Analyzing musicals

I joined a Playwrights Circle group. It's spearheaded by Miranda Baker, presently working on her Masters degree in Creative Writing.

The goal was for each of us to produce a scene or a One Act play, with an eye towards next year's Udderfest. We will be able to have a staged reading ( each) of 10 minutes of what we've written.

I have written short plays before and worked with a dramaturge on them. But I've never tried writing a musical. I know that musicals are “in it for the long haul “ projects. “Hamilton” took years of research in order to produce a historically accurate production, to say nothing of knowledge of stagecraft and musical chops.

I had the opportunity this Saturday, to listen to a fellow on Zoom whose musical will be going into production in New York City. He spoke about the ways that the playwright/songwriter collaborates with the person who coaches the singers, adjusts key signatures according to vocal ranges. They also consult with the choreographer , as some lines would be extremely difficult to sing while dancing, so the melody has to be given to another character. Hopefully, for Udderfest, I will be able to have the 2 songs in the scenes I want to use, sung. I’m looking forward to it, at any rate. This feels out of my depth, but I am wading in anyway.

Cheers.

Celebrating a friend's success

I’m not totally certain what year I met Nancy Robertson. We met through Prince Rupert Writer's Group, back in the early 80's.

We all met every second Wednesday, discussed and critiqued each other's work, made suggestions, and shared about submission opportunities. Nancy's work found it’s way into several anthologies and literary journals.

Nancy is also a photographer. Often her photos are closeups of water, oil puddles, rust, focused on patterns and texture.

On top of that, she's a quiltmaker. I am not certain of her first efforts, but the ones that are presently hanging in the Museum of Northern BC's Ruth Harvey Gallery are as abstract as her photos and the small paintings that hang beside the quilts.

I am so proud of my friend! She's led an interesting life, full of travel and deep observation, both visual and the observation of human nature that results in a thoughtful, gifted writer.

Congrats, Nancy.

If you're in town, be sure to catch this show of quilts, small paintings and photos.

In other news, about 10 minutes of a musical I’m working on, will have a staged reading, along with several others at Udderfest on Saturday, August 16th, in the afternoon.Miranda Baker has been leading us in a Playwrights Circle. It's been a valuable experience. I’m learning formatting for musicals and have been playing a bit of “carch up” by watching a bunch of modern musicals on YouTube on my own. I hasten to say that the full production might be ready In about 4 or more years. Never tried anything this ambitious before. But. There's always a first time…

And that's all she wrote.

More bird

I have gotten a bit more done on the Pride Bird. Very pleased that the colours are richer in his head and shoulders.

This week focused on a lot of housework (boring/necessary) more music, exploring musical theatre, catching up with a friend at the pub, a cruise ship ambassador stint, and a bit of recording.

I am focusing next week on recording another song, brushing up on some songs for open mics and learning a few new ones. Hopefully I will get substantially more finished on Pride Bird, if not entirely. I would like to get this website viable as a site for sales , as well.

And a partridge in a 🎵 pear tree…🎶

A scattered week and a Pride Bird

This week I spent a lot of time at home. Some of it doing the day-to-day cleaning stuff, but also hooked up my MIDI keyboard to BandLab ( an online DAW: digital audio workstation) in order to plonk out a melody.

I never really learned piano. I left that up to my composer stepfather and my older sister, who plays quite well. I did try. When I was 5. I had the attention span of a gnat at that age. I might be regressing back to there…I don't have large hands ( at five, they were a good deal smaller!) I have a one-octave reach now, and that's it. But I digress. I’m about halfway through recording the melody for a song I wrote; Truebluesman. So that's cool

Did I do art this week? Yes. Yes, I did. This is Pride Bird. How this bird will turn out, only they know. Flamboyant. Strutting. And enjoying their colourful life.🌈

May you enjoy yours.✌️🥳

My kid

My kid turns 40 today. I am gobsmacked, kerfuffled and in a bit of awe. HOW???

She's still outstanding in her field. (C'mon; I can't resist the pun).

Our birthdays fall on each other's half-birthday. It's fun.

This week has sailed on by so fast! Only a bit of creativity happened. Unless you call figuring out a few Zoom features “creative “.

My cat Willa discovered that camping chairs are also comfy for cats. Who knew?

