tag:barscott.com,2005:/blogs/blog?p=5
Blog
2023-10-16T07:54:38-07:00
barscott.com
false
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993638
2018-04-29T17:00:00-07:00
2022-05-19T14:32:17-07:00
Building a Nest
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Josefin Slab', serif;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/9ed7e6589854938a96323dc1dbd6243083b1ee3a/original/2018-04-26-07-20-54.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MzY4eDI3NiJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="276" width="368" /> <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/bab0393278ee466b18ffdb19dcea85a690cd2c15/original/robin-mom-on-nest-2018.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MjQ1eDI3NCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="274" width="245" /></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Josefin Slab', serif;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Josefin Slab', serif;">I started today like I always do: I went out with Wally the dog, camera in hand, hoping something spectacular awaited me when I turned from our driveway onto the street. It’s not hard. The Rocky Mountains are straight ahead and are as changeable as I am on any given day. Some days they’re golden, other days they’re red. Most days, they’re just sitting there offering their grandeur to whoever is looking.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Josefin Slab', serif;">This morning, there was nothing special about the mountains. Patches of snow on their peaks looked sick and dirty from the dust that’s been stirred up by the wind recently. I was disappointed. I hadn’t slept long enough. I needed the mountains to do something dramatic to wake me up.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Josefin Slab', serif;">But just as my hopes went flat, the male robin building a nest outside our bedroom window looked straight at me from a tree in our front yard. I’d never seen a robin stay put like that. Clearly he’s used to me.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Josefin Slab', serif;">Like pigeons, Robins rarely excite me anymore. But to have a pair building their nest on the side of our house is a whole different thing. We find ourselves cheering them on, watching for them in the morning, and checking on them throughout the day. When I was waking up early yesterday morning I saw their shadows flying back and forth through the shades in our bedroom. They were already going through the motions of life: working hard, gathering materials, and doing the best they could with what they’ve got. There’s even a long string of blue plastic running through their nest. I wonder what it took for them to get it there in one piece.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Josefin Slab', serif;">When I got home with Wally I checked on the female. She was in the nest stretching her beak to feel the 25-mile-an-hour winds that made holding my camera difficult. Her simplicity and purpose were clear. It was a good reminder on a Monday morning. </span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993637
2018-03-29T17:00:00-07:00
2022-05-08T23:59:36-07:00
Reminder - a Little bit of Forrest to make you smile
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Yesterday I looked at a video my friend Franco Vogt did during the Woodstock Book Fest last weekend. The producer of the festival, Martha Frankel, asked audience members to go backstage after one of the panels and stand in front of Franco’s camera for what she called a mug shot. No one knew why, including Martha. But as with so many spontaneous acts of creation something did come out of it: a short video that was posted on Facebook last night. The pictures were shot in black and white and included a lot of people I know so it was fun to watch. Naturally, I waited for my image to fly across the screen hoping I looked decent, or good even, since this thing was being posted for the world to see.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> A few hours later, my friend Debra posted an image of herself from that same video. Somehow she’d figured out how to isolate a single image, snatch it from the series, and post it for her friends to see. Her efforts made me want to do the same. So I did. I went frame by frame, found myself again, and learned what a screen shot is and how to take one.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> What I found was a gift.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> For the first time I saw Forrest in a picture of myself. It’s really made me smile today. And of course, it reminded me of all of you. I thought you might enjoy seeing the similarities. It’s something about our scrunched up mouths…</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> Happy Spring!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> Love,</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> Bar</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/c3910c34b41ba2fdad9f8209fcf42608528a7b00/original/img-2932.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MjA2eDMxMSJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="311" width="206" /> <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/4e4442bba58c97825554b4eed88a110462d6e634/original/screenshot-2018-03-30-13-10-36.png/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MTk1eDMxNCJd.png" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="314" width="195" /> </p>
<p> </p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993636
2017-10-02T17:00:00-07:00
2022-05-06T23:51:35-07:00
Images that lift the spirit
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Today there was bad news in Las Vegas, news we've almost become numb to. To </span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">counter it, my friend Doris Dembosky sent a blog filled with pictures that lifted my spirits: a blossoming sunflower, an aspen leaf turning to gold, the Sangre de Cristo Mountains covered in snow. Her email worked for me so I thought I’d spread some goodness your way in case your heart is heavy today too.</span></p>
<h4 class="null" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Yesterday afternoon, I watched from a distance as two herd of pronghorn (often called antelope) figured out how to be in the same field with a herd of deer.</span></h4>
<h4 class="null" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/7059b6e3464c59cf6a78868aac7fdf80503bd5dc/original/antelope-and-deer.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6Njc0eDE0MiJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="142" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="674" /></span></h4>
<h4 class="null" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Everyone got along fine but I could see the jitters. Eventually everyone got back to business as usual:</span></h4>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/7b2fc21432edabf2048348d265a1d19c396c4e8d/original/antelope-butts.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjY3eDgxIl0%3D.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="81" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="667" /></p>
<h4 class="null" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Yesterday morning was intense. The snow had just fallen and the sky was ominous. </span></h4>
<h4 class="null" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">No more moisture fell but plenty of wind blew.</span></h4>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/c5727913aa9595b6b8cbfda0d08dbee4e2e0c0ac/original/snowy-mnt-2.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjE4eDM1OSJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="359" width="618" /></span></p>
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<h4 class="null" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Not to be outdone, this morning the mountains had a whole different mood.<br>The changes here keep me alert and alive. </span></h4>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/06fee68786a142d9978e2cbd0df83dc6077857ff/original/this-morning.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjA4eDM0OCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="348" width="608" /></span></p>
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<h4 class="null" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Just a week ago, the same field looked like the image below. </span></h4>
<h4 class="null" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">It reminds me that I can count on change, because it's true: I can.<br><br>In her book,<em><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> </span>Evensong</em>, my friend Gail Godwin wrote a chapter called "Shield the Joyous." She took the title from an Episcopal prayer that includes words to protect the grieving, the lost, and those who care for the dying, as well as others in need. Including the words "shield the joyous" in the prayer reminds us that on verdant days, we must prepare ourselves for what might come next. </span></h4>
<h4 class="null" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Likewise, when days are long or dark, we can rely on the knowledge that light will follow. <br><br>With love from ever-changing Colorado. Bar</span></h4>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/4deb200214960e507f8b9000bf4ba246a44482bc/original/light-streaming-mtns.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NTc0eDQzMSJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="431" width="574" /></span></p>
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barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993635
2017-07-05T17:00:00-07:00
2022-04-26T12:25:17-07:00
The Ups and Downs
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/664293425902539df9fe43829c98943973239e4c/original/westcliffe-green-2-resized.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NzUxeDI4NyJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="287" width="751" /></span></p>
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<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Like so many people, I suffer highs and lows. Not the clinical kind — at least that’s what I tell myself. I’m not on meds to even-out my moods. I’ve always thought I managed my low times pretty well. I have confidence that they’ll pass soon enough. And the high times are so enjoyable I’m not willing to give them up.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">When I woke up this morning my shoulder hurt, my back was cranky, and the nagging voice of disquiet in my brain was at full volume. When I finally got outside with Wally (our dog), I ran into a friend who was out walking, too. He’s an older gentleman, a man who lives much the way I do. He’s an artist, a loner with a social streak, and an inward looking guy. We often bitch and moan with one another about all the things we wish were different around here. Our little town frustrates us both. It’s too conservative, there aren’t enough young people, and we can count on one hand the number of people who are other than pink-skinned. Both of us are longing for diversity, longing for activity, and the stimulation that comes with, say, a college town. To our credit, we see the irony of our complaints. When we lift our eyes we see miles of tall green grass, endless Colorado sky, and a pristine view of the Rocky Mountains.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">We could move somewhere else, of course, except we'd have to give up the freedom and affordability that come with rural life. Some days it feels like a trap. Other days we feel like the luckiest (and smartest) people in the world. My guess is everyone feels this way at times.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">So what do we do?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">My friend and I always end our morning rants by agreeing that finding joy in the work we do is the best way to improve our crappy moods. He’ll go out with his camera later today and document the people and things that are good about living here; I’ll sit at the piano and continue to work on Beethoven’s “Sonatina in F,” and the day will end where it began: in bed with a soft pillow under my head and the chance to begin again tomorrow.</span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993634
2017-06-13T17:00:00-07:00
2019-12-05T11:05:20-08:00
Courage
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">There are lots of reasons for my absence these last seven months. Like so many artists, my reasons for creating anything were challenged by the election results in 2016. Many of us were asking ourselves if our work needed to be more political, less political, more about hope, less about anger, more about how to move through a world that was not the world we’d hoped for, or, if it was better if our work was left undone. In terms of this blog, the honest answer for me was <em>better to leave it undone. </em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">When I don’t stay in touch, though, I miss you. I know it sounds corny, but just knowing you’re there has always done me a world of good.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Instead of writing here, I’ve been <span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">practicing the piano and </span>working on a book that I hope will be done later this year. Happily, three of my stories have already been, or are about to be published. The first two were published in two separate volumes called </span><em style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">S<a href="http://www.storiesofmusic.com">tories of Music</a></em><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> (Timbre Press, 2015, 2017) the third will be published by </span><a href="https://writersalliance.org/bacopa-literary-review/"><em style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Bycopa Literary Review</em></a><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> in July. All of the stories from the book are about my songs, songwriting, and how things I’ve done, or which have happened to me, caused my songs to be written. I like the book a lot. It feels like I’ve been writing it since I started creating music in the ‘80s. How songs are written and why they are written, has always fascinated me. And because I am who I am, the songs I write have always been the most interesting to me. I know that sounds narcissistic, but I think most artists feel that way about their work. I hope they do! What I mean is that a creative person (and that includes all of us) is most passionate about their own work. I don’t see how it could be otherwise. How would we have the energy to carry on with our work without that passion?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Last week my friend Donna Miller lent me a notebook of articles she’s written for the 99 Club, which is an organization that supports women pilots. Women Pilots! H ow exciting is that? Women Pilots make up 5% of the worldwide pool of commercial aviators. I bring this up because Donna writes about Courage in a way that inspires me. Can you imagine what it would take for anyone to learn how to fly and then to take an enormous machine with 130 passengers or more, into the sky and back down to the earth. Donna’s courage and commitment to excellence reminds me to continue doing what I love, always working towards something new and better.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">The world is unsettled. The silver lining is that the turbulence gives me an opportunity to create a life that’s meaningful despite what’s going on around me. That’s always been the challenge, it’s just clearer now, and that’s a good thing. </span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> This gorgeous creature is one of 30 or so who rests in the trees above 2nd Street here in Westcliffe, Colorado</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/b445eb6caceacb88d5fc655376ec859c5c95ebfb/original/rsz-rsz-1vulture-mournful-wings-1.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NTcyeDMzNCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="334" width="572" /></span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
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barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993633
2017-02-05T16:00:00-08:00
2019-12-05T11:05:20-08:00
A New Kind of Love
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/311745bfbed6c55bd240ac4e87a41b48f6f6dabc/original/sentry-winter.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NzQ2eDI3MSJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="271" width="746" /></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Since early November I have struggled with how and what to write. For the last seventeen years, since the inception of this blog, I’ve opted to remain apolitical believing that Love is more powerful than any message I might write about the right or wrong way to move forward politically.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> The last post I sent out included a new version of my song “Love is the Reason.” When I recorded it, I felt sure that Hillary Clinton would win the election a few days later. As a supporter of hers, I wanted to remind my self and others to be inclusive (and not smug) as her administration got to work. When things turned out differently, however, I found I wasn’t able to feel love for the other side the way I hoped <em>I </em>would when Hillary won. Realizing my own shallowness was a pretty big shock for me. It made me – and continues to make me – question my previous work and all the work I might do in the coming months and years. Was love really strong enough to overcome my differences with others? Was the love in my heart big enough to include those I was suspicious of? Did their hearts deserve my love?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> These are heady questions that I think a lot of us are dealing with now. I don’t have any answers except to continue asking questions of myself, and to continue with the work I love. In addition, I’m becoming more of an activist. I want to speak up about the things that are important to me. I want my gay friends to know I have their back, and my Muslim friends, too. I want my Congress People (all men out here) to know that accessible women’s health care is important to me, and that health care for all is too. I’m calling them, emailing them, and organizing events so that others can easily do the same. I want the world to feel like it did to me on January 21<sup>st</sup> when so many of us went peacefully to the streets to say out loud <em>This is not the world I envision. I want kindness and diversity to exist together. </em>Millions of people proved it was possible and it thrilled me to the core. The photographs of all of us from around the world restored my hope, something that had drained from my heart.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> Every day, I see a version of the mountains in the photograph above. Some days the mountains are clear; some days they are covered in clouds. Some times the sky is blue; other days it is swirling with grey and white disturbance. The planet is awesome wherever you are, but it's glory is clear and visible every morning when I walk our dog, Wally. I want this world to be preserved. I want everyone to care – consume less, take notice more often, develop empathy and kindness above all else.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> During these days of divisiveness, I want to remember what music does for me, what writing stories does, and I want to do more of both. I want to do my part to create more beauty, and to create a world I want to live in. </span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993632
2016-11-05T17:00:00-07:00
2022-03-05T23:12:31-08:00
Love is the Reason
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">I didn't write a blog as intended this weekend. Instead, I re-recorded "Love is the Reason," a song I wrote in 1999. The message seemed right in advance of this week's election. I hope you'll share this with anyone who might need a reminder. Love, Bar</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user721225626/love-is-the-reason-2016">Click here to listen to the new version of "Love is the Reason."</a></span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993631
2016-09-21T17:00:00-07:00
2019-12-05T11:05:20-08:00
Our Town
