Whew!
Wow, I was at the studio for a long, long time! Good practice, good therapy... I love MJ. She's a generation ahead of me but otherwise a person of a very similar disposition... she went through a lot of the same things I'm going through when she was my age, reacted to some of them the same way. So it's really nice to know about her path, about the journeys she went through, and it's comforting to know she succeeded and has become this extremely self-actualized, talented, successful woman with a wonderful marriage, career, great kids, and an incredible sense of herself and her own strengths (and weaknesses). Today, driving home, I felt the first glimmer in a long time of the smile that reminds me... that some part of me, deep down underneath all the other bullshit, is looking forward to falling in love again. Now, again, this is an up day. I will lose that, more than likely, underneath the aforementioned bullshit. But it was nice to know that it is there. That I saw the flash of it is a good sign. I am moving forward, and damn anyone who thinks otherwise. All sorts of things are going forward for me.
Speaking of which, we got a lot of very good music done tonight. We worked on the two original pieces we had from last time - Three Fishers, and Thomas and Nancy - with some arrangement stuff, and picked out two more songs (Raglan Road and Lovely on the Water) which we ran through a couple of times so she could learn the melody and I could learn the chords. My guitar is incredibly clumsy still but one of the effects of being treated seriously by a serious professional musician is that I take on the incredible ability to take myself seriously as well, and that makes all the difference. I can do this. I do have the foundation of skill necessary to put this all together. I'm really excited.
For anyone in Anchorage that's interested (expect this information to turn up later as well, particularly given that I'm not sure WHERE it's happening) we'll be performing our 15 minute set (possibly longer, MJ says, if they have cancellations... it's known to happen, so we'll be preparing a couple of other pieces as well... and if nothing else slap them all down in the studio when her husband has some offtime to oversee the recording process) on January 18th at 7 45 wherever the main Folk Festival stuff is happening. Surprisingly, I don't suck substantially more at guitar if I am singing in addition. I still suck, mind you, but the singing doesn't make it unbelievably worse, and doesn't suffer too too much itself for the guitar-failing that accompanies. Always nice to find out that something isn't as bad as you think it is :)
Speaking of which, we got a lot of very good music done tonight. We worked on the two original pieces we had from last time - Three Fishers, and Thomas and Nancy - with some arrangement stuff, and picked out two more songs (Raglan Road and Lovely on the Water) which we ran through a couple of times so she could learn the melody and I could learn the chords. My guitar is incredibly clumsy still but one of the effects of being treated seriously by a serious professional musician is that I take on the incredible ability to take myself seriously as well, and that makes all the difference. I can do this. I do have the foundation of skill necessary to put this all together. I'm really excited.
For anyone in Anchorage that's interested (expect this information to turn up later as well, particularly given that I'm not sure WHERE it's happening) we'll be performing our 15 minute set (possibly longer, MJ says, if they have cancellations... it's known to happen, so we'll be preparing a couple of other pieces as well... and if nothing else slap them all down in the studio when her husband has some offtime to oversee the recording process) on January 18th at 7 45 wherever the main Folk Festival stuff is happening. Surprisingly, I don't suck substantially more at guitar if I am singing in addition. I still suck, mind you, but the singing doesn't make it unbelievably worse, and doesn't suffer too too much itself for the guitar-failing that accompanies. Always nice to find out that something isn't as bad as you think it is :)