This week I will be focused on relearning a Potato Song, inspired by a song prompt by Diana Barbarash for Michael Averill's Iced Teacup Challenge. ( write or start a song in the time it takes to brew and drink a glass of iced tea.) Fun times! I’m also trying to figure out my MIDI keyboard. I’ll keep slogging away at it.

Enjoy your weekend!

In praise of less

Generally, I don't enjoy busy. Effort, yes. Whirlwind busy, not so much.

I've piled up experience after experience, yet some of the best times are the slower times. Sometimes it's watching a sunset on the patio with my cat.We slow blink at each other, content with the moment at hand.

Sometimes it's a spontaneous phone call for a thrown-together picnic at Diana Lake.

It might be a walk to the corner store for ice cream, passing by the old rusting bits of truck, the nodding dandelion. Sitting on the steps down to the high school, another sunset.

It's the slow moments.

My grandson taking me to see how their strawberry plants are doing. A mug of tea with my daughter and building things with magnetic tiles. A game of “ go fish”. Depending on the mood there is triumphant gloating, or solicitous concern.

And there's art. A Pride Month bird, because. The Earworm of two sad songs, because sometimes you need tears. Bruce Cockburn's “Pacing the Cage” and a brand new one from Jesse Welles, “Pilgrim “.

And now the longing to write a morose kind of song. Because sometimes you have to sit with sorrow and sunsets.

Deer in spite of everything

At last this fellow is finished. It was a long journey, begun last fall. In the meantime, my grandson turned 4, I turned 70, and my birthday present to myself was a Deering banjo. I am really enjoying it. My first vivid memory of hearing a live banjo was hearing Ron Walter’s in Petaluma, California performing in a variety show. I was mesmerized. The kids sat in the front row of the gymnasium and our parents directly behind, poised to give us a poke or to “shush” us if we started whispering.

How could anyone ever pick an instrument that fast? Anyway. Now I am slowly learning.

In other news, I have been writing more songs. But now some feature the banjo. One is called '“The Long Way Home “. The other banjo song is called “Old Folks “.

Old folks sittin at the corner store

Playing Keno

Thinkin ‘bout Reno

In their future…

My future entails snoring under a comforter. Goodnight!

New laptop, new energy

I have been remiss about blogging on here. Mainly because everything is not yet up and running, and I have altogether too many interests! Always another shiny thing to distract my corvid brain.

This week I will be moving data from the old dinosaur laptop ( that I, more than once, longed to hurl into the harbour.) to a new, sleek, quicker one. Giving brachiasaurus the boot and moving along.

Last month I was thoroughly immersed in Poetry Month.

During the worst of Covid lockdown, I had discovered another visual artist on Tiktok, Scott Geraci, who lives in Florida. Apart from doing interesting drawings of trees, he decided to read aloud a poem each day of April. Then he decided to take requests. I requested “Love after love “, by Derek Walcott. It was a great reading, so I wanted to do something for Poetry Month, as well.

If you're interested in having some poetry prompts, I set up a group page on Facebook called “Poetry Rising “. I can invite you into the group. I plan on keeping the group page open indefinitely for talk about poetry, video clips of people reading favorite poems, a place to talk about writing in general, etc.There are 30 prompts for your use to wwrite your own poems. I managed to use 21 of them. If you find just one that sparks the muse, that's cool.

On the creative side, I am working on finishing a piece that I started last fall. That would be the deer, a bit further down. I’ve been focused this last week on getting my studio space back to being not only useful, but efficient.

I also have a song that I hope to “bring across the finish line” ( ie: record and release) by early June. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

For right now, this is my life. Kinda artsy. Kinda fun.

Oh, and I have some seedlings coming along, too.And a cherry tree in full bloom when I look outside.

Life is sweet. 🥰

First blog on the new site

I've been wandering around the website space, trying to decipher how it works. I’m learning. It isn't quite what I expected, but I’ll get more comfy soon.

Having my artwork online and for sale again is exciting. I've been enjoying working in a square format with the 10"x10” small format, but I like rectangular format as well and somewhat larger. I’ll be having a wider variety of art cards printed soon, and possibly a line of stickers. Stickers are just fun.

I now have two songs out wherever you listen. “Peace” (a capella and djembe) and a much more full-out version of “Last Sweet Love Song “, featuring Mandolin Kahn. (My mandolin!) I’m enjoying my songwriting journey. I have a fabulous instructor who knows how to bring out the best in people and in their songs. And I now have a very supportive singing instructor.

I’ll be up to some new artwork, as well.

For now, though, sleep.