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">The last two weeks in our town have given me lots of reasons to love living here.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/13/us/colorado-dark-sky-project-stars-perseid.html?_r=0"><em>The New York Times</em></a>, CNN TV, and <em>US News and World Report</em> have all done feature stories on the Darkness of our sky out here. We’ve worked hard (or our friends have worked hard) for Westcliffe, Colorado to be designated one of the world’s few Dark Skies Communities. That means we’ve committed to keeping the sky dark by minimizing the light we throw off at night. Stars are harder and harder to see in our densely populated world. Here, there is no problem (save a cloud or two) seeing all the stars you could hope for. On the bluff at the end of town, locals have installed a powerful telescope so visitors can get even closer to the universe above and around us.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">This past weekend my husband and some other noble volunteers put together the first of what we hope will be an annual event called <a href="http://www.wetmountainwesternpilgrimage.com">Wet Mountain Western Pilgrimage</a>. From Friday morning through Sunday afternoon, town folks and visitors could take themselves on a self-guided tour to various sites around our valley. A person could learn about Ute Indian history at Bear Basin Ranch, they could learn about weaving at Historic Beckwith Ranch, they could learn how to train a horse, like I did, at Music Meadows Ranch. Or they could hear stories delivered by the people who were there when Willow had a one-room schoolhouse. That same room was filled with nostalgia when 40 of us got there on Saturday afternoon. We danced with brooms, we laughed at the old songs they taught us, and we teared-up, or at least I did, watching an 85-year old man joyfully tell us about life on the family ranch when he was growing up: riding a horse to the wooden school building we were sitting in, leaving early when the snow started piling up, and making friends with the boys and girls he grew up with and still leans on everyday. I’m sure those days were harder in many ways, but the simplicity and affection warmed my heart.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Then last night a miraculous dinner convened in the center of town. Over 1200 people showed up carrying bowls of soup, pasta, bread, and beans. In a county that has only 4200 people, seeing 1200 of them in one place at one time was something special. Community Dinners are cropping up all over the place and I recommend you host one in your neighborhood. Nothing else but dinner happened. There were no speeches, no prayers offered, no opinions expressed, just a whole lot of people enjoying each other’s good cooking. It rained a bit as we ate but no one moved. We just kept eating and the rain passed. The kids from the high school volunteered to serve and clean-up, and within three hours the place was back to its old self, no sign of the dinner except for porta-potties, tables and chairs, waiting to be picked up.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Sometimes I question why I live in a far away place like this. But then weeks like the ones we’ve had recently make me grateful to be here. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/01ae81369a108661c0d39977be71950355b7c7bc/original/p1010349.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MzAweDMwMyJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="303" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="300" /></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Community Dinner last night in Westcliffe, Colorado. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">These were our tables, numbers 33 - 35, in the foreground. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Behind me were tables # 36 through 145!</span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993630
2016-07-18T17:00:00-07:00
2022-05-21T07:15:47-07:00
In support of joy
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">My writing friend Annie Scholl is writing an article <em>about</em> writing for <em>Huffington Post</em>. A week ago she reached out to me and a few other writers with a questionnaire about our writing habits. She’d heard we don’t write everyday like so many writing coaches and teachers insist we must. She wanted to know how we feel about that. I feel strongly. I write when I feel like writing and I don’t write when I don’t feel like writing. Probably my writing suffers as a result, but that’s ok. Yes, I’d like to be better at it, but I’d also like to be better at living freely and not worrying so much about whether I’m as good as I could be.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">It also happened that I was doing my first-ever musical in town this past week. I didn’t think I was going to enjoy it as much as I am. We have 3 more shows this weekend. The last time I was involved in community theater was in junior high. The local group put on <em>The Sound of Music. </em>I was on the crew moving sets around and I loved every moment. I still know all the words. It makes me wonder why I haven’t done this kind of thing all along. Several people told me I reminded them of Julie Andrews this week. It made me smile. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Annie’s questionnaire and my doing the play this month have made me think about why I do what I do. It’s all been so much fun. What I’ve enjoyed most is the relaxed playfulness of it all. There’s no pressure to be anything more than we are. We’ve worked hard, laughed a lot, and there are plenty of crooked dance steps and lost lines in every show, but the overall experience is joyful. I think that’s why I don’t write or play the piano everyday. I don’t see the point of writing or creating anything when I’m not enjoying it.</span><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">As luck would have it, I finished reading a book this week that addressed this issue. Muriel Barbery is a French writer whose books are translated by Alison Anderson. I loved Burbery’s first book: <em>The Elegance of the Hedgehog, </em>so I was determined to finish this second book, <em>Gourmet Rhapsody</em>, which I didn’t like as much. (The writing is exquisite, but the story revolves around food and wine, neither of which I’m particularly interested in). The main character is a renowned food critic who is on his deathbed. A single flavor from his past is haunting him. He can’t remember what it is and he’s desperate to know before he dies. The book is a catalogue of his favorite meals and their contexts. I wanted to know what his obsession was so I kept reading. My tenacity paid off. In the final paragraphs, he remembers the simple croquettes he ate as a boy –plastic-wrapped cream puffs he’d bought at the supermarket. (I think of the Tastykake butterscotch krimpets my mom got for us). After decades of snobbish writing about all the fine foods he’d eaten in his lifetime, he admits to himself, “I could have written about chouquettes my whole life long; and my whole life long, I wrote against them. It is only in the instant of my death that I have found them again, after so many years of wandering.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">When I read that I wondered how much wandering I’ve been doing. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/228a191afefcd72685d717c471189b74951a4dcd/original/bev-and-bar.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MTQ0eDI2MiJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="262" width="144" /> <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/4a09e87573dddac7b5683ff891f6c1164f607850/original/brooke-and-bar.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MTU2eDIzOCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="238" width="156" /> <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/2c1c7b12843ff350b965dd8198303e3fe2e0a818/original/katie-and-bar.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MTQ2eDI3MiJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="272" width="146" /></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">L - R: Bev Allen, the director, and my nemesis in the play; Brooke Parrent, aka Olivia; and Katie Schepmann, aka Poppy. Katie and I did a duet called "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better" Bev and I sang "For Good" from <em>Wicked. </em>Brooke sang "And I'm Telling You" from <em>DreamGirls.</em> </span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993629
2016-06-13T17:00:00-07:00
2022-04-02T00:32:02-07:00
A Post I Never Thought I'd Write
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">One of the things we deal with in our small town (650+ in town, 4000+ in all of Custer County) is the fact that we know each other by name, or at least by the circles we travel in. There’s the cowboy circle, the Baptist Circle, the Lutheran Circle, the Liberal circle, the rich folks (or come-here people) and the poor folks. We don’t overlap much, and there are other circles besides, but we’re aware of one another, that’s for sure.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Like the rest of the country, our little town is split in two with a vague and shrinking gray area in the middle: God and Guns to the Right, Community and Inclusion to the Left. I lean strongly leftward as you’ve probably figured out. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Years ago, when I started what is now called a blog, and even before that when I started writing and performing my songs, I made a decision to keep politics out of my public life. I still feel strongly about that commitment. Kindness and all the things that go with looking at life from another’s point of view is more powerful than any political statement I could ever make. That doesn’t mean I have no point of view. I do. It just means I keep my thoughts to myself, talking only with friends and family when it feels right to do so.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Yet here I am. Here we all are. And for the first time I feel like I must speak. If I don’t, I’ll hold some of the responsibility if things go wrong.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">My parents are 87. They were alive when Europe went from plain old Europe to a dangerous Europe because of one man’s misguided ego. I believe the United States could be headed in a similar direction. Most of you reading this are probably in agreement with me already. If you’re not, please think long and hard. Hatred leads to violence. Openness and compassion, although harder to attain, ultimately lead to the kind of world that allows us to get up in the morning, stretch our limbs, and be grateful for all we have. Please. Denounce the messages that Donald Trump is sending. They are harmful and hurtful to all of us.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993628
2016-05-26T17:00:00-07:00
2023-12-10T08:32:56-08:00
My Gold Mine
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">This morning, I felt like I struck gold. I DID strike gold. As a senior citizen now, I can’t keep up with all the features of any one app, like for instance, Facebook Messenger. Who knew that you had to check it to see if anyone had written you? Further, who knew that Facebook filters messages it perceives to be spam? Somehow, ancient messages from the years 2012 through 2015 surfaced this morning and boy was it fun!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">One woman wrote from Greece. She wanted to know if I was the person who sang and wrote “Quit It.” Yes! I am, I told her (four years late!!). She told me in broken English that she’d heard the song on multiple compilations and wanted to find out who had sung it. Hah! Who knew there were compilations in Greece with my songs on them either? Un- authorized distributions, of course, but what the heck. I’ll take it. Someone in Europe is listening to a song I wrote in 1992 and was released on </span><em style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Silence is Broken. </em><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Wow! How great is that?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Another guy wrote from Philadelphia. He heard something of mine on WXPN Radio and told me he’d been a fan for years. Really? Who knew? I sure didn’t. He’d written three years ago. Still another person wrote to tell me they’d read a short story I’d written that was published in <em>The Sun</em> magazine. That story was about Forrest. It moved her enough to find me. I didn’t get her message until this morning, a year later.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Anyway, you get the point. There were a dozen or so of these filtered messages. Reading them I felt like I might explode. People I don’t know were encountering my work and felt compelled to write. It doesn’t get much better than that for me.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Within a few minutes of discovering all these wonderful messages one of my songwriting students showed up for her weekly lesson. Katie is fourteen and well on her way to writing a lifetime of songs. I couldn’t help but tell her about my windfall – not to impress her, but because it continues to amaze me that my music (or anyone’s music, words, art) travels as far as it does, in ways we can’t control or cause. I told Katie all of this so she would continue to write, to continue to do the best she can, so that one day she’ll be as surprised as I was this morning to hear from people she’s never met. What a thrill. I’m grateful beyond words.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/c9dd88dd42d2a6273b1e7d39530abd2ca935da8b/original/katie-crop.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MjQ0eDM2NSJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="365" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="244" /></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">This is Katie. </span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993627
2016-05-01T17:00:00-07:00
2019-12-05T11:05:19-08:00
Monty, Jerome, and The Present Giver.
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">A few weeks ago I flew back to Colorado after the Woodstock Writers’ Festival. I was tired when our plane landed in Denver. There was still another short flight to Colorado Springs and a 90-minute drive through canyons in the pitch dark after that. My visit east, as always, had exhausted me. I get filled up and drained all at the same time. So much love, a sort of overdose of love: my parents, Forrest, all the people in town who I miss or who miss me, or both. It’s a joyful tiredness, and as deep a tiredness as I feel these days. <br><br></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> Our plane landed and all was well. I had an hour to transfer to the little plane that would take us the rest of the way. But when we were all in our seats and traveling down the tarmac, the weather turned. Planes were piling up. The pilots came on and said we’d be able to take off in twenty minutes if all went well. Thirty minutes later he came back on and said we’d used too much fuel sitting there and we’d need to go back to the terminal to get more. When there were no gates to pull into, we sat some more. Eventually the pilots and crew were timed-out. We were asked to get off the plane and reschedule our flights for the following day. It was 9:30 pm by then.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> While we were in line to find flights, I overheard another passenger say he was going to rent a car, did anyone want to join him? I spoke right up. “I’ll go,” I said, and jumped out of line. Another young man did the same. Part of me was tentative. I didn’t know these guys but I wanted to get home. We took off at a gallop to get to the car rental place ahead of others. I’d chosen well it turned out. The guy who was renting the car had a Star Account or a Gold Account or whatever they call it, at several car rental places. All he had to do was send an email and a car would be waiting. In the end we jumped onto a Hertz bus to a car. By then it was raining hard, the kind of rain that is right on the cusp of snow. Slick and dangerous. It was a long night already and it was going to get longer.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> As we were putting our bags in the trunk, I realized I’d left my backpack on the Hertz bus. I cursed at first, then thought of my laptop and how it was time to replace it anyway. I was so desperate to get home that I said, “I gotta let it go. I can’t handle trying to get it back right now.” Without even thinking about it, Monty, the leader of our trio, took off on foot to run after the bus. He’d told us while we were waiting for our luggage that he’d come home from a California business trip to pick up his wife and kids in Colorado Springs for his grandfather’s funeral the following day. The funeral was in Montana, a 12-hour drive starting in the morning 8 hours later. With all that, he didn’t think twice about retrieving my aging computer.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> When we were finally in motion I opened my backpack assuming my computer would be gone but it wasn’t. That’s when I remembered my grandmother’s silver link necklace, earrings I’d bought for myself on Forrest’s 16<sup>th</sup> birthday, and a necklace that Brent had had made for me when we first met. I carry these and a few other things with me whenever I travel because I can’t bear to lose them. All the cash I’d earned on my trip was in there too.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> As we traveled south Jerome and Monty did most of the talking. I sat in the back aware of my choice and the symbolism. Monty had recently retired from the Pueblo City School System where he’d been a superintendent. Jerome had grown up in Baltimore. This had been his first trip back east to see friends. “I wanted ta see my cousin,” he said, “but I don’t need ta see him again. The boy hasn’t changed. Nothin’s changed.” There was a lot of frustration and sadness in his words. Monty and I both wanted to hear more. “What do you do in Colorado Springs?” Monty asked. “I’m a corrections officer,” which caused me to say, “I’m a good girl, Jerome, I swear,” as I patted his shoulders. I always say something silly like that. I want black people to know I understand when I have no clue. As soon as I did it I pulled into myself and thought <em>just listen, Bar, there are things to learn tonight.</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em> </em>Jerome went on. “I work at the juvenile detention center.” He was due at work in eight hours, too. Monty asked what he did there. “I work with sixteen year olds. I like to give them hope. I want to show them there’s more to life than where they came from.” Monty shared some stories about helping troubled students in his schools. I imagined his kids to be better off than Jerome and his friends on the streets of Baltimore but I have no idea if that’s true. Eventually the two of them got to talking about things other than work. “I’m a cage fighter,” Jerome said, “145 pound category.” Monty was interested, so was I. “Sometimes I gotta lose 25 pounds to fight.” He told us how he did it: “I sauna, I sweat, I don’t eat a lot for a couple of weeks before I fight. After we weigh in, I eat whatever I can to build myself back up. I got 24 hours to get ready. I don’t really like the fighting part. It’s the training I like.”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> A little over an hour later we got to our cars in the long-term parking lot at Colorado Springs. Monty had to go into the terminal to return the keys, so Jerome walked me to my car and made sure it started. Before he left I got all teary-eyed and said, “You’ve moved me deeply, Jerome. I love what you’re doing with those kids in detention.” He was a fine man who had beaten the odds and I was impressed.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> The following day I wrote Monty a thank you note. He wouldn’t let us help pay for the car or gas. I asked him for his mailing address so I could send a gift without knowing what that gift would be. A few days later I sent him a copy of, <em>The Present Giver. </em>This morning when I opened my email there was a message from him.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> </span><em style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Bar, your package touched me deeper than you know…</em></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">He went on to say he’d torn a muscle at his son’s baseball practice the day before, and that because of his frustration he’d yelled at that son and sent him to bed for some minor infraction a few minutes before he’d opened my package. Without thinking about it, he sat down and read the whole book. Afterwards he went in to his kids’ room and held both of his sons as they slept.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> These are the kinds of messages that keep me whole. Monty talked about Forrest in his email as though Forrest were alive. And for him, he is! That’s the miracle of writing. I cried hard when I finished reading his note. Forrest had come back to me for a few brief moments, and I was reminded again that going on an adventure can revitalize me. If I hadn’t met Monty and Jerome that night I wouldn’t know about cage fighting, or detention centers, I wouldn’t know about the streets of Baltimore from a young black man’s point of view, and I wouldn’t have spent a little time as a mom again this morning.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">*</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">For those of you who are new to my website, <em>The Present Giver</em> is a memoir I wrote. If you want to know more, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B01EGJMQYS?ref_=pe_1724030_132998070">click here.</a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> </span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993626
