5 posts tagged “music”

Adding an iPod to the cycling experience is brilliant, for me anyway. I am prone to boredom, well, not boredom so much as irritation as I ask myself why the hell I'm doing something that hurts so much, or takes so long, or seems  repetitive and fruitless. Somehow, the music shuts down the Type A part of my brain that insists, always erroneously, that I should Be Somewhere Else, or Doing Something More Productive. Listening to music is, somehow, always productive and worthwhile for me.

A few highlights ...

• circling around the edge of a picturesque lake, with farms on my left and water to my right as the Puppini Sisters launched into a faithful rendition of Old Cape Cod
• waving at cows who stared back, or ignore me entirely, as I stood on my pedals, grooving to the Scissor Sisters' I Don't Feel Like Dancing
• laughing out loud while slogging up a long, slow hill as Julie Andrews camps up Alan Jay Lerner's My Love Is A Married Man ...

My love is a married man
I'm a marital also-ran
Tho I love him so, does he love me - no
I'll never enter his life, because he's true to his wife
...
My dreams abundant, are redundant
And they fall very short
The ship I hoped for, sat and moped for
Docked in someone else's port
...
The man who controls my heart
Has a conjugal counterpart
And her dinner meals are enough he feels
He'll never have to go a la carte

• Sia's Day Too Soon (Mock & Toof Edit) ... mmmm ... not the original girl with guitar version but the funky one with the bass riff and the bongo drums. Can't find this on YouTube.
• singing along with Jully Black on Seven Day Fool, scaring the creatures by the side of the road
• Maroon 5, Figure It Out ... Let's go!
  
• Coldplay ... Viva La Vida (on repeat, thanks very much) ... Strawberry Swing (it is such a perfect day, such a perfect day ...) ... Lost (no, really, I'm not, and boy it is hard to keep up with the hand claps AND keep the bike on the road) ... Death and All His Friends (... so come over, just be patient and don't worry ...try ... ) ... 42 (you didn't get to heaven, but you made it close ... )
• Puppini Sisters Walk Like An Egyptian

PS - Although I don't have this on my iPod, I just found this on YouTube ... the Puppini Sisters ROCK!!!

... in a land far far away, I used to do a lot of vocal / movement / performance training. I'm still working on why I stopped, or what I allowed to stop me. But that is for another post.

Isolde sent me this info and I've signed up ... sometimes, it is good to be scared.

Vocal Technique / African Singing / Balkan Singing

Voice professionals Katherine Duncanson, Kathy Armstrong, and Brenna MacCrimmon join forces in these two workshops designed to reveal, develop and integrate vocal, movement, musical, rhythmic and imagination skills. Class work will be generated through the use of improvisational scores, existing music and text in a co-creative, safe and playful manner. Katherine will open each class with extended vocal exercises designed to free the voice. For this work it is recommended that each student memorize a few lines from a song or a text to use as a source for vocal improvisations.

In the Vocal/African class, Kathy will follow Katherine’s work using songs from Ghana, West Africa in a variety of languages. Emphasis will be on developing inner pulse through the use of movement and rhythm together with the songs. Ghanaian music is wonderful for connecting mind, body and soul and enhancing a performer's connection with their co-performers and audience members.

In the Vocal/Balkan class, Brenna will follow Katherine’s work using folk songs from a variety of cultures in a variety of languages to learn different rhythms and harmonies. Folk songs allow for a great range of expression and interpretation and can be used to great effect. Singing folk music can help shy singers gain confidence and best of all – it's fun! Working from music towards theatre creation is also part of the method used famously by Poland's Gardzienice Theatre, and is now a creation tool used extensively in Eastern Europe.

I'm listening to my iPod more now than I ever have and lovin' it. I've always been a music hound but this work situation

has just cranked that up a notch or two. I find, with the iPod, there are tunes that come on when it is on shuffle that just stop me in my tracks for one reason or other. Here are three that either make me stop and listen, or just make me grin like a stupid fool.

In the "stop me in my tracks" category, we have "Sand and Water" by Beth Nielsen Chapman. There is just  something about the simplicity and the emotional rawness of the lyrics demands that I stop and pay attention. I would love to be able to perform this someday myself.

