Home : Plato's Words : August 2002

August 2002

I spent the month of July amongst the mosquitos and grasshoppers of Saskatchewan while I visited my parents. Every summer as I return to where I grew up far away from any city I refuel my energy as I go for bike rides and go running down country roads where if I see one car I am somehow surprised. That's the peace of the prairies although in that peace you do have to share the space with the biting bugs. I do spend hours at the piano as well; the same piano that I learned to play on. It is not even a good piano and hasn't been tuned for years yet every summer there it is beckoning me to sit and play and come up with new songs. That seems to be the time for me to concentrate on writing without any other usual things to distract me when I am back in the city. So, while my Dad is working at the farm and my Mom is working in the garden I am trying to work the black and whites... I also then take the time to make a new list of standards that I wish to include in my repertoire. That is great fun because no matter how many tunes you know, there are hundreds more lying in wait to discover. I went home armed with a couple of new books of standards and a stack of manuscript paper and was delighted to find some tunes that I hadn't known before that quickly became new favorites. As far as writing music goes, I have finally come to realize that it really is a process and some of the ideas that I commit to paper are very poor indeed but once in awhile...something good seems to come and that makes it all worth it somehow. Oh that inspiration, such an intangible delightful thing!

On the listening front I enjoyed Nat King Cole, Ella and Sarah, and lots of Tony Bennett. It was a month of singers that swing and singers that are true originals. Of course listening to singers like that; who wouldn't be inspired to work on their craft? So that's what I will continue to do since maybe that's what it's all about anyway, the process of immersing oneself into the music and simply working it.

That's it for this month. Have a lovely August everyone...

Karin