2016-04-17T17:00:00-07:00
2019-12-05T11:05:19-08:00
Becoming
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/d56da8d363d76536deb5b29c84da5a6ab8a34855/original/p1000572.jpeg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NTY2eDM3NiJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="Winter Spring in Westcliffe" height="376" style="vertical-align: middle; display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="566" /></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">I’m sad today. Maybe it’s the snow that’s falling when my body wants it to be spring. Maybe it’s being alone for six days straight, a gift in many ways but also boring after a while. Maybe it’s that I was in Woodstock last week and I feel more and more distant from my life there, as if it’s gone from me forever. It’s not, of course, but it’s changed its place in my heart. Maybe it’s that I’m transitioning from writing music that others will hear soon, to writing for myself because doing concerts regularly is harder and harder. There’s relief in that but also loss. I’ve been struggling with this transition for several years now. I often think of Annie Haslam when I get in this particular funk. She’s the lead singer of the band Renaissance and someone I did concerts with years ago. I remember when she was going through this herself. Much of her identity was wrapped up in being a singer that people knew. When she began to retire, she started to paint in earnest. I admired her then and am inspired by her now because of her graceful transition. But then I wonder if it was as graceful as it looked or whether she was out of sorts the way I am now. My guess is that it was tricky terrain for her too.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">In fact, my trip to Woodstock was filled with good stuff. The Writers’ Festival was dense with compelling stories, the workshop I led was excellent: the writing was inspiring and the people who attended were wonderful. I saw lots of old friends and places that filled me up with love. The reading I did with Abigail Thomas was well received and made me wish we could do it more often. People seemed genuinely moved by the combination of her work and mine. She’s so raw, and I suppose I am too. But the differences in the way we live and write seemed good for people to witness. After we read people asked questions. One of the things that came out of that was the fact that neither Abby nor I write everyday in any sort of disciplined way. We’re both erratic when it comes to creativity. Most writing advice says that a person should write at least an hour a day, once a day, every day. I don’t subscribe to that, although I probably would be better off if I did. But creativity is happening inside of me all the time. When I finally sit down to write or play the piano in a productive way, I’ve built up so much steam that I have to get it out. Even then it doesn’t flow easily. I have to work on it. When it starts to roll, that’s when I write or play every day, sometimes all day. I guess the point is that we’re all different in the way we do things. Our culture demands that we achieve things. It’s tiring and unnecessary. I’m not saying we should sit around doing nothing, but I sure wish the pressure to <em>become</em> something were less intense.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Today is a day for playing. Abby often reminds me that on days when I’m sad or lost I should make something. She’s right. It always works. </span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993625
2016-03-16T17:00:00-07:00
2019-12-05T11:05:18-08:00
Weather
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/462b9ec94f77937aca22c157c19a909690a42464/original/p1000526.jpeg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NTAweDI2OCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="Sangre de Cristos covered in white clouds and blue sky" height="268" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="500" /></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Weather</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"><span>A couple of weeks ago my brother met a couple with a 6-month-<span>old girl at a coffee shop in </span></span>Hong Kong. The young family was sitting at a nearby table. My brother was drawn to the little girl so he said hello. After a brief conversation the family got up to go. A moment later, the father came back and thanked my brother for his kindness. He said, “I don’t usually tell people this, so I’m not sure why I’m telling you, but our little girl is sick.” My brother asked what was going on, and the father said “she’s got a rare liver cancer called hepatoblastoma. She’s just finished her third round of chemo.” My brother looked him in the eye and said, “I know all about it. My sister’s son had hepatoblastoma too.” The next day I was put in contact with the mother and we’ve been texting back and forth ever since.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">The little girl’s liver surgery is scheduled for next week. It’s the critical event of her treatment. While her mom and I were texting yesterday I realized it’s been almost exactly 15 years since Forrest, Peter, and I were going through the same thing. Hard to believe it’s been that long, but it has.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">This morning while I was walking the dogs and looking at the mountains I thought about the fact that I haven’t taken any pictures for a while, and that I haven’t written here for just as long. I wondered why. I think about writing here but haven't felt like I had anything to say. The Sangres were beautiful as always: snow-covered, craggy and a little ominous. The aspen closer-by have little puffs of gray-white fur on the ends of their branches. Their leaves are just about ready to burst. The sky was clear and blue like it almost always is in Colorado. I thought </span><em style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">the reason I haven’t taken any pictures is because there hasn’t been any weather. When there isn’t any weather the sky isn’t as pretty or dramatic. Perfect weather bores a photographer after a while. </em><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">The thought of stormy weather, threatening clouds, or wind being more interesting than the calm sky I saw this morning reminded me of my friend who is coping with the terror of her baby’s cancer. No one wants or needs that much turbulence to remind them of the fullness of life, but there’s no question life is more vital when there’s disturbance in the air. Fifteen years later I’ve forgotten to live as though I had only one day left. My friend in Hong Kong is doing just that. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Bluebird in a Blue Sky</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/88d7eb043382ebb562d0e62100e34a3bf2b734da/original/p1000513.jpeg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NTAweDQwNyJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="bluebird on a wire with blue sky" height="407" width="500" /> </span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993624
2016-01-26T16:00:00-08:00
2019-12-05T11:05:18-08:00
Dialogue worth reading
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Last year my sister gave me a book written by Lynda Barry called <em>What It Is. </em>If you’re a writer, or an artist working in any form, I highly recommend this book. It’s dense and intense but Barry has a handle on some pretty common issues artists face (and people generally). She’s an illustrator who teaches art, but this book is directed at writers. She’s a great writer, too.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">The reason I’m mentioning it here is that there’s this one sequence of dialogue in the early part of the book that I keep thinking about. Barry’s describing a conversation with her husband. It’s set in a comic strip of the two of them. Here’s how it goes:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">He says: <em>“what's wrong, Hon?”</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">She responds, <em>“Nothing. Moody.”</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">(and it goes on back and forth)</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p><em><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">“how come?”</span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">“don’t know”</span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">“wanna walk in the grove?”</span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">“yeah…but no”</span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">“which means?”</span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">“I don’t know”</span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">“C’mon. Just walk”</span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">“I don’t even know what’s bugging me”</span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">“Worried about your book?”</span></em></p>
<p><em><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></em></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">(and this is the part that got me):</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">She says, <em>“Oh, there’s my book, the war, the laundry, things I said 15 years ago, the environment, my double chin, unanswered mail, what an ass I am, what a dirty house we have - - and I’ve had “Good-bye Yellow Brick Road” playing in my head for days.”</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Her answer about what’s bugging her sounds so much like what’s going on in my own head that I could laugh and cry at the same time. “Things I said 15 years ago” is the line that nailed me. I’ve blurted out a lot of things over the years hoping to be funny or smart-sounding then felt like a fool afterwards. I wonder if I should apologize to anyone, or if apologizing stirs things up again and reminds people of dumb things I’ve said that they’ve happily forgotten.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Reading Barry’s insecurities reminded me that I’m not perfect in all kinds of ways – that I’ve been growing up and will continue to be growing up for the rest of my life.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span></p>
<p><em><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">excerpts from Lynda Barry's </span></em><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">What It Is</span><em><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> ©</span><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Lynda Barry, 2008</span></em><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"><br></span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993623
2016-01-13T16:00:00-08:00
2019-12-05T11:05:18-08:00
Your Work
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">I subscribe to a blog created by a publishing company run by and for women writers called <strong><a href="http://www.shewritespress.com">SheWritesPress</a></strong>. Every week or so I get an email with a bunch of links to articles I hardly ever read, but one last week caught my eye. The title was “Don’t Quit Your Day Job.” That phrase has always irritated me. What I think when I hear it is <em>You’re not good enough to do the thing you love so don’t fool yourself. </em>I might also think <em>the person who just said that thinks the grind of a 9 to 5 job is more virtuous, more responsible and mature than the person who commits everything to their art. </em>As far as I know, no one has ever said these words to me, but it’s become a cliché thing to say to or about artists who are struggling with the business side of their work.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">I dislike this phrase so much that I read the blog to see what the author had to say. Maybe she and I agreed? We didn’t, but she had a better attitude.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Her point was that if you’re lucky enough to have a job that gives you the time, energy, and resources to do the writing you love, then write about your job; use the things you do at work as material for the writing you’re doing. If you’re a waitress at night, use the restaurant as your set. If you’re a temp worker, use the office and the workers you meet as your characters. The author’s words struck home for me. I realized I was in the process of doing exactly what she was describing: I’m writing a book about being a musician. I felt like she was cheering me on. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">In November one of the stories I've written for my someday-to-be-finished book was published in an anthology called </span><strong><a href="http://www.storiesofmusic.com"><em style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Stories of Music</em></a></strong><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">. I met with the publisher/editor, Holly Tripp, for lunch on Thursday. Our meeting was a mutual admiration society event: she wants me to finish my book (I am) and I want her to keep pushing her book (she is). <strong><a href="http://www.storiesofmusic.com">Take a look.</a></strong> It's a beautiful project.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Maybe twenty years ago my father started sending out a newsletter to a small group of family and friends. He distributes it on above-average 8” x 11” paper that’s printed by a real printer, not duplicated. Both sides are filled with short paragraphs that feature his thoughts on different topics he’s interested in. But a few years ago he called it quits. Putting it together was no longer what he wanted to do with his time. His readers rebelled! At a family gathering two summers ago, we circulated a petition demanding he recommence. He did! I think that petition proved to him that a bunch of us were paying attention; we wanted to know his point of view on matters of politics, banking, world events, etc. Whenever his newsletter arrives (one came last week) I open it with enthusiasm and curiosity.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">In early April, I’ll be doing a writing workshop geared towards writers who have not yet shared their writing with others, or, writers who are terrified to share their work. The one-day event will be part of the Annual <strong><a href="http://www.woodstockwritersfestival.com">Woodstock Writers Festival</a></strong>. For those of you in Colorado, I’ll be doing a similar workshop at the <strong><a href="http://www.CCWritersExchange.org/Registration.html">Writers Exchange</a></strong> in Buena Vista, CO on February 6</span><sup style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">th</sup><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">. I’m promoting events I’m involved in, yes, but more than anything I’m hoping to nudge you along. Whatever it is you love to do, however you do it, please keep it up. What you create is important. Carry on!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Happy New Year!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Bar</span></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/6d2812f5855dbade7959f301933291efc6d61afb/original/img-0377.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjQweDQ4MCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="480" width="640" /></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"><em><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">This was a few nights ago in The Wet Mountain Valley. Cold, cold, cold, but so clear. If you're ever near these parts (Westcliffe, CO) make sure to be here at night. We've recently been designated the ninth Dark Skies location in the world, which is to say, the stars at night are bright. If you're missing the stars because of artificial light, this is the place to come!</span></em></span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993622
2015-12-01T16:00:00-08:00
2021-03-04T00:37:29-08:00
Doors Opening
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/678027a6846bcabf871dad39d122fa408fbcc002/original/p1000278-med.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjQweDQ4MCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="480" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">I recently read a book on Finding Vocation written by a Quaker named Parker Palmer. Some of what he writes about describes my current struggle exactly. He talks about a time in his life when he felt lost and frustrated. He thought he should have been more successful by then (he was in his mid-thirties). When he went to the elders of the church to ask why doors hadn’t opened for him yet and how to find his path, one of the women responded, “Sometimes the way forward is learned by doors closing behind you rather than by doors opening in front of you.” When I read that, I started to cry. That single sentence crystallized the facts of my own path: Music Business doors I’ve half-heartedly banged on for thirty-five years have never really opened up for me. The sporadic openings that have occurred have been tantalizing enough to keep me knocking, but they’ve never swung wide open. Maybe that’s because I haven’t worked hard enough, maybe it’s because I didn’t want it badly enough, but it’s still true. My question is how do I know if <em>doors not opening</em> means to give up, or, if it means to try a new angle? </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">And, how do I know if anything I might still write or sing has any meaning or relevance to anyone else anyway?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">This morning, I talked to my husband about all of this and he said, “I think a lot of us feel that way.” Like me, sometimes he wonders if anything he has to say, or anything he might still do, has any meaning or purpose. Knowing he struggles too made me feel better. I wasn’t alone. His empathy made me want to write, which is why I’m here typing away trying to make sense of my thoughts and sharing them with you. Thinking about all those doors that have closed behind me, I realize that what’s left are all the other doors I might open if I turn around and look.</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Let-Your-Life-Speak-Listening/dp/0787947350/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1449086443&sr=1-1&keywords=voice+of+vocation">Here's a link to the book Parker Palmer wrote</a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> </span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993621
2015-10-25T17:00:00-07:00
2021-08-10T02:04:48-07:00
Small Gatherings for Music
