Home : Plato's Words : February 2008

February 2008

Yet again the first month of the New Year vanished before my very eyes. I did manage to work hard and make some progress in a few areas. I continue to work on some music that I will be performing with my friends Kate and Jennifer on Valentine’s Day as part of the Wintersong Festival at the Kay Meek Centre in West Vancouver. This music is difficult for me as the Christmas music that we performed in December was too. Three-part harmony with some challenging lines to sing has me struggling at times while I attempt to learn my parts correctly. I still love it, even with the occasional frustration and I am up to the challenge because I know the end result will be so rewarding. The sound of harmony sung well hopefully!

I’ve begun writing some new music again this month as well and I hope to retain this creative roll that has come my way. I never know when those periods will hit me and when inspiration does decided to come my way I must take it as a gift and try to let other things drop a bit and focus on the creative side of things. I think if I don’t do this the creative moment or hopefully longer time periods vanishes and is gone. This time around I have been working on setting to music some beautiful poetry written by one of my artist friends. The words are at times challenging because they are composed with wit and intellect that I don’t necessarily have within me so I seem to treat the composition process somewhat differently. Not hugely so but I feel more “cautious” somehow perhaps because I treasure these beautiful words and want to do them some justice. A similar thing occurred about a year ago and the end result was ok but not earth-shattering or some such thing. Not that I am going to come up with something earth-shattering this time around but perhaps something that is more melded with the lyrics. I just want to allow the creative juices to flow and along with whatever musical knowledge I have accumulated over the years hopefully I will come up with some interesting music in the end. Sometimes this process unfolds naturally for me and other times it is a real struggle and then I just have to let it go and return when the muse decides to guide me. There is no insisting at that point, there is only resisting so what’s the point of fighting something that doesn’t want to happen?

This year I want to challenge my aging brain cells in some fashion and because I am not a person who does crossword puzzles or other things known to keep ones brain sharp, I decided to sign up and take a French class and I am also trying to learn how to play the guitar. So far playing the guitar is proving really difficult for me after the seeming ease of learning to play the piano since early childhood. It seems much more difficult to visualize frets and chords on the guitar as opposed to the piano but I suppose in the same way that French is a new language for me to learn how to speak, playing the guitar is a new musical language as well. Hopefully this will challenge my brain cells and will also be fun for me to do. So far the difficulty of learning some basic guitar chords and fingerings has reminded me how difficult it actually can be for some beginning piano students who stare at the piano and back at the music book not knowing where to place their fingers for specific notes and chords. Suddenly there is a break-through as keys are recognized and chord shapes become easier to negotiate. The guitar for me so far feels so physically foreign and strange beneath my fingers as well. Placing fingers on the smoothness of piano keys is a much gentler sensation than pressing the pads of soft finger tips again the strings of a guitar. So not only are there the growing pains of actually beginning to recognize this new “language”, there is also the actual physical pain of making fingers bend in a new way and toughen up as they repeatedly press against the unyielding guitar strings. Still I am determined. This is not the cello that I have dreamed of studying but a friend has loaned me a guitar so that has me in a position it seems to pick up and see if I can make some progress in the area of sharpening the brain muscles and make a new kind of music at the same time.

I will be performing at this year’s Winterruption Festival on Granville Island on February 23rd and I look forward to doing that with Bill Coon and Doug Stephenson. The three of us have had a lot of fun playing together in the past and we haven’t had a chance to do so for some time so for that reason alone I am anticipating some musical pleasure. I am still figuring out some of the music I want to play with Bill and Doug and the challenge is always whittling away my huge list of repertoire to a manageable one. We just play two sets so I should not have 20 songs on my working list!

A couple of nights ago I performed at the second annual JAZZILLA concert. This was a show extravaganza featuring jazz and blues vocalists ranging in age from early 20’s to 60’s. It is one of the fund-raising events put on by the Shooting Stars foundation. Talented producer and vocalist Kendra Sprinkling is the force and organization behind the show and once again everything went extremely well. Each of us performed with the Jazzilla Rhythm section led by pianist Miles Black who can make anyone sound good. When hasn’t bassist Rene Worst sounded inspired and swinging? Drummer Graham Boyle has worked on many a show over the years so he’s the glue that keeps it all together I suppose. It’s really such a pleasure to be involved in a show of that nature. The theatre is great (Red Robinson Theatre), the sound is great, the lights are great, the production team is simply wonderful, the green room is great and we get to sing with a great rhythm section. What more could a vocalist want? All of this is top notch and make taking part in such a show a real thrill. Of course its also great fun to be able to hang out with all the vocalists and musicians and share a laugh or two and that I can tell you was definitely happening backstage. Musicians are such fun loving people so there is much laughter to be heard!

Now I will end this month’s entry and get back to studying my French for awhile. Perhaps I will actually be able to learn the proper French words for Jennifer’s arrangement of “C’est Ci Bon” for the Kate/Jennifer/Karin Valentine’s show. I certainly hope so…

Au Revoir, tout le monde!
Karin