In the "big stupid grin" category, we have the live version of "Mama Just Wants To Barrelhouse" by Bruce Cockburn. Raise your hand if you are tired of this song. No? Good. When this came on at the gym the other day, I must have looked retarded, hauling myself up the

Gravitron with this silly smile on my face. This live version is the first one I heard and I realize that when I've been performing it, I've been playing it too fast. I made this repeat several times throughout the workout so I could remind myself of a few the the nuances that I'd clearly forgotten. No idea why this song appeals to me so much. And, NO, I don't do all that fancy schmancy Bruce Cockburn guitar work. I just, you know, play it.

The "big stupid grin" category also contains, surprise surprise, anything by Julie Andrews. On my iPod, I have two albums she recorded before the disastrous surgery in the summer of 1997 that killed The Voice. Here is a Broadway standard that has always been one of my favourite pieces of music anyway, regardless of who sings it. There is something about Dame Andrews, in particular her singing voice, that just pushes some ancient button. No idea why, and I know that many many others do NOT share this button with me. That's ok

- diversity makes us strong, right?

I'm having great fun loading music into my new iPod thingie. I find myself drawn to music that already has layers of

memory to it.

For example, Joni Mitchell's live album from the early 70's, Miles of Aisles, has been with me all throughout my 20's, while living, laughing, loving my way through the Niagara Region.  There is geography attached to this album ... I also remember it as  the soundtrack to my first drive to the Michigan Women's Music Festival in 1990. This album has seen me through about 10 different apartments, break-ups and earnest coffee klatches in which the impact of post-modern thought on feminism were discussed. Now, it comes with me to Hawaii for a new layer of memory.

Jane Siberry is another nostalgia trip for me. I have specific memories for specific songs, often involving driving ... occasionally involving sobbing ... or my friend Trix and I obsessively hitting "repeat" on The Taxi Ride when she was getting over a particularly bad heartache.

80's retro stuff reminds me of the crazy L/G (there was no B/T or "queer" at the time) dances and intense crushes I had when I was just coming out. Erasure, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Pet Shop Boys ... yep ... all comes back to me. Huey Lewis and the News makes me think of driving along the Welland Canal in St. Catharines, windows down, music blaring, shades on, groovin' ... I wanna new drug ...

I think iPods make it possible for people to re-connect with their nostalgia trips, musically. I'm the kind of person who associates particular visuals or conversations or people with particular songs. When I hear the song, I'm taken back to a special moment in time. Wondering if this happens to others - what songs or artist take you right back? And, where do they take you to?

Years ago, I envisioned a particular type of life and somehow, by more hooks than crooks, I seem to have gotten there. At least I'm at that place until the vision changes, and then I'm off on the quest again. Nonetheless, sometimes I forget to notice that I am, in fact, in a good place.

Those several years ago, I wanted to live alone in an open, airy space that was truly "mine". I wanted a wide variety of work and "leisure" activities. I hoped for an assortment of interesting friends who bring richness to my life. I needed a certain level of income to maintain my life in some comfort. Perhaps the best way for me to describe my life is to look at a 24 hour snippet ...

Monday - early evening - played in a really fun hockey game
Monday - late evening - dinner and catching up with a good friend whom I'll convert to blogging someday because she is an outstanding writer and a deeply interesting person with an interesting life and I wanna read about it! :-)
Tuesday - morning - teach a class
Tuesday - early afternoon - meet with students about their project work
Tuesday - late afternoon - massage appointment!
Tuesday - early evening - jam session at a friend's house

When I look at this, I shake my head at the life I lead. Given how I was raised and what the expectations were, it is almost too good to be true. Recently, I've been providing some help to a friend deciding whether to leap from a corporate, high-stress yet high-income life to something more like my teacherly existance. I really can't recommend it highly enough.

In a few weeks, the major assignments, exams and projects will arrive and I'll feel swamped and overwhelmed. This will be at the same time as some of my client work will become more demanding. I will lose sleep wondering how I will manage all of it.

But ... not today ... :-)

My American friends are celebrating their Thanksgiving this week. I guess I'm feelin' it too. Happy Thanksgiving to those marking the occasion.

Oh ... orange juice, poached eggs on whole wheat bagel, coffee, multi-vitamin ... for those who have missed this part. :-)