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">This morning I got a message from someone who’s been reading my emails and blogs since 2000 when they started. He wondered why he hadn’t heard from me for a while. Was I well? Unwell? Happy? Too busy to write? I was glad to tell him I was happy, busy, not too busy to write, just too busy to have anything real to offer. His nudge, a note from my dad this morning, a conversation with my husband yesterday, and a concert I did Saturday night got me thinking about what’s worth writing about so here I am again.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">The note from my dad was actually a newspaper clipping. He and my mom read several newspapers every morning so I often get cutouts if they read something they think I’d be interested in. The title of this one from <em>The New York Times</em> was “Only the Strong Survive” by someone named Toure (with an accent on the ‘e’). Toure’s article talked about the state of the music business (Not good); the subtitle was “How the music industry has coped with the erosion of revenue caused by streaming” (Not well). Reading it – having just read a book Toure refers to in the article called <em>The Song Machine</em> by John Seabrook – I thought to myself, <em>ah, I understand this because I’ve been making music during this period of collapse</em>. Both authors write as journalists not as musicians so for them the news is new. Both say what everyone else is saying: <em>if I can get songs for free why should I pay for them? </em>I don’t think this particular ship is going to turn around any time soon. Why <em>would</em> you pay for songs if you can get them for free?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> The conversation with Brent stemmed from an article he’d read about Oliver Sacks, the famed neurologist who studied music’s impact on the brain as well as many other things. The article Brent shared with me had to do with the events that led to Sacks’s commitment to music as a field of inquiry. I’ll include the link at the end of this entry, but in a nutshell the man was stranded on the side of a fjord with a mangled leg and the threat of dying of hypothermia if he didn’t get himself out of the situation within a few hours. What saved him was his ingenuity, an umbrella, and the music in his head. He survived his descent by making a splint from the shaft of his umbrella then he crawled out butt to the ground. To keep his spirits up, he sang. The rhythm he found kept him going. He describes how his body became the music; that his muscles were made of music.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> Saturday night I did a concert here in our living room. We were expecting 40 or so people, but because we’d told everyone to bring whomever they’d like and to spread the word, 85 people showed up – pretty amazing in a small town like this one. We scrambled for chairs and pillows for people to sit on. Wine was shared as everyone settled in. I’d decided to do some things I hadn’t done for a while including inviting 5 other musicians to sit in with me on one or two songs each, then showing a slideshow of my friend Bill Gillette’s photographs while I played four piano pieces I’d written many years ago. I also read two stories from the book I’m writing. It was a hodgepodge of Bar stuff and it turned out to be a fine night. The concert was not too long, not too short. The feel in the room was warm, welcoming, and open. I felt as good as I ever have during and afterwards. Mostly what I felt was vitality in myself and in others by the end of the night.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> When I think about the business of music I feel lucky. I’ve been able to keep going. My family has supported me. You all have, my husbands have, and the ears nearby have always been willing to listen. Sometimes I get frustrated with how things have gotten, but I don’t think it’s true that only the strong survive as Toure has suggested. I don’t feel strong. What I feel is the truth of my calling. I want to make music and I want to share it. Saturday night proved to me yet again that others want and maybe even need to hear it. There’s a lot of good music happening that isn’t on the music biz radar. For me it’s the small events where a few people gather that are the most meaningful. More and more I’m seeing that the words ‘Music’ and ‘Business’ are oxymoronic. They don’t go together. I find wisdom in my potter friend Tony’s axiom: </span><em style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">I sell just enough pots to keep me in clay.</em></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em> </em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em><a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/07/09/oliver-sacks-a-leg-to-stand-on/?mc_cid=637ca026b4&mc_eid=30d7a14828">Here’s the link</a> to Oliver Sacks’s Story. </em>Brain Pickings<em> is something worth reading and subscribing to:</em></span></p>
<p><em> </em></p>
<p><a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/07/09/oliver-sacks-a-leg-to-stand-on/?mc_cid=637ca026b4&mc_eid=30d7a14828">https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/07/09/oliver-sacks-a-leg-to-stand-on/?mc_cid=637ca026b4&mc_eid=30d7a14828</a></p>
<p> </p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993620
2015-09-15T17:00:00-07:00
2021-12-26T10:21:26-08:00
A Nice Realization
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">On Sunday, my husband Brent and I went with our dogs up to some land he owns south of town. To get to his place you need a 4-wheel drive vehicle. It’s a challenging ride. There’s lots of bumping and swaying to get to the first gate, then even more to get to the second. You have to hold on tight. He and the dogs love it and so do I, but I’m not always willing to endure the trek. Often I’d rather sit in my studio and play or write.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> Brent’s 45 acres are adjacent to The San Isabel National Forest. Westcliffe, the town we live in, is already remote. San Isabel and Brent’s land in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains is true wilderness. There are elk, mountain lion, pronghorn, deer, fox, bear and other critters nearby. I’ve never seen them when we’re hiking up there but there’s plenty of scat to prove they’re around. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> Unlike the mostly treeless valley where our house is, Brent’s property is covered with Ponderosa Pines, Aspen and other trees. There’s a deep crevice on the northern edge where the water from melting glaciers above runs down to the valley below. The ground is littered with ancient rocks, the trails are covered with tall grass, and everywhere you look there's a dense and rich understory.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> Wally, our wolf/huskie mix, loves to chase rabbits into their hiding spots up there. He’s also been known to run squirrels up a tree at a pretty fast clip.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> Sunday morning we left our campsite at 8:30 for a slow, quiet stroll on the edge of the cliff above the creek. We weren’t talking; just walking twenty feet from one another enjoying the quiet, the sun on our backs, and the clear blue sky. Brent was off to my left. He stopped for a moment to look out. I stopped too. The sun was warm. Tasha, our Siberian Huskie stood with me while Wally ran softly around us. Brent’s back was facing me. He looked content and happy. His head was tilted to the right; his arms were gently wrapped around his chest. He was taking in the view. We stood there unmoving for several minutes. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> There are times when I question the amount of time, energy, and money Brent spends on his land. He clears brush regularly to inhibit wildfires, he cuts deadfall up to heat our home, he’s built stairs to the creek, and has a solar-powered trailer to run his tools when he needs them. I’ve often wondered if all the work is worth it. It’s beautiful up there whether he tends to it or not.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> But Sunday morning, watching him look out over his most favorite place, I knew he was doing what he loved best; that the money and time he spends making his land more beautiful is exactly like the money and time I spend making music. The best reason for doing any of it is our own joy. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/6d7caabd81a4e06fae330655f86a422c17c37c4e/original/image.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NDgweDY0MCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="640" width="480" /></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> Brent enjoying the news at our campsite. </span></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/def1898fda928ab2d1c354ce9c42478166926d78/original/image-1.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjQweDQ4MCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="480" width="640" /></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Tasha and Wally down by the creek. Both pictures taken earlier this summer. </span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993619
2015-08-17T17:00:00-07:00
2019-12-05T11:05:17-08:00
All Things in Time
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Once a week my friends Doris and Nicole and I meet by phone or in person to do some writing together. One or more of us offers a prompt then we take 20 minutes to write quickly in response to that prompt. This morning was our writing day. Sometimes what I write could be developed into something more, sometimes what I write is a disaster, sometimes I learn something without realizing I needed to learn it. This morning was one of those times. The prompt was:</span></p>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><strong><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Keeping your shaky hand steady</span></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><strong><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><strong><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Here's what I wrote:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> I learned this week that our Tasha-girl Siberian Husky would prefer to be fed by hand: spoonful-by-spoonful, morsel-by-morsel, kibble bit-by-kibble bit. Surgery to her front left paw informed me of her preference. Pain meds were hidden deep in the goo of canned dog food twice a day. To make sure she swallowed the pills, I fed her in spoonfuls and she ate voraciously. At first I thought <em>no wonder she’s been so skinny all these year. She’s needed to be fed! </em>After a few days, though, I began to think <em>give me a break. Do I really have to do this? </em>Thankfully my earlier instincts have gained some traction.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> Why not feed her this way? Am I spoiling her? Wrecking her for adult life? Turning her into a princess? For God’s sake, she’s ten years old! Her adult life is more than halfway over. Besides, her adopted brother Wally is a minor bully. I don’t know how he does it, but she won’t eat when he’s around unless I stand between them. It’s not that Wally stalks her or barks or stares longingly at the food he knows is hers. It’s subtle vibrations only the two of them can feel. On some primal level he wants to starve her out, dominate the pack. Be the last one standing.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> It makes me think of my siblings. I’m not aware that I want any of them to die. In fact, quite the opposite. I like my siblings and would like to see them sooner rather than later. But what about when I was little and more or less helpless? Four older sisters all strong and hungry. Did they eat my lunch when my mother was washing up the dishes? Was I hungry too? Have I been recovering ever since? Learning to take my share? Standing up for myself? Striving to be the one who triumphs in the end?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> Of all the possibilities the last is most true. I’ve wasted a lot of time trying to prove myself to somebody: <em>I’ll show you I can sing. I’ll show you. I’ll show you I don’t need your help. I’ll show you I can make it on my own</em>. It’s the soundtrack of my life. It’s been going on so long I don’t even know who I’m trying to impress anymore.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> Tasha reminded me that feeding her by hand is ok. It’s kindness. It’s compassion. It’s accepting her fear and helping her stay alive long enough to overcome it. </span></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/6ce0a881c70442aef982c4b194ec43a6e1e73cc5/original/tasha-aug-2015.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NDQyeDY0MCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="640" width="442" /></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">TashaGirlMaGirl, getting stronger everyday </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/4578f038a37c39071d71bc09a7345e3845682673/original/image.jpeg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MjIweDMyMCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="320" width="220" /></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Walister Pee McWally (aka Wally) in his favorite place. No door so he goes in and out<br></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">(mostly in, especially when there's rain or thunder)</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993618
2015-07-29T17:00:00-07:00
2021-10-20T04:11:24-07:00
An Artist's Life and Why it's Important to Keep in Touch
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">One of the things artists like me deal with on a daily basis is the question of what am I doing, and why am I doing it. Add to that the need to do whatever it is we can do to make a buck, get noticed, or be heard. I’m so used to it that although it wears me out, I don’t question whether it could be any other way. I know it could be if only I got a regular job that involved a time clock, a job description, and a hierarchy within which to work and climb upward.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> In the last month, I’ve had two stories chosen for publication, two new songs released on itunes, one photograph framed and sold, a job offer from a music conservatory, a very tempting but impossible option to buy the piano of my dreams, a reading and writing workshop in upstate New York, a request to lead a vocal workshop also in New York, an opportunity to sing with some of the finest musicians in Colorado, and a five-day gig cooking food for the jazz camp (50 people) that descends on our home every July. It’s a Pandora’s box, a plethora of cool stuff that thrills me and confuses me all at the same time. Each success reminds me that I have dreams and skills that I want to use. I say to myself <em>ok, this is it. This is the thing I’m good at. This is what I’ll focus everything on</em>. What I never remember or notice is that my erratic, changeable life could drive another person crazy. That other person would be wondering all of the time, <em>what is she doing? Why is she doing it? What does she want? And will she ever get it? </em>They're the same questions I ask myself but with a different kind of anxiety. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> For me, there’s a thrill in uncertainty (not all the time, but generally speaking). I love not knowing what’s going to happen next. I thrive on the unexpected or the surprise that comes years after I’ve done something, when someone writes and tells me about something they heard or read of mine that lifted them out of a funk, or caused them to write or sing something of their own.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> So here I am today, pooped from cooking too many meals. I don’t feel like playing the piano or the guitar, I don’t feel like writing another essay or organizing pages I’ve already written. I’m saying to myself, <em>ya know, I could just lie here on the couch and read a book</em>. And then I get an email from a writer friend and she tells me she’d watched the video of me singing “Summertime” with those musicians who are so good, and she suggested that I make an album of lullabies because she’s always wanted to and she can’t sing so well, and suddenly I feel like writing, I want to tell you about the songs we put up on itunes and how much I love them, I want to share the video my friend saw, and I say to myself the book can wait another 30 minutes while I write something in my blog. One letter from one friend saying what I do is meaningful to her and my energy is revitalized. Her email reminds me of how Garrison Keillor ends his daily <em>Writer’s Almanac</em> segments on NPR: “Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.” Good advice for all kinds of reasons.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Links to new tunes on itunes: </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">From The Hunger Games, a song called "The Hanging Tree"</span></p>
<p><a style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;" href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/hanging-tree-feat.-mike-marble/id1020299653"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/hanging-tree-feat.-mike-marble/id1020299653</span></a></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">And my song "I'm in Love" re-worked by Paul Opalach and Mike Marble. Fun fun fun!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> </span><a style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;" href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/im-in-love-memphis-style-single/id1008299068">https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/im-in-love-memphis-style-single/id1008299068</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">The link to the “Summertime” video:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjY6eVQ2nA0">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjY6eVQ2nA0</a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">And the photograph I sold:</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/f01b783f59dd10271e612d390c3b9850b8741cfd/original/small-quiet-mist.jpeg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NjQweDQ4MCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="480" width="640" /></span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993617
2015-07-14T17:00:00-07:00
2022-03-20T16:28:42-07:00
For Longing
<p class="p1"> </p>
<p class="p1"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/adf55c373f07252f624b907390eba98078b5c02f/original/solo-bird.jpeg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MzkxeDQwMCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="400" width="391" /></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Solo Bird ©Bar Scott, 2014</span></span></p>
<p class="p1"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Every week my friends Nicole and Doris and I meet by phone or in person to do some writing together. This week all three of us are physically here, <em>and</em> we have time to meet each morning for 90 minutes. Lucky, lucky us! This morning was our third in a row and tomorrow will be our fourth. </span></p>
