of music and getting through it. My singing was good, and I felt relaxed throughout the whole thing. More practice this week will help; in particular I need to focus on memorizing the lyrics and being comfortable with the guitar (unless I decide to just leave it at home and let LHC play). I may have a voice lesson with R on Wednesday… I thought of inviting LHC along so we could get some coaching but they know each other a bit and I think there’s some tension there; I am guessing even if either of them agreed, it wouldn’t be entirely pretty. (Personally I’d love to force them to try and get along but that may be a little idealistic. Guy musical posturing; it’s worse than soprano politics, I’m tellin’ ya.) In any case, I’ll try and work on some of the open mic stuff w/ R.

The first step here is to start performing at open mikes regularly, with some of my own material when possible, but basically just getting out there and getting comfortable.

I will also work with R on my own stuff, including arrangements/accompaniments, and not just on vocal technique.

I will get light-haired cellist to work with me, too. I will nudge him to accompany me at an open mic, which could be a low-pressure way to perform, since I wouldn’t have to worry about my own guitar-playing. I think he’d do it. Also, he’ll get to see that I can perform under pressure so that I’ll be a more obvious choice when he is trying to find a singer.

I will keep writing my own songs, in addition to the string quartets. With guitar accompaniment, though I may need some help with this. (This morning, for example, I got up an hour early to write – no reason I can’t do that fairly regularly.)

How I can work in those wonderful Faure art songs I have learned, I don’t know, but I can try… I was pretty inspired by La Vie en Rose, which I saw just this weekend, so maybe some not-so-arty French songs would work well.