Last night after singing with The Helen Creighton Society in Halifax NS I was discussing how I got into music n found my self pipping off at the moon, rambling on you might say, the poor woman I was talking to must have thought I'd lost my mind and for reason I will not go into here I probably had for a few moments.her husband gratefully rescued her.
So whiling away my hours since breakfast today it dawned on me that if Im so passionate about that singing happening in my life, perhaps it would be fun and interesting to explore here in blog-ville the experience.
I ended up in Barbados in 1993 on vacation, I know tough work but someone has to do it! While there I found the expats community very English and very boring.Sitting every night looking at the beach and the sunset was not my cuppa tea.So off I went to a few Keroke for a month or so.Well they had a contest and I took first prize, with my rendition of House of the Rising Sun! whada ya know!!! Im off to the races!!! I started to sing with them every Kerokee night.
When I returned to Canada in 1996 I was outted from work, the system I wirked in would not hire me as I was old meat and over 50.They were looking for new meat.So I started to do hairdressing and wrote my papers again.This allowed me a small income and off I went to Kerokee.
All went very well, my voice was feeling strong I was certainly getting my self esteem that a divorce had kicked out of me two years before. Thats another story! Yet I did not have mental fortitude in my music and my musical experiences .So I decided to keep it as a hobby and return to University to finish my B.A. I was 50 years old and braver than a bear!!!I switched from W omens studies at Mount St. Vincent> to Irish Studies with Cryil J Bryne, it would be his retiring year. I fell in love with his Chaucer, his Yeats, and all the Irish folk lore we studied.My soul began to fill with poetry and song and story about my ancestors. I began to compose and write all sorts of great little ditty's.On weekend I woud go to Kerokee when ever I cooed get there in good voice.lololol
One fine winter day walking back to the school about 100 years off campus I stopped to admire a 1977 V.W .popup camper in a woman's drive. I bought it!!
I decided to go where the music took me, I had been designing Gaelic Garden rocks and began to sell them for 10.00 this bought my gas and off I went.I took along with me my trusted camera, my Drum Boran` and my voice.
I spent the summer photographing the Bay of Fundy and singing in The Fair trade Cafe` in Truro NS.I got a job as a hairdresser with Liz a really great lady there.
I stopped my truck pulled out my drum one Sunday afternoon up to the cafe as I had seen instruments and a piano with mic's in the window. I walked up to the counter " anyone play those instruments?" Ray the owner ask "Why can you sing?" Do you Play"? "Yep I can sing" I replied. "Come over and sit a spell and have a coffee on the house Ill be right back". The man Ray Merryman left the cafe`. I sat for about half hour was kinda getting bored, when he walked into the cafe with a 72 year old black man Hal home for a bit from Montreal and who had played the blues guitar for years up in Montreal.Hal and me hit it off like bother and sister and began to harmonize as well as host a weekly open mic at the cafe for about four months. We certainly developed a lot of respect, humility and love for our gift of music, bringing together all those folks from miles around to sing at the cafe` I went to a blue grass festival that year an held my own with all the boys ( very male dominated genre`) sang straight for 11 hours one night.Beautiful people and a wonderful experience.
Then one day a Native American man from the Truro reserve ask me to give him lessons in voice.I remembered all the exercises my old teacher taught me so I started to teach him these small seeds of knowledge and off he went.Got over his shyness and is still going strong today. What a great feeling when you can share what you know with someone who loves to sing as much as you do.I guess its like that with most things. When I was doing hair my sister learned to cut hair,my daughter learned it too. They liked it so well they learned it by watching me.
well this put another bee in my bonnet and off I came back to Halifax for the winter and began to sing at a bar in Young Street with a bunch of old Blues-ers .They were excellent players and soon I was singing The House with a live band for the first time and live music was and is my favorite, I began to be very entertaining.Then my ego got out of wack and I ended up on the board!!! I had already been there done that so I left. There were people there far more smarter than me to do that job and they were not short in letting me know it!! OUCH!
I continued to teach voice for the next 7 years and still do if the person passes the one hour consultation I have set for myself. they think its about them but its really a way of knowing if Im wasting my time and theirs. One of my students is now singing and playing composing and holding his own in the field of music at Dalhousie University Music department of arts.hes an excellent guitarist and Im hoping he can play for me again sometime.last year he was in Prague at a composing conference and composition contest.
I got interested in the Boran` and was taught by a Englishman at open mic sessions at The Old Triangle, here in Halifax and I continue to sing and play there weekly. For me Irish music is the heart of all Music and has been the sounding board of many traditional styles and compositions all over the world. It is for me one of the oldest forms we have of music in Canada I'm sure there are may in Europe and other countries.The drum and rattles and strings in Gaelic music date back to African times and i love it so much I may not ever leave.I do try to study the old styles of voice and of their music as often as I can.
So that brings me to my very first night in song with the Helen Creighton Society last night where I was pipping off at that unsuspecting soul about my musical trails that will have to hover here for a bit like a beautiful hummingbird waiting fr the next sweet song-ful nectareal notes to set the spirit free for a short time to feel the joy of song for a another moment to moment, up hill and down vial le music is almost all my reality, my life, my friend in Gods grace and my gift to you.
see you on the flow in the notes and books of song.