<p class="p1"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><span>We meet at 8:00, pour tea, then one of us offers a prompt to which we each respond in writing for 20 minutes (timed). Quick writing without an agenda, or time to think too much, can access different ideas and perspectives – often the writing sparkles because we haven't tried too hard. </span><br></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Monday we wrote in response to a poem by my friend Abby Thomas (which led me to write about a recent encounter with someone I used to love, and the piece of gum I was chewing when he pulled up beside me unexpectedly). Yesterday we wrote about summer camp (which led me to write about water skiing, but then to a sort of love poem for my mom), and today we wrote about Longing after Nicole read John O’Donohue’s poem “For Longing” to us. As soon as I heard </span><em style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Blessed be the longing that brought you here/And quickens your soul with wonder </em><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">my eyes began to swell and drain. Because of my tears I knew there was more to my longing for a specific thing I've been dreaming about than I’d allowed myself to feel until that moment.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">When she was done reading, Nicole’s prompt was “What are you longing for?”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">My piece started out being about a dove singing outside of Nicole’s living room as we wrote. I called her a Lonesome Dove because Brent and I had started watching a TV series by that name last night, and because she sounded lonely, like she was longing for something in the same way that I am. Listening to her melody I realized how natural it was for her to sing, all day if she wanted to. It's just what a dove does. Half way through our writing time I felt I needed to write more about the material thing that has been at the center of my longing for the last couple of years but more urgently in the last couple of months: a new piano I can’t justify on any level other than simply wanting it. I wrote about my fears, about my self worth or lack of it. Then I wrote about the difference between wanting something and longing for something. Longing, as O'Donohue describes, has a deeper meaning. But objects that we want speak to our longing. They tell us what we’re missing and remind us that it’s ok to say what we need and want and long for, and to have if it’s possible, and to understand if it’s not.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> </span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">FOR LONGING</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">©John O’Donohue</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> </span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em>Blessed be the longing that brought you here</em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em>And quickens your soul with wonder.</em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em> </em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em>May you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire</em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em>That disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.</em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em> </em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em>May you have the wisdom to enter generously into your own unease</em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em>To discover the new direction your longing wants you to take.</em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em> </em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em>May the forms of your belonging – in love, creativity and friendship</em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em>Be equal to the grandeur and the call of your soul.</em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em> </em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em>May the one you long for long for you.</em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em> </em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em>May your dreams gradually reveal the destination of your desire.</em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em> </em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em>May a secret Providence guide your thought and nurture your feeling.</em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em> </em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em>May your mind inhabit your life with the sureness with which your body inhabits the world.</em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em> </em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em>May your heart never be haunted by ghost-structures of old damage.</em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em> </em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em>May you come to accept your longing as divine urgency.</em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em> </em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em>May you know the urgency with which God longs for you.</em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em> </em></span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> </span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><strong><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">From the book <em>To Bless The Space Between Us</em></span></strong></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993616
2015-06-15T17:00:00-07:00
2022-03-30T02:36:07-07:00
I'm in Love
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Eight days ago I sent vocal tracks via the internet to a guy named Paul Opalach in Connecticut. He and my drummer friend Mike Marble were setting up to re-record four of my songs that I wanted to hear differently just for the fun of it. I sent them the exact same vocals I used for "I'm in Love," a song I released 18 months ago on an album called <em>Journey</em>. This afternoon I am smiling all kinds of joy because of what Paul sent back. He had a free night in his studio, he says, so he had fun with my song, and wow, is it great. Enjoy it! He's playing everything. I'm just the singer. VERY fun. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"><a href="/files/441959/im-in-love-mix-full-band.mp3">I'm in Love featuring Paul Opalach.mp3</a></span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993615
2015-06-04T17:00:00-07:00
2021-12-19T20:44:24-08:00
Grace
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<p style="text-align: left;" align="center"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em>Below is a piece I recently wrote that describes "Grace", a song I wrote in the late '80s and which has had many incarnations. I've been writing about some of my songs over the last six months and submitted this story last week to a publisher who is putting together a book of stories about music. Many of you know this song so I thought you might enjoy reading it. A copy of one of many recorded versions is attached. This one was recorded in Woodstock, New York in June, 2002.</em></span> <em><a href="/files/441958/grace-sweets-no-applause-mp3.mp3">Grace, from Sweets for the Soul mp3</a></em><em> (Just click on the link. This is from the album called </em>Sweets for the Soul<em>)</em></span></p>
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<p align="center"><strong><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Grace</span></strong></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">I was twenty-eight when I bought a small house next to West Laurel Hill Cemetery outside Philadelphia. It was 1986. My grandparents had been buried there a couple of years earlier, so every so often I’d walk to their spot to say hello. Their son William was buried there too. He died when he was two from complications of spina bifida. There’s only one stone for the three of them. William’s name is carved on the side. You wouldn’t see it unless you knew to look. I like that they’re all there together. It tells me something about the longevity of love. My mother was born shortly before William died so probably only remembers the absence of him.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> While I was living in that house I bought a small Casio keyboard to see if I could sing and play at the same time. It was small enough that I could carry it around, so one summer afternoon I took it up to my bedroom and lay down with it on my belly. I cycled through the sounds it could make to see if any of them would inspire me to sing along. I was just starting to write songs back then. Like most keyboards my Casio had a synthesized vocal patch that sounded like a hundred voices singing in unison. With the push of a key a choir would sing “Ah” for as many seconds as you were willing to hold it down. A low D-flat sounded good to me that afternoon so I held it and started to sing.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> When I was in high school I sang in the school and church choirs. Those were medium-sized – 25 to 30 people. In my senior year I was invited to audition for the Pennsylvania State Choir. I say “State,” but I don’t actually remember if it was State, County or Regional. All I know is that it was big and we were good. There were 200 of us. I was an alto. With all those voices singing together we could produce a lot of sound. What was more amazing, though, was that we could create a profound silence too. We sang so quietly at times that I could feel my body lift away from my feet. During one of our concerts, I sang a solo on a spiritual called “Deep River”. As 199 singers hummed quietly behind me, I stepped forward and sang as earnestly as I knew how.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> There are moments in my past that I’m sure have brought me to where I am now. That solo was one of them. Standing in front of an audience with a choir of singers behind me was both exhilarating and humbling. The sound of sustained human voices in harmony is one that has always moved me, but that night was the first time I was aware of it.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> So when I turned my Casio on and played a D-flat for what must have been twenty minutes, it was natural for me to sing something that sounded like a hymn. “Grace” is the song and melody that came out of that bedroom experiment. The song is a chant with a Celtic feel. It has only one line of lyrics: <em>Thank the world for giving me all the reasons that I have to sing</em>. The rest of the melody is vocalized on various vowel sounds depending on my mood when I sing it. The first time I sang it for anyone else was for my extended family. I asked my father in advance if I could say grace at our upcoming Thanksgiving dinner. Saying grace had always been his job, but he was glad to have me do it. Looking back, asking for this change in routine was a testament to my need to be heard.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> When I started to sing my grace, forty-five family members sitting at uneven tables pushed together, stared back at me. I was scared. There was so much to lose. If they didn’t like my song, or if they were uncomfortable with the time it took me to sing it, or if I would sing out of tune or lose my place, they’d cast me out. Reject me forever. But they didn’t. When I started to sing they got quiet and lowered their heads.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> I’ve sung Grace in some remarkable places since that night. On New Year’s Eve in 2005, I sang it in the Cathedral Church of St John the Divine in New York City – the largest gothic cathedral in North America. The place was packed with over 3000 people. The spotlights were bright and the space was so big that I couldn’t see faces beyond the first row. There was no reason to be afraid. The lyrics were easy to remember and the melody was mine to improvise. I was more excited than scared. I stood in the center of the sacristy as the organist began to play a low D-flat on the pipe organ behind me. I’d learned during my sound check that whatever I sang lingered in the room for a long time – “eight seconds,” the sound engineer told me. Because of that, I sang my lines slowly and waited for each phrase to disappear before I sang the next one. Controlling the time like that was thrilling: the silence between phrases, the harmonics that lingered and bounced off the masonry walls. It was as beautiful a sound as I’d ever heard. It was hard to believe it was coming from me. Yet somehow I knew there was more to it than that.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> In late February 2002 I got a call from a filmmaker named Rick who had heard me sing at a concert in Upper Black Eddy, Pennsylvania a few years earlier. After he introduced himself, he said, “I’m doing a film on the healing power of music. I’d like you to be a part of it.” As he described his project my eyes filled-up with tears and my heart felt bigger in my chest. I felt as though I was being rescued. My son Forrest had died two weeks earlier. He was three-and-a- half. He’d been diagnosed with liver cancer when he was two. I was still in shock. His call reminded me that I would be ok.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> Two months later when his film was finished, Rick introduced me to a woman who’d lost her husband on 9-11. She was planning a concert at the Beacon Theater in New York City to thank the 2500 first-responders who had tried to find her husband in the rubble. Phoebe Snow, Beth Nielsen-Chapman, Delores Holmes, and I were asked to headline that event.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> A week before the concert, we were invited to Ground Zero. Escort vehicles and Port Authority Personnel who had worked in the pit for months met us at the upper gates. The clean-up had finally ended. It was July. The sun was bright and beginning to set. We climbed into police vehicles and drove into the deep, gray-white earth. The trip was slow and reverent. So many lives had been lost there. At the bottom one of the policemen told us to wander around to get a feel for the place. He wanted us to understand what they’d felt like down there. We took off one by one. It was a time for solitude and reflection. The ground was uneven and hard. I was aware that I was walking on bedrock. The 65-foot concrete walls that had supported the towers were sheer and covered with rusty cuts and scrapes. The subway tunnels looked like giant conduits that could empty into the vast concrete pool we were standing in. I felt like I’d drown if someone turned the water on. Stairwells led nowhere. A fine, moist dust from pulverized computers, phones, light fixtures, and everything else that had died there covered everything. It was silent despite the busy streets above us.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> When our group gathered again forty-five minutes later, Rick said, “do you think you could sing Grace for us?” I dropped my eyes to the ground and said yes.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> After a moment I took a shallow breath and started to hum. I looked over at Dolores and her sisters and encouraged them to join me. Once they were humming I took another breath and started the melody. I thought of Forrest and smiled. I looked around at everyone there, then looked up at the sky. I thought about the day the towers fell and all that had happened since then and I could feel my tears. Yet there I was singing, my body filled with joy and sorrow. How had all of this happened? How could it be that I was singing in this incredible place? Or that my song created with a Casio keyboard on a summer afternoon would be a comfort to people who had experienced such loss?</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> When the concert started the following week, the lights went down and the show began with a short film. The opening scene was of me singing Grace in the pit. I hadn’t realized I was being filmed. What I noticed as I watched was that the Port Authority policemen who had taken us down there were crying while I sang. These were men who would not have cried before 9-11. I call that Grace.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em><em><a href="/files/441958/grace-sweets-no-applause-mp3.mp3">Grace, from Sweets for the Soul mp3</a></em> </em>Click this link to hear "Grace." This version was recorded live at the Colony Cafe in Woodstock, NY, in June, 2002, around the time of this story.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><a class="image-link" href="https://www.facebook.com/barscot"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/8b62d9494a8dcfc0ee3aceb01f13fd74ab28b72b/original/unknown-1.png/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MzJ4MzIiXQ%3D%3D.png" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="32" width="32" /></a><span> </span><a class="image-link" href="https://twitter.com/?lang=en"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/301e51de0120f446948376857c0a5a6e8be9c9f7/original/unknown.png/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MzJ4MzIiXQ%3D%3D.png" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="32" width="32" /></a><span> </span><a class="image-link" href="https://www.youtube.com/user/barscottmusic?sub_confirmation=1"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/f559bddf2052e56e93c074b19c3e86cb3f3623e4/original/unknown.jpeg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MzJ4MzIiXQ%3D%3D.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="32" width="32" /></a><span> </span><a class="image-link" href="http://www.amazon.com/Present-Giver-Bar-Scott/dp/061544069X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1392237668&sr=1-1"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/b49261810ab6fbe478112cfcc1e8eb8a9de19690/original/unknown-2.png/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MzJ4MzIiXQ%3D%3D.png" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="32" width="32" /></a><span> </span><a class="image-link" href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Bar-Scott-the-Present-Giver?keyword=Bar+Scott+the+Present+Giver&store=allproducts"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/2848ed61c33c98e366bd0a162c2103a7e4557a35/original/rsz-unknown-2.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MzJ4MzIiXQ%3D%3D.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="32" width="32" /></a><span> </span><a class="image-link" href="http://www.pandora.com/bar-scott"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/3f2cc937ab26bba8137c6e72ec0b61a7a5c7349b/original/rsz-unknown-1.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MzJ4MzIiXQ%3D%3D.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="32" width="32" /></a></span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993614
2015-05-07T17:00:00-07:00
2019-12-05T11:05:15-08:00
To Friend or Not to Friend
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">We talk about Facebook a lot: whether to be on it or not, what to post, and what not to post. A friend of mine gets herself in trouble by posting political comments that are offensive to the people she loves most – like her children and siblings, many of which are on the other side of the political fence.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> What <em>I</em> worry about is the demise of the word ‘friend.’ To friend or not to friend, as though ‘friend’ were a verb rather than a person you know, love, and trust with secrets and intimate conversation. And the new word ‘unfriend’: another verb that removes the possibility of reconciliation, resolution, and forgiveness between two people. You say something I don’t agree with – as though that’s a measure of friendship – and, click, you’re not my friend anymore.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> What we do on Facebook is not friendship. It’s entertainment. It’s like going to a cocktail party and answering the question, “what’s up?” I think the word ‘friend’ is the problem. ‘Acquaintance’ would be more accurate. But Facebook founders knew the word ‘friend’ has power. All of us want friends. The more the merrier, right? And when we post something, isn’t it intoxicating to see how many of our friends ‘like’ what we’ve shared? Haven’t we all been longing for others to like us since we were very young?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> I finally got an iPhone about six months ago. I’d been putting it off to save a few bucks – actually a lot more than a few. I have a couple not-too-rigorous rules I try to follow with it: I don’t carry the phone everywhere I go especially in the house (although it’s sitting next to me at the moment); I don’t do email on Sunday (it could be any day but Sunday’s generally quieter so I choose Sunday to quit the world); and I never go to Facebook from my iPhone. I save that for my laptop. Last week when I was finally getting around to linking my phone to iTunes I inadvertently deleted my contacts. It occurs to me now that ‘contact’ would be a good word to use instead of ‘friend’ on Facebook: “I’m contacting you.” “I’m uncontacting you.” That would work, and there’d be a lot less hurt feelings.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> Yesterday I learned something about my phone that will help me with my songwriting. When new songs are beginning to grow I record snippets of things for months if not years before they form into workable ideas. The iPhone has an app called Voice Memo that I’ve started using to record melodies when they come to me. I had fifteen or so short recordings stored in my phone, but I didn’t know how to get them to the computer in my studio, and I didn’t want to jam up my phone’s memory by leaving them there. I tried e-mailing them to myself but that didn’t work. So I started pushing buttons knowing Apple had already solved this problem and I just had to figure it out. Sure enough, it’s easy to move my audio doodles to my Dropbox account, which I can then access from any of my devices anywhere there’s Wi-Fi. Most of you probably know this already, but for me it was a miracle and a revelation. I’m so excited about it that I can feel a batch of new songs coming on. That alone makes the iPhone worth it.</span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993613
2015-04-20T17:00:00-07:00
2019-12-05T11:05:15-08:00
Going Inward or Reaching Outward?
