Here I am, coming to you live from Moab Folk Camp. My 4th year at this camp, though this year I am doing the ala carte version of it. Fewer classes, more down time that I can spend as I like. It seems that what I like today is to be a slug. I have spent the day doodling on my guitar, writing a bit, catching up on e-mail and just hanging out. I'm feeling very thoughtful today. I suppose that's not much different from how I usually feel. Maybe more of it than usual.
I am taking two classes. Swing guitar, with Dave Steward, which is a total blast and I can't believe I haven't tried this until just now. It could be that I now have the chops for it, which I didn't have before. I am totally in love with these three finger chords, and I'm moving them up and down the neck and back again and it is easy. Woah! That is something I haven't ever experienced on the guitar. I haven't felt this way since I learned how to use a partial capo. It is a breakthrough. The other class is a games class with Cosy Sheridan. I love her songwriting and I love her games. They really stimulate me to think and to get in that writing mood. That writing mood where everything seems to come back sounding good, rather than crappy.
The first game was a little bit complicated. Try to follow this. You start with a free write, which came from a prompt (which was "I come to this place"). You then take the best two lines of your free write. The first one you keep for yourself. The second goes into a pot and gets given to someone else. You take the line you pull from the pot and then use it with your line to write two 4-line phrases. Then you choose one of those phrases to keep, put the other one in the pot. You draw another and then add it to the phrase you kept. One becomes the chorus, one becomes the verse. Then, you try to sing your chorus and verse to one of several different pop song melodies that were provided. Songs like "Yesterday" and "Mandy" or traditional songs like "Red River Valley." You can choose the verse of one and the chorus of another, if you wish.
So as Cosy starts the exercise, she said something about being drawn to water images lately, and so I started off thinking about water. I had a line in my part A that was something like floating as a leaf on the water to an unknown destination. I kept that. The stuff I got from other people was really not my cup of tea. Stuff like "I come to this place to hang out with friends and play music." Not really my idea of a song. Not really.
Anyway, I did my best to play along. Instead of using one of her provided pop melodies, I decided to borrow from "Back to Zero" by Dave Morrison, whom I met at Kerrville and saw again at the FAR-West Conference. Sorry Dave. I ripped off your song.
Today's exercise was a little different. We wrote some things that objects and people in our life might have said to us, if they had the opportunity. A favorite shoe. My first car. My wedding dress (which one?) My house. An old lover. Now I'm in a funk. It wasn't somewhere I wanted to go today, but I did. Now I feel like I need to be cleaning something, but I'm not at home to do so. And I'm feeling deep sadness over lost love, long past, one which I hoped to explore, but time and circumstance did not allow. I overheard a conversation last night, about grief, and how some new thought churches gloss over the grieving part of life sometimes. It isn't positive, and we should strive for only positive forces in our lives, right? But she said that we have to grieve our losses. Even if we do it away from home, in therapy sessions or with friends. There are some losses that I never grieved, and I'm thinking that I would like to take the time to do that. Maybe now. If not now, soon.
So I'm putting it out there. I'm going to grieve. But I'm going to grieve a little differently. I'm going to grieve by painting my house in bold colors. I'm going to grieve by singing murder ballads. I'm going to grieve by wearing statement jewelry. I'm going to grieve by writing my thoughts. I'm going to grieve in a hot room, sweating my way through dozens of asanas. I'm going to grieve by unapologetically choosing to be alone sometimes. I'm going to grieve by being a little bit more fabulous and a little less careful. I'm going to grieve by living my life to its fullest.
I am taking two classes. Swing guitar, with Dave Steward, which is a total blast and I can't believe I haven't tried this until just now. It could be that I now have the chops for it, which I didn't have before. I am totally in love with these three finger chords, and I'm moving them up and down the neck and back again and it is easy. Woah! That is something I haven't ever experienced on the guitar. I haven't felt this way since I learned how to use a partial capo. It is a breakthrough. The other class is a games class with Cosy Sheridan. I love her songwriting and I love her games. They really stimulate me to think and to get in that writing mood. That writing mood where everything seems to come back sounding good, rather than crappy.
The first game was a little bit complicated. Try to follow this. You start with a free write, which came from a prompt (which was "I come to this place"). You then take the best two lines of your free write. The first one you keep for yourself. The second goes into a pot and gets given to someone else. You take the line you pull from the pot and then use it with your line to write two 4-line phrases. Then you choose one of those phrases to keep, put the other one in the pot. You draw another and then add it to the phrase you kept. One becomes the chorus, one becomes the verse. Then, you try to sing your chorus and verse to one of several different pop song melodies that were provided. Songs like "Yesterday" and "Mandy" or traditional songs like "Red River Valley." You can choose the verse of one and the chorus of another, if you wish.
So as Cosy starts the exercise, she said something about being drawn to water images lately, and so I started off thinking about water. I had a line in my part A that was something like floating as a leaf on the water to an unknown destination. I kept that. The stuff I got from other people was really not my cup of tea. Stuff like "I come to this place to hang out with friends and play music." Not really my idea of a song. Not really.
Anyway, I did my best to play along. Instead of using one of her provided pop melodies, I decided to borrow from "Back to Zero" by Dave Morrison, whom I met at Kerrville and saw again at the FAR-West Conference. Sorry Dave. I ripped off your song.
Today's exercise was a little different. We wrote some things that objects and people in our life might have said to us, if they had the opportunity. A favorite shoe. My first car. My wedding dress (which one?) My house. An old lover. Now I'm in a funk. It wasn't somewhere I wanted to go today, but I did. Now I feel like I need to be cleaning something, but I'm not at home to do so. And I'm feeling deep sadness over lost love, long past, one which I hoped to explore, but time and circumstance did not allow. I overheard a conversation last night, about grief, and how some new thought churches gloss over the grieving part of life sometimes. It isn't positive, and we should strive for only positive forces in our lives, right? But she said that we have to grieve our losses. Even if we do it away from home, in therapy sessions or with friends. There are some losses that I never grieved, and I'm thinking that I would like to take the time to do that. Maybe now. If not now, soon.
So I'm putting it out there. I'm going to grieve. But I'm going to grieve a little differently. I'm going to grieve by painting my house in bold colors. I'm going to grieve by singing murder ballads. I'm going to grieve by wearing statement jewelry. I'm going to grieve by writing my thoughts. I'm going to grieve in a hot room, sweating my way through dozens of asanas. I'm going to grieve by unapologetically choosing to be alone sometimes. I'm going to grieve by being a little bit more fabulous and a little less careful. I'm going to grieve by living my life to its fullest.
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