So whiling away my hours since breakfast today it dawned on me that if Im so passionate about that singing happening in my life, perhaps it would be fun and interesting to explore here in blog-ville the experience.
I ended up in Barbados in 1993 on vacation, I know tough work but someone has to do it! While there I found the expats community very English and very boring.Sitting every night looking at the beach and the sunset was not my cuppa tea.So off I went to a few Keroke for a month or so.Well they had a contest and I took first prize, with my rendition of House of the Rising Sun! whada ya know!!! Im off to the races!!! I started to sing with them every Kerokee night.
When I returned to Canada in 1996 I was outted from work, the system I wirked in would not hire me as I was old meat and over 50.They were looking for new meat.So I started to do hairdressing and wrote my papers again.This allowed me a small income and off I went to Kerokee.
All went very well, my voice was feeling strong I was certainly getting my self esteem that a divorce had kicked out of me two years before. Thats another story! Yet I did not have mental fortitude in my music and my musical experiences .So I decided to keep it as a hobby and return to University to finish my B.A. I was 50 years old and braver than a bear!!!I switched from W omens studies at Mount St. Vincent> to Irish Studies with Cryil J Bryne, it would be his retiring year. I fell in love with his Chaucer, his Yeats, and all the Irish folk lore we studied.My soul began to fill with poetry and song and story about my ancestors. I began to compose and write all sorts of great little ditty's.On weekend I woud go to Kerokee when ever I cooed get there in good voice.lololol
One fine winter day walking back to the school about 100 years off campus I stopped to admire a 1977 V.W .popup camper in a woman's drive. I bought it!!
I decided to go where the music took me, I had been designing Gaelic Garden rocks and began to sell them for 10.00 this bought my gas and off I went.I took along with me my trusted camera, my Drum Boran` and my voice.
I spent the summer photographing the Bay of Fundy and singing in The Fair trade Cafe` in Truro NS.I got a job as a hairdresser with Liz a really great lady there.
I stopped my truck pulled out my drum one Sunday afternoon up to the cafe as I had seen instruments and a piano with mic's in the window. I walked up to the counter " anyone play those instruments?" Ray the owner ask "Why can you sing?" Do you Play"? "Yep I can sing" I replied. "Come over and sit a spell and have a coffee on the house Ill be right back". The man Ray Merryman left the cafe`. I sat for about half hour was kinda getting bored, when he walked into the cafe with a 72 year old black man Hal home for a bit from Montreal and who had played the blues guitar for years up in Montreal.Hal and me hit it off like bother and sister and began to harmonize as well as host a weekly open mic at the cafe for about four months. We certainly developed a lot of respect, humility and love for our gift of music, bringing together all those folks from miles around to sing at the cafe` I went to a blue grass festival that year an held my own with all the boys ( very male dominated genre`) sang straight for 11 hours one night.Beautiful people and a wonderful experience.
Then one day a Native American man from the Truro reserve ask me to give him lessons in voice.I remembered all the exercises my old teacher taught me so I started to teach him these small seeds of knowledge and off he went.Got over his shyness and is still going strong today. What a great feeling when you can share what you know with someone who loves to sing as much as you do.I guess its like that with most things. When I was doing hair my sister learned to cut hair,my daughter learned it too. They liked it so well they learned it by watching me.
well this put another bee in my bonnet and off I came back to Halifax for the winter and began to sing at a bar in Young Street with a bunch of old Blues-ers .They were excellent players and soon I was singing The House with a live band for the first time and live music was and is my favorite, I began to be very entertaining.Then my ego got out of wack and I ended up on the board!!! I had already been there done that so I left. There were people there far more smarter than me to do that job and they were not short in letting me know it!! OUCH!
I continued to teach voice for the next 7 years and still do if the person passes the one hour consultation I have set for myself. they think its about them but its really a way of knowing if Im wasting my time and theirs. One of my students is now singing and playing composing and holding his own in the field of music at Dalhousie University Music department of arts.hes an excellent guitarist and Im hoping he can play for me again sometime.last year he was in Prague at a composing conference and composition contest.
I got interested in the Boran` and was taught by a Englishman at open mic sessions at The Old Triangle, here in Halifax and I continue to sing and play there weekly. For me Irish music is the heart of all Music and has been the sounding board of many traditional styles and compositions all over the world. It is for me one of the oldest forms we have of music in Canada I'm sure there are may in Europe and other countries.The drum and rattles and strings in Gaelic music date back to African times and i love it so much I may not ever leave.I do try to study the old styles of voice and of their music as often as I can.
So that brings me to my very first night in song with the Helen Creighton Society last night where I was pipping off at that unsuspecting soul about my musical trails that will have to hover here for a bit like a beautiful hummingbird waiting fr the next sweet song-ful nectareal notes to set the spirit free for a short time to feel the joy of song for a another moment to moment, up hill and down vial le music is almost all my reality, my life, my friend in Gods grace and my gift to you.
see you on the flow in the notes and books of song.
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