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">I read one and a half books this past weekend. The first was Lynda Barry’s <em>What It Is; </em>the other, the one I haven’t finished yet, is David Brooks’s <em>The Road to Character. </em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> My sister introduced me to Lynda. Amazing that I hadn’t heard of her before. She’s a cartoonist/illustrator/writer who does what I like to do: everything. She’s learned a lot about creativity by living, by creating, and, by teaching, observing, and caring about her students. She knows that if a person learns how to write (or draw, or grow a garden) they can use what they’ve learned to create in other forms. <em>What It Is </em>is one big collage of thoughts and instructions to get you to write, or more specifically, to tell your stories.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> Then there’s David Brooks. You may know David from his Op-Eds in <em>The New York Times</em>, or, if you’re like me, you enjoy the conversation he, Mark Shields and Judy Woodruff have on the PBS News Hour every Friday night. David is the Republican, Mark the Democrat, and Judy the neutral interviewer. Whenever I watch them I wish all political conversations were as smart and respectful as theirs. What a difference it would make! David’s book is about building a life based on how your resume will read VS how people would describe you at your funeral. Here’s how he puts it:</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> <em>“The resume virtues are the ones you list on your resume, the skills that you bring to the job market and that contribute to external success. The eulogy virtues are deeper. They’re the virtues that get talked about at your funeral, the ones that exist at the core of your being – whether you are kind, brave, honest or faithful; what kind of relationships you formed.</em>”</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> Reading the two books simultaneously has been provocative for me. On the one hand, Lynda is advocating for a person to go inward, find her art, tell her story; while Brooks is writing about how looking outward and doing service for others builds character. How do we find the balance?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"><em> </em>I’ve always felt that my job as a musician has been to create the most honest, beautiful, and moving work that I can. Making music or writing words, or even drawing a funny picture will hopefully serve others by lifting their spirits or giving that moment meaning.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> Writers like me are constantly asking our selves <em>who cares what I think? </em>It’s one of the great hurdles we have to cross to get our writing done. For me, stories and songs bring people together either one-to-one, or in groups. They place in humanity and assure us we’re not alone. That’s the job of artists. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> Service to others gives us place and meaning too. My tendency is to go inward and bring gifts back from that journey. For others, it’s more about reaching out and doing something directly for someone else. At first I worried there was a conflict until I realized there isn’t. </span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Two things that happened this week. The first: nature; the second in response to Lynda Barry's wonderful book:<br></span></p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"> <img src="http://www.barscott.com/img/Spring_Snow2.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="375" width="500" /> </p>
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<p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Maybe the caption should be "Bar's Mind is Busy"? </span></p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/0d003ad813b6d630718ef178d975c173cba6d295/original/billyyetbigger.jpeg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6NDAweDM4OCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="388" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></p>
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barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993612
2015-04-05T17:00:00-07:00
2015-04-13T01:41:37-07:00
Two Dogs
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">We live in the high desert valley between the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the west, and the Wet Mountains to the east. The distance between them is about 12 miles. The Sangres rise to 14, 000 feet, The Wets to about 12,000. We’re at 8,000. What that means is we live in a wind tunnel.</span></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">It’s not always windy, but this morning the wind is blowing hard. Trees are bending, and our dog, Tasha, is lying as close to me as she ever has. Her big brother Wally, a wolf-mix who looks threatening but isn’t, is curled up in the back of his kennel in the front hall. There’s no door on it so he’s free to come and go. When he’s cold or the wind is high he hides in there. At night, he takes himself to bed around 8:30. He feels safe in there even though you wouldn’t think he’d fit. When I reach in and scratch behind his ears before I go to sleep he hardly moves, but I know he likes it. I tell myself he’s waiting for me to say goodnight.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/4578f038a37c39071d71bc09a7345e3845682673/original/image.jpeg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MjIweDMyMCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="320" width="220" /></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Tasha snores. At night she sounds like the old girl she is. She’ll be ten this year. She sleeps in our room on a dog bed by the exterior door. She’s a huskie with a thick coat. I think she likes the cool air that seeps in from under the door. It’s a win-win situation because I like that she blocks the cold air. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/25e377ccfb9cb9941fd780814615ef9389b8c170/original/image.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MzIweDI0MiJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="242" width="320" /></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">In the early morning Wally comes in and quietly circles the bed to see that we’re still there. He doesn’t’ wake us up. He just checks. Then he goes back to bed. I hear his nails clicking on the ceramic tile, then the whole weight of him </span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">collapsing into the walls of his cave. He doesn’t come out again until he knows we’re awake. Then he gets up, circles the bed again and puts his nose up to our mouths to smell our breath. It’s a wolf thing. He doesn’t lick, he just smells, presumably to see if it’s still us in the bed. Tasha doesn’t move. By morning, she’s sprawled out with her head on the floor, her body on the dog bed. She stays put until she hears me putting a lead on Wally’s collar for our morning walk. She stands, stretches, waits a moment, then scampers out to join us. It’s a routine I can rely on. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993611
2015-03-29T17:00:00-07:00
2021-05-19T23:40:45-07:00
Leaving
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Philadelphia airport is quiet today. There are plenty of people around but no noise. Odd.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">I’m on my way back to my new home, which is worlds away from my original home in suburban Philadelphia. My parents are still here – healthy and well, playing tennis, climbing ladders (although if you’re reading this, ma, I hope you’ll stop RIGHT NOW!) and living in the same place I grew up in. I told a friend of mine once that my parents were coming to visit and she said <em>you mean, you like your parents?!</em> Her question confused me. <em>Of course I do, </em>I thought. Apparently she didn’t like her's so much.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">After I’d packed-up my suitcase full of books, I jerked it downstairs and into my car while my dad was distracted with something else. If I hadn’t, he would have done it himself. This is the kind of thing I worry about. Truth is, he’s capable of moving it, but I don’t want my suitcase to be the reason he topples over and breaks a hip. Yesterday I came into the kitchen and my mother (mid 80s) was on the top step of her kitchen ladder returning her best plates to the highest shelf of the cupboard. Seeing her there made me nauseous so I turned away and looked out the window instead. When I thought about it later, I thought, <em>well, would falling from a ladder be the worst way for things to end? She’s happy. She’s had a good, full, and inspiring life…</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><em> </em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">While I was home, I bought Roz Chast’s memoir called <em>Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant. </em>I was reading it in the living room one night with my parents across from me on either side of the fireplace. I was laughing so hard reading it that Da wondered what was so funny. I showed him the book and within minutes he was laughing too. That surprised me. Roz’s memoir is all cartoons that describe her relationship with her parents as they decline, move from their Brooklyn apartment of 50+ years, and into an assisted living place. It’s funny but it’s also not so funny. She makes the hard stuff easy to digest.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">When I got into my car to leave, my parents stood on the front porch watching me put on my sunglasses, start it up, and drive away. I waved enthusiastically as I pulled out, wanting to say I love you I love you I love you out loud, but the windows were closed and it’s also not the family style. 100 yards later I made a wrong turn because it was so hard to leave. I’m pretty sure I’ll see them again. They’re strong and full of life; but there are no guarantees. Truth of the matter is that my mom and my dad and all the people who have come from their marriage, are my favorite people in the world. </span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993610
2015-03-22T17:00:00-07:00
2019-12-05T11:05:15-08:00
Memoir
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">The annual Woodstock Writers Festival ended yesterday. The last panel on Sunday is always <em>Memoir a Go-Go</em> moderated by Martha Frankel, executive producer of the festival. Martha’s a writer herself. She wrote a memoir about her gambling addiction a few years back that I liked a lot. It’s called <em>Hats & Eyeglasses</em>.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> The memoirists on her panel included a psychic, a harem wife turned New York City mom with a rock star husband and an adopted son from Ethiopia, and a screen actress who loved and was loved by John Kennedy Jr. during college. Their stories were remarkable, of course, but what struck me about these women (including Martha) was that they’re not just writers, they’re healers, moms, producers, actresses too. Hearing their stories made me feel better. Sometimes I worry that the time I spend writing distracts me from my song writing and vice versa. I wonder if I can really do both. They made me feel like I can.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> When memoirists gather to talk about memoir one of the questions that always comes up is <em>how do I write about my family?</em> Someone always says <em>I don’t want to hurt the people I love. </em>Some people even worry about lawsuits or retribution and their fear stops them from even starting to write.The advice more experienced writers always give is <em>Write it anyway. You’ll edit later and deal with those people then.</em> We also talk about how even significant details in the same story can be different depending on who’s telling it. My friend Gail Straub describes how her sister responded to her memoir about their mother. They were close in age so they lived in the same house at the same time, yet her sister’s memory of what happened during a particular scene is entirely different So who’s right?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> For me, the memoir panel is always the most inspiring. I love hearing people’s stories. I love hearing what they say about how badly they needed to write and how they managed to do it when they had no time or what they thought was no talent. Mostly I love the feeling of being excited about my own writing. I want to get home as soon as I can and write my own story.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> At this moment, Dave Cook and I are in his studio in Saugerties, New York mixing a re-recorded version of my song “Heaven” for the third time. What I want to write about in a book, in a blog, wherever I can, is what a mix is, what it’s like to make music in a recording studio, why I’m mixing this one song so often, and how this and other songs I’ve written came to life to begin with. I want to tell anyone who will listen about the thrill I felt the first time I walked into a studio for the first time when I was twenty-one: all the blinking red lights, the leather couches, the dryer-sized tape machines in glass-enclosed closets on the far side of the control room, and the dreams coming to life in my heart. These are all things I’ve experienced and I want to share them; infect someone else with my excitement. This is memoir to me: one person bringing another into their world and turning them on.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> Right now I’m distracted and want to pay attention to every move Dave makes in the studio today. I’ll let you know when the songs are ready, and someday, with luck, I’ll let you know about the book.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Love,</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Bar</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">PS The writers on Martha's panel were Suzan Saxman, Christina Haag, and Jillian Lauren. </span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993609
2015-03-08T17:00:00-07:00
2019-12-05T11:05:15-08:00
Experiment Failed (or better: "Experiment Abandoned")
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">I woke up groggy this morning. The time change always does that to me. We went to bed at 9:30, but my body thought it was 8:30, so within 20 minutes I was back upstairs listening to music. Thankfully, the dogs woke up at what they thought was the normal time this morning, which meant I got to sleep-in a bit.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> We always take a long walk first thing. Today was like most days this time of year: sunny, dry, 22 degrees. That sounds cold but it doesn’t feel cold. There’s very little moisture and the sun is so hot that I only had to wear a thin winter coat and a hat I took off 10 minutes into our walk. The moon was hanging over the Sangres this morning, and the snow that fell last week is nearly gone on the floor of the valley, so spring is in the air. When we got home 45 minutes later, a large Robin was hopping around the aspen tree by our front door. She’s the first of the season looking for a place for her nest. I couldn’t help but feel the thrill of hope that comes with her. Maybe she’ll make her nest in our aspen? I could swear she’s the same bird who was here last year. Is that possible? I wish I knew.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> Last week I wrote about my 40-day experiment to let go of my dreams of making it in the music business. Let me say right off the bat that I’ve abandoned it. No harm done, but I’ve found it nearly impossible to do.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> One comment on my blog helped me to refine my thinking. The author said, “You already have a legacy, Bar, do whatever you want.” What a nice thing to say.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> But what’s the answer to doing whatever I want? The answer has been clear for years but I’ve never acted on it: I want to work with a producer who understands what my voice is capable of. To date, I’ve produced every recording I’ve done. There’s been plenty of help along the way, but there hasn’t been a person whose job it is to oversee the project, give advice, help pick songs, hire musicians, and push me to do even more with my voice. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very proud of my recordings. There are things I would have done differently, of course, and elements I’m not as proud of, but I feel good about what I’ve created. I’ve also known that my songs are one thing, and my voice is another.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> My songs are my Art. They’re poetry or canvas. They’re the world according to Bar, and not written for other singers to sing. They’re quirky and don’t give me opportunities to use my voice in directions I know it can go. In other words, my voice can do more than my songs allow. This is not a criticism. It’s just true.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> So my friend’s comment clarified the one dream I have that I don’t ever want to give up on: to do a recording that features my voice, and which involves an exceptional producer.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> An uncle of mine told me at the beginning of my career that I should throw my line out often, like a fisherman, and see what I can catch. I didn’t listen too well. I’ve spent more time working alone than asking for help when I’ve needed or wanted to. I’m excited to change my approach.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> I’ll keep you posted.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> Love,</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> Bar</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">PS Later today I realized the title for this should have been "Experiment Abandoned." It has a more hopeful ring to it!</span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993608
2015-03-01T16:00:00-08:00
2019-12-05T11:05:14-08:00
Experiment
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">A friend of mine has given up self-pity for Lent. What a useful idea! It got me thinking about what I could give up that would be helpful. I’ve been obsessed with the idea of giving up for a couple of years. Brent reminds me that most people my age go through a period of assessment. We’re asking questions about whether what we’ve been doing is what we want to continue to do, or at the very least, if we want to keep doing it the same way. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">When I moved to Colorado everything I’d been doing for 20 years stopped. I didn’t have a concert schedule, I didn’t have students to sing with, I didn’t have an audience, and I didn’t have the story I’d been living with to define me anymore. My sister-in-law, and probably lots of others, worried I wouldn’t thrive out here. What I experienced, though, was relief. I was anonymous, my weekends were my own, my husband loved doing things with me, and I was happier than I’d been in a long time. After a while, though, an undercurrent began to bubble up. Without performance and students I wasn’t sure who I was. I didn’t know my purpose. And I didn’t know what my life meant. The hardest questions were (and continue to be) if I’m not singing for others than what’s the point of singing? If all I want is the ego gratification of singing for others, what does that say about me? And, if I come to the conclusion that it’s ok for me to want an audience, how am I going to get it and what is the goal? In other words: am I still trying to “make it” in the music business, or is singing for my friends occasionally enough?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">I started dreaming about singing professionally in my late twenties, but I had no clue how to get started. I moved to New York City when I turned thirty, then pretty much hid in my apartment because being in the city was terrifying. I didn’t know anyone in the music business, I didn’t have any experience, and I had no plan. All I knew was I wanted to sing. I thought that my wanting to sing combined with the strength of my voice would add up to a career.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Getting somewhere in the music business is like a narcotic: you get a little taste and you want more. With every success I eventually had, I wanted more. When I moved to Colorado and my professional life stopped, I was acutely aware of how much my ego was involved in my need to make it. What I wanted to know was what it would feel like to make music without attention to my ego, without needing my ego to be satiated. What I found out is it’s impossible. My ego is alive and well and needs to be fed just like everyone else’s. What I’ve been trying to learn these last few years is how to balance my need to make music with my need to make it in the music business.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">So when Michele told me about giving up self-pity, I told her I was experimenting with giving up in general. I’d been toying with the idea of giving up my dreams for the whole of 2015 just to see what it would feel like. But a year-long commitment was daunting. What if giving up my dreams meant I was dying? I didn’t want to do that. Or maybe it meant I would lose whatever professional momentum I still have? Forty days seemed reasonable. I could give up dreaming for forty days, no problem. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Normally when I sit down to write, or when I sit at the piano or sing, I immediately get caught up in the possibilities of what could happen if I were to do such and such: <em>Maybe I should be singing the blues, or jazz, maybe that’s what I’m meant to do? </em>Or <em>maybe I’ll take piano lessons and practice for hours a day so I can do what Eva Cassidy did, that would work! </em>Or <em>I’d love to finish that book about my songs. There are stories to tell, if I could write them, maybe package the book with a CD, then maybe a publisher would sign me up! </em>It’s not the ideas that are draining me. I love all that. It’s the constant need to make it, to be something more, to get myself on the map. A good friend of mine once confessed to me that she couldn’t stand the idea of not being special. I can’t stand it either. The idea of getting to the end of my life without being a songwriter whose songs are listened to thirty years from now, or whose picture goes unnoticed when the obituary is published, or whose writing is simply average, I don’t like those thoughts. Yet there’s relief in giving up. There’s relief in not trying to make it anymore. So what do I do?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">And that’s what this experiment is all about. What <em>do </em>I do when I’m not striving to be more? What’s my day look like? How do I feel?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Turns out I like it. I sleep better, I get more done, I’m easier to live with, and I’m enjoying myself a lot more. Last weekend I even allowed myself to sit and watch <em>Foyle’s War </em>for six hours straight without a moment of high-mindedness or anxiety. Wow! Whenever thoughts of how to make an idea commercially viable come into my head, I ease them out of my mind just like my friend lets go of self-pity. The thoughts come in, then I do my best to set them free.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">Love, Bar</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">*Because I </span><em style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">am</em><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"> writing a book about my songs, and I do want to finish it some day, songs that are relevant to the ideas in this blog are: "Ah ha ha" and "Running Away" </span><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">(from</span> </span><em style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Journey) and "Up on the Hill" (</em><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">from</span><em style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> confession). </em><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;">If you're reading this and you have questions about my songs, ask away. You'll be helping me form my thoughts for the book. (Am I dreaming again??)</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><span style="font-size: medium; font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/5cc218764b95d143ddd8a95ba8ddfff0657bd8cc/original/journey-for-real.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MzMweDIxNyJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="217" width="330" /> <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/397122/f61b8ed1c35f80fd5af15ef28d0d2162c634c77f/original/originaljourney.jpeg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MTkyeDIxNyJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="" height="217" width="192" /> <br>(a coincidence?)</span></span></p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993607
2015-02-22T16:00:00-08:00
2015-02-23T07:28:44-08:00
Snow and the Kitchen Sink
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Winter has finally come to Colorado. Early this morning our driveway had over a foot of new snow on it. The ploughs that cleared the street before I’d woken up, left a higher, more solid pile at the end of the driveway. I looked at it, shovel in hand, and wasn’t in the mood. I don’t mind shoveling most of the time, but those big frozen piles are daunting. My first scoop got me pretty much nowhere. There was a lot of snow and it was going to take a while. The second and third scoops were just as discouraging. I was reminded of the kitchen sink as the silverware piles up. We don’t have a dishwasher so I scrub every utensil we use by hand. Plates and pots don’t bother me. They go fast enough and there’s a certain satisfaction in getting them done. But just when I’m ready to quit, my back tired from bending over, I see the pile of peanut butter-covered spoons, greasy butter knives, and the perforated spoon we to pull poached eggs out of boiling water and I know I have to wash them. I look at the pile and wonder where to start. I pick up a spoon, wash it, drop it in the neighboring sink to rinse, then pick up another spoon, then a fork. Before too long, everything is washed. The job is done.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> It’s the same with the snow. Shoveling is hard work. It’s tough on my back and my aching wrist, but I get it done, one scoop at a time. </span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993606
2015-02-17T16:00:00-08:00
2019-12-05T11:05:14-08:00
My New Website!
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Twice in the last couple of years I’ve asked very capable people to build a new website for me; a site I could manage myself after the basic architecture was in place. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a clue how difficult it was to put a site together that involved music. When my friend Martha suggested I move to HostBaby because their templates were designed for musicians, I took a look. It’s still taken me a year to have the guts to start over again. A template is fine, but there’s still a ton of work that goes into making a website function well.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Please look around. Buy a single or two. Sign up on my email list if you’re inclined. Look at the store – there’s lots more going on there now. See if everything works the way it should. If not, let me know. Thank you as always for searching me out, for listening, and for all the support you give. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Love, Bar </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"></span><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">PS The picture of me in the banner was taken by my husband, Brent. I was making origami Flutterbyes at the time (see my store if you’re curious). It’s the only shot I had of myself that fit horizontally and didn’t clash with the bird picture behind it. The bird picture I took in the fall. When I saw it in my viewfinder it reminded me of me. </span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993605
2015-02-11T16:00:00-08:00
2015-02-17T07:39:36-08:00
The Speed of Things
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Every so often I get an email or a card from someone who encourages me to keep writing my blog. This morning I got one of that said, “I miss your blogs.” Saturday someone else called to ask if their name had been taken off my list because they hadn’t heard from me for a while. There are lots of reasons for not writing these last few months. I don’t know about you but the speed and quantity of information we’re all dealing with shuts my circuits down pretty regularly. I still haven’t figured out how to sort my emails so that the ones I need to respond to don’t get so far down the list that I forget they’re there. One friend invited us for dinner a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t respond because I needed to check dates with my husband first, then forgot to write her back. I remembered in the middle of the night a week later. It’s a crummy feeling. This morning I thought maybe I’d start a file labeled “Answer” where I’d put emails that need attention quickly. But then I’d have to remember to do it, and check it on some kind of regular basis. Better, I think, to answer right away.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">About a year ago I made a decision to turn my devices off on Sundays and holidays. Truth is, email has become work. There’s so much of it that just sorting through it to delete things takes a lot of time. But there are supposed to be days when we don’t work. I don’t know how long humans have scheduled a Sabbath, but I don’t think we should skip it lightly.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">I finally got an iphone a few months ago, which means I’m more or less on-call unless I turn it off. I don’t want to be on-call. I don’t want to have to respond the moment someone has a question for me. On the other hand, if my decisions or input are needed quickly in order for someone else to make their own plans, well then, I do want to respond punctually. I want to be respectful not hyper alert. Sometimes my response is to ignore it all so I don’t have to fret about it. My guess is you know what I’m talking about.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">An older student of mine told me yesterday that her mother-in-law once said a long time ago, “I don’t know what you young people are going to do with all these cars. It’s gonna change everything. It’s all happening too fast.” Of course she was right. I feel the same way about communication technology: It’s all going too fast! I’m excited about it but it makes me feel old. I simply can’t (and don’t want to) keep up.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">The question is if I’m not going to keep up, how do I expect to make a living selling music? My livelihood depends on me understanding digital music distribution. In order to be successful, I have to know how to get my songs onto people’s devices and that they’ve paid for it. The challenge exhausts me. I keep thinking there’s a business opportunity for young people who can help old farts like me keep up. Next week 3 students at the local high school are meeting to talk with me about just that. They’ve taken me on as a business project in their finance class. Hallelujah! I’m not sure what they’ll come up with but I’m excited to find out.</span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993604
2014-11-02T16:00:00-08:00
2015-02-17T07:38:39-08:00
Devices
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">On my walk this morning I thought of a couple of things I’d like to write about. Now that I’m at my computer I can’t remember. That’s the way things are these days.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">To piece my memory back together, it’s helpful to remember what I was doing when I thought of things to write about. This morning I was walking the dogs. The mountains were covered with snow and clouds were hiding the peaks. I had my camera in one pocket and my new iPhone in the other. I thought to take a picture on the phone, so I did. Even tweeted it because I could. The limitations of Twitter allowed me to simply say “good morning” with my photo. It <em>was</em> a good morning. Quiet and still as it always is here.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Now I remember what I wanted to write about: devices.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">As of this week, I have an iMac, a Kindle, a MacBook Air, a Nikon point ’n’ shoot, and an iPhone. I use my iMac for things creative – recording, writing, and photography – and my Macbook for email and business. I read on the Kindle, and I’m just learning what I’ll do with my iPhone. What I wanted to write about are two rules I’ve put in place so my devices don’t consume me:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">1) I don’t do email on Sunday, and I don’t do email after dinner. The most important reason for this rule is that I don’t want to make myself available in every moment. I’m trying to slow things down not speed things up.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">2) I practice the piano or do my writing before I check email in the morning. Better to do the things I love before I do the things that burn through time.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">The addition of an iPhone has made following my own rules more challenging. What do I do about texts that come in on Sunday? Texts are messages that want a quick response. And when I’m checking a text and I see there’s an email or two, do I check them too? Same with the phone: do I answer it on Sunday or do I not? If I do, I’ll see the texts and I’ll see the emails. And what about an email ping that comes in when I’m practicing the piano and my iPhone is also my metronome? Do I read it? Do I wait?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">In the last few years I’ve come to believe that the only messages I can’t afford and don’t want to miss are ones from my parents, my siblings, and my closest friends. Business emails can wait, deleting junk can wait, sales can wait, and the DNC can wait. In short, most emails can wait. I used to think I had to check all the time so I wouldn’t miss opportunities. Age and the facts of my life have proven otherwise. Now I tell myself that if something important is on the horizon, the opportunity will last longer than the time it takes me to check email. If it can’t, I probably don’t want to do it anyway.</span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993603
2014-10-19T17:00:00-07:00
2015-02-17T07:37:40-08:00
Creative Work
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Every Wednesday morning, my friends Doris and Nicole and I meet by phone to do some writing. We call in to our conference call website at 7:30 a.m., one of us gives a prompt, we hang up, write for 20 minutes, then call back for a 40-minute conversation about what we’ve written. We read our pieces to one another then talk about issues that came up, or offer advice for how to expand or edit the writing.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">A prompt can be a phrase or an idea that’s meant to inspire writers in a new way. We use them a lot in writing workshops. The best part about them is the time constraint. The writer is forced to think quickly, and more importantly, not to over-think the things that come immediately to mind. I’ve found over the years that some of my best writing comes out of these quick assignments.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Nicole, Doris and I have learned that being the person who gives the prompt is hard. Not only do you have to come up with something inspiring (pretty much anything, but there’s that nagging insecurity we all deal with), but you don’t have the advantage of <em>not</em> having thought about it before the meeting. Nicole came up with a great solution: She’s keeping a list of possible prompts that she’s numbered. Doris or I will pick a number and that’s the prompt for the day. Nicole is almost as unprepared as we are and writes just as easily.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">A prompt might be:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Look out the window and describe what you see (Doris). What I saw was that our Husky, Tasha, had pooped out there and I needed to pick it up. I also wrote about the new, bigger Anderson windows we’d put in and how the extra light was making a difference in my life.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Or:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Nicole’s prompt based on a Annie Dillard quote about feeling both the sublime and the absurd simultaneously – a quote I can’t remember, but which caused me to write about wanting to find the balance more often.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Or:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">The hour I first believed, (mine) which could be about pretty much anything. For me it was remembering the moment when I knew for sure that I had the ability and the power to change my point of view (from distraught to accepting, for example) by simply choosing to. I’d proven it to myself over and over again (but not as often as I would like!)</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Last night I finished a book that my kindle somehow knew I needed to buy called <em>The War of Art</em> by Steven Pressfield. He’s not a touchy-feely, soft-spoken kind of guy. He gets right to the point about what it takes to write well (or sing well, or build a business well, or design a dress that you’re proud of): Work. Practice. A ruthless commitment to the hours that must be spent to increase the odds of accomplishing what it is you want to accomplish. Saying no to everything that keeps you from doing the work you need to do. It’s an in-your-face book and very good for me to read right now because while I write with Nicole and Doris every week, and in between whenever there’s a spare moment, what I’m mostly doing with my time is playing the piano. Every day. Three or four hours a day, and I wish I had more time to play. I’m learning scales and arpeggios and playing simple notated pieces that a much younger player would normally play, and sure enough I’m getting better. I use a metronome while I practice so my sense of rhythm is improving, and I finally know almost for sure what flats and sharps are in the major keys. Six weeks ago, I could have figured it out but I hadn’t done the work. As long as I get my hours in every morning my conscience is clear. I’m free to do all the other things I love to do, and the things I have to do. I’ve thought about and talked about wanting to learn this stuff for years, and it’s finally happening!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Life <em>is</em> good.
</span><br><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> Love to you all,
</span><br><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> Bar</span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993602
2014-09-03T17:00:00-07:00
2015-02-17T07:36:14-08:00
Practice
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">A week ago, I took my first official piano lesson in Denver. I’d studied violin as a kid, and I sang in choirs through high school, so I know how to read treble clef, but my piano playing has all been learned by ear. I’ve known for a long time that there were massive chunks of music theory that I didn’t know, and even more about playing the piano I was missing, but I’ve resisted asking for help thinking my songs would be purer if I followed my instincts.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Life has a way of waking me up every now and then. Leaving Woodstock, leaving my musician friends and my musical life behind, starting a new life in a wholly different place and culture without the support I’d grown used to, has been hard. When I finished <em>Journey </em>a few months ago, I thought perhaps I was done with music; that I’d done all I could and it was time to give up. There doesn’t seem to be any clear reason for continuing in a professional way. There is very little audience where I live, I’m 56 and not anxious to get in my car to do a show in a coffee shop on the other side of the state. At a friend’s party the other night where 20 or so musicians were playing together, calling out tunes they all knew, I was too shy to join in; too aware that the only songs I know are my own. It’s like confessing you’re illiterate after a life time of fooling people. I couldn’t join in because I didn’t know how.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Thankfully, my new friends could care less what I sound like. They handed me a guitar and said, “just play.” One guy stood next to me and let me follow his hands. It was the first time I’d jammed with others on other people’s songs and it was a blast.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">On the way home, I knew what I had to do. I needed to understand my instruments. I wanted to be able to look at a piece of music and play it, and I wanted to play with others when opportunities presented themselves.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">So, I’m playing scales on the piano for the first time. It’s very slow. I’ve learned C major, and I’m working on F, Bb and Eb. I’ve committed to playing at least 2 hours a day. This morning I played for 3. I’ve already learned that if I sit at the piano too long my hands, shoulders, wrists and legs will ache in the end, so I set a timer. Every 45 minutes I get up, do some yoga, drink some water then sit back down. I don’t know where it’s all headed. I’m not even sure there has to be a goal. I feel like a rubik’s cube that’s falling into place. No doubt my stronger left hand and the more complex chords it’s learning to play, will change the way I write. It’s nice to be excited about that rather than too proud to allow it.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">PS This is what I see every morning: my mom’s childhood piano that I had rebuilt in 2005. It’s a Steinway M originally built in 1917. It’s by far my most favorite possession.</span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993601
2014-06-16T17:00:00-07:00
2021-04-30T00:54:07-07:00
Reality Check
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">I’m a big fan of a book called <em>Art and Fear</em>, written by David Bayles and Ted Orland. Whenever I lead a workshop I inevitably read from their book to writers or songwriters who come to my house to work on their art. Last week was no exception. There were four of us here – all struggling (and succeeding) in different ways.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Here are the questions David and Ted start their book with:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"><em>How does art get done? Why, often, does it </em>not<em> get done? And what is the nature of the difficulties that stop so many who start?</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">They describe how in modern times, artists are not shored-up the way they were in the past – by the Church, for instance, their clan, or by ritual dances, chants, and songs that were integral to the clan one belonged to. The lack of support artists feel these days has consequences. Here’s an example of something I could read to writers in my living room. You might imagine them nodding their heads in understanding:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"><em>Today almost no one feels shored up. Today artwork does not emerge from a secure common ground… Making art now means working in the face of uncertainty; it means living with doubt and contradiction, doing something no one much cares whether you do, and for which there may be neither audience nor reward. Making the work you want to make means setting aside these doubts so that you may see clearly what you have done, and thereby see where to go next. Making the work you want to make means finding nourishment within the work itself. </em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Whenever I read this book, I’m comforted. It’s nice to know that others can put words to the feelings I have. It helps me carry on with the work I love.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">I was watching John Stewart last night. I tend to mute the commercials, but I have trouble taking my eyes off the screen even without the sound. It’s intoxicating and I’m curious what’s for sale. It occurred to me for the umpteenth time that what I’m selling isn’t what the broader population is buying. We’re inundated with the slickest, fastest, sexiest everything. But I’m not interested in being slick or fast. And sexiness is a private issue at my age. But I was born here, and I’ve grown up thinking my worth as an artist has to do with popularity, that if I could just get a hit single or a virus going on youtube or Facebook, that my work would be validated.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">But then Ted and David come back into my thoughts:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"><em>In the past few centuries, Western art has moved from unsigned tableaus of orthodox religious scenes to one-person displays of personal cosmologies. “Artist” has gradually become a form of identity, which (as every artist knows) often carries with it as many drawbacks as benefits. Consider that if artist equals self, then when (inevitably) you make flawed art, you are a flawed person, and when (worse yet) you make no art, you are no person at all.</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Strong words, and worth thinking about.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">A friend of mine called last week. She’s a musician too and understands how it feels to finish a project that the world hardly notices. She said something like, “it breaks my heart to think that this music of yours isn’t being heard.” I was glad to hear her empathy. She’s worked hard over the years too. Then I read this:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"><em>But until your ship comes in, the only people who will really care about your work are those who care about you personally. Those close to you know that making the work is essential to your wellbeing. They will always care about your work, if not because it is great, then because it is yours – and this is something to be genuinely thankful for.</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">And I am.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> </span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">PS: You can find <em>Art and Fear: Observations on The Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking</em> at <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_2_12?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=art+and+fear+observations+on+the+perils+and+rewards+of+artmaking&sprefix=Art+and+Fear%2Cstripbooks%2C273">Amazon </a>or by ordering it from your local bookseller. For those of you who make art (and for me, all that takes is getting out of bed in the morning) I highly recommend you buy a copy.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">And if you’re wondering what prompted what I’ve written here this morning, I’ve attached my first royalty statement for <em>Journey – </em>the one that would normally be the biggest; the one I was more or less waiting for. At first, I was sort of stunned, then I laughed because it’s so pathetic, then I was thrilled to see that people were listening in Mexico and Europe. Mostly, though, I’m sharing it to educate. I figure the more you know, the more you’ll support the musicians and artists you love. Thank you!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">$14.65 for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Apple iTunes
$4.28<br></span><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through eMusic
$1.16 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Rhapsody
$0.59 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through iTunes-Mexico
$0.11 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Spotify
$0.10 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Spotify
$0.09 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through iTunes Match – Americas
$0.08 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Rhapsody
$0.07 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Spotify
$0.05<br> for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Spotify
$0.05 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Spotify
$0.05 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Spotify
$0.05 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Spotify
$0.04 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Simfy
$0.04 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through 24-7
$0.04 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Spotify
$0.04 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through iTunes Match – Americas
$0.04 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Spotify
$0.04 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Spotify
$0.04 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Spotify
$0.03 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Spotify
$0.02<br> for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Simfy
$0.02 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Spotify
$0.02 f<br>or DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Spotify
$0.02 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Spotify
$0.02<br> for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Spotify
$0.02 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Spotify
$0.01 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Simfy
$0.01 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Mondia Media
$0.01 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Deezer
$0.01 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through iTunes Match – Europe
$0.01 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Spotify
$0.01 <br>for DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION SALES through Spotify</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">I think the total was something like $21.82
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Oh my.</span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993600
2014-06-09T17:00:00-07:00
2021-04-13T21:46:21-07:00
Maddie, Addie, and the woman across the Street
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">I love when writers are here. Every summer for the last four, writers from around the country have spent a week at our house. We usually have three teachers and three separate workshops. This summer, though, it’s just me, and three others. They’re here on retreat. I’m just serving breakfast and dinner. They make their own lunch. In between, they write. And for an hour (nearly two this morning) we talk about writing until we’re ready to go off to our corners and type.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">A few minutes ago I went outside to get the dogs who were sleeping in the pen outside my window. While I was out there, Maddie and Addie came over to say hello. They live across the street. They’re sisters who were adopted from a Russian orphanage. They’re not related by blood, just luck. Maddie is Madeline, Addie is Adeline. It’s taken me six months to consistently remember which one is which. They often come over when I’m outside. It used to be that Maddie, the older one by 8 months, would sit on our front lawn splicing pieces of grass, or she’d bounce her volleyball in the middle of the street as though she hoped someone would come along. Just after another seventh-grader at their school shot himself in April, I saw her batting her volleyball into the air over and over again, so I went out. All I said was, “It’s been a tough week, hasn’t it?” and she mumbled “yeah.” We hit the ball back and forth for half-an-hour and both felt better for it.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Last week, Brent bought a basketball hoop so the neighborhood kids would have a place to play. There are only four kids on our street, but Brent likes to play too, and my brother-in-law is coming to visit in a few weeks. Now that there’s a hoop, Maddie is more confident about coming over. Addie’s tougher. She comes and goes whenever she feels like it. My being there has nothing to do with it. Today I told them I couldn’t play because I was writing. They look confused. They thought I said “riding” and they wondered where our horses were. I laughed, spelled out w-r-i-t-i-n-g, then told them there were three writers inside and that the four of us were taking the whole week to do as much writing as we could. “How much do you have to write?” Maddie asked. “We don’t have to write anything,” I said, “but we’re all working on books so we’ll write as much as we can.” She still looked confused. “What? Are you telling stories? Are you making things up?” Addie asked. “We’re all writing some kind of memoir,” I said, “so we’re not making things up, we’re writing about something that’s happened to us.” “How long are you going to write?” Maddie asked. “I’m going to write until dinner,” I said. Another confused look. Maddie started dribbling the ball, wandered away, then told me a bunch of things including the fact that she’s dying to see the inside of our house (like now would be good.) She knows we have a ping-pong table and a piano, and a dog who howls when the EMS sirens go off. Our windows are open so she hears everything.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">My friend Cathy told me a story last week: When she was thirteen-ish she spent an afternoon with the woman who lived across the street. She doesn’t remember why she was there, but she knows the woman changed her life. She emphasized the word ‘literally’. The woman told her about how she’d gotten pregnant at a young age, how she’d been trying to quit smoking for ages but just couldn’t, how she’d had to leave high school and wished she hadn’t. All afternoon the woman spoke to Cathy as though she was a person, not a twit. Not a burden. Not a chore. When Cathy left, she felt good and she’s never forgotten it. She realized even then that she wanted to be like that woman. She wanted to treat people like they mattered. She wanted to feel like she mattered.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">I could have the same impact on Maddie or Addie. I don’t want to over-think it or dramatize it, but I do want to honor the chance I’ve been given.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">At this moment, they’re out on our driveway shooting baskets. Addie wanted to know if I’d lower the basket so it would be easier to sink her shots. I told her yesterday we’d be raising the goal from where it is now – seven feet – to the eight foot standard for junior high school girls. She squinched up her face like she’d been given liver for dinner. “If you’re gonna play next year,” I said, “you’ve gotta start shooting at the right height.” She didn’t want to hear that. She wants to make baskets now.</span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993599
2014-05-15T17:00:00-07:00
2015-02-17T07:28:40-08:00
Part Two of How Much it Cost to Make Journey
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"><em>(If you haven’t read Part One, you might want to scroll down to the next post and read it first)</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">I recently taught a couple of Personal Finance classes at the local high school. The teacher wanted me to talk to her students about how the music business works, so I choose one of my songs (“Heaven”) and explained how it was recorded, how much it cost to record it, and all the ways a single 4-minute piece of music can generate income.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Midway through the second class one of the students asked why making a Jennifer Lopez CD costs so much more than making one of mine? I’d used her career as an example of how it looks when a record company is behind a project VS how it looks for an independent artist. A related question might have been, <em>can you make a CD for less?</em> If I use <em>Journey</em>’s budget I can give you a pretty good answer.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Let’s take the first category: <em>Musicians</em>. In the case of <em>Journey</em>, there were five musicians involved: Lou Pappas (bass), Manuel Quintana (drums and percussion), Gary Burke (drums on two songs), me (I played piano, guitar, and sang all the vocals), and Peter Tomlinson (who played additional guitars, accordion, and some percussion). Musicians have different ways of charging for recording sessions. Some charge per song; some, per hour or per day. The rate a musician charges varies a lot. For someone like me, since there’s no major record label underwriting the project, a musician might charge $100 to $300/song, or, $25-$100/hour depending on how much they like the music, or, how confident they are about their fee. A major label artist would get paid considerably more than that.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Why, you might ask, do they get paid that much when it’s only a 4-minute song? Surely it can’t take that long. But it does. Each part of a 4-minute song can take 2 – 3 hours or more to record. That’s because often the musician has never heard the song before. They get to the studio, they have to set up (it may take an hour to set the mics, get the sound right, settle in, etc), then they hear the song for the first time, they listen to the producer’s ideas about what s/he’d like the musician to play, then rehearsals begin, re-evaluations, different approaches, until the final melody or groove is decided. Then the musician records until they get a final take. A rule of thumb is that better players take less time to record, so they’re more inclined to charge per song. They know they’ll work fast and make more than if they charged an hourly fee.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Usually a recording project begins with the rhythm section, which includes the drummer, bass player, and often a guitarist or pianist. The players in the rhythm section are recorded simultaneously and establish the feel of the song. Every musician who’s recorded afterwards (which we call over-dubbing, or multi-tracking) plays along with the rhythm section’s tracks. They do this by listening to those tracks through headphones and playing along. Unless a CD is recorded live (few are) over-dubbing is the way records are made – one part at a time after the basic tracks are laid down. For each part that’s played, time is consumed. And when time is consumed, costs go up. Jennifer Lopez’s CDs generally involve more musicians. More players means more time which makes it more expensive.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">In <em>Journey</em>’s budget you may have noticed that Peter Tomlinson and I have not gotten paid even though we did 80% of the work. That’s just the way it is with independent artists. Someone like Jennifer Lopez is always paid. Her record company supports her, and her costs are part of the overall budget. Peter and I have our own studios so we’re able to do a lot of the recording for “free.” (Ignoring the fact that both of us have about $10,000 worth of recording equipment, which we’ve paid for over the years). The cost of equipment is another reason why my record is cheaper than Jennifer’s. The studios she’s recording in charge $150 – $250/hour, whereas I’ve done the bulk of my recording in my home studio with no hourly fee attached. In addition, the studios she uses have multiple engineers, catering, accommodations, and considerably more recording gear in them. For example, the microphone I use to record my vocals (A Neumann T108) costs about $1,000. Her microphone, whatever it is, might cost $5k, and that’s just one microphone. If you’ve never seen a professional recording studio, I can assure you it’s thrilling. There are racks and racks of gizmos and toys that an engineer can send a musical signal through to get the sound you hear on a final recording. All that gear costs money, (lots) which means the hourly cost of a studio goes up accordingly.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">For <em>Journey</em>, I needed to pay for studio time on 6 days. The total bill for those days was $4250. That included re-recording the rhythm tracks for two songs, final mixing, and mastering. In the music business, this is a low budget recording. There aren’t a lot of ways to make it cheaper except to call in all the favors you can, record faster, (which would change the outcome considerably) and resist printing hard copies (which a lot of independent artists are doing). If you don’t manufacture CDs, you don’t have the expense of artwork, duplication, postage or shipping, but for me, not having a CD feels unfinished. So I spend the money so that 350 people have something to hold in their hands. And I have no doubt that it’s worth it to me despite the unit cost for each.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Finally, the primary difference between an artist on a major record label and me is that they have a large marketing budget, plus a team of people whose job it is to make sure that record is sold and sold big. That’s the main reason Jennifer’s record costs more than mine. The difference for me is that I get to make records when I want to and how I want to and that’s worth every thing to me.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">I hope this has been helpful. I love your questions, so if I haven’t answered them, please be in touch. I’ll do my best.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Bar</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">PS Earlier today I had lunch with a friend who’d read the first part of this blog. When we sat down, she asked the question any sane person would ask after seeing a budget like <em>Journey</em>’s: why bother? We laughed because I’ve thought about that a million times. Yet here I am, doing it because I love it, and because it’s what I do, and because people write to tell me what my music has done for them, and that’s the point.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">This entry was posted in <a href="http://barscott.com/category/uncategorized/">Uncategorized</a> on <a href="http://barscott.com/part-two-cost-make-journey/">May 16, 2014</a>.</span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993598
2014-05-14T17:00:00-07:00
2022-02-06T05:42:45-08:00
How'd the Fund Raiser Go?
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Last week a friend of mine asked how the fundraiser for my new CD had gone, which led me to describe the overall cost of the project. She was surprised by the numbers. Most people are. I told her I’d been thinking about writing the piece you’re reading now because I enjoy telling people how recordings are made and what they cost. I’ve always thought there’s a benefit to sharing the details. My hope is that people will understand why a copy of music (in the form of a CD or digital download) costs what it does, why it’s important to buy it (rather than share it*), and why I’m so grateful when my friends, family, and fans are willing to pay a little extra to help me get my work done.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">*This may sound like a contradiction because it is: I like people to share my music. That’s because I don’t have much of an advertising budget, so when you share, there’s a chance your friend will go to iTunes or my website and see what else I’ve got. Lots of times your friends will buy another CD or song of mine, which is good. If you share my music, I hope you’ll encourage people to do that.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Because most people buy digital downloads these days, I’ve only printed 350 hard copies. That’s about 2700 fewer copies than I’ve made of previous CDs. I tell you this because the total below will need to be divided by 350 to get a unit price for each physical CD. Here’s a list of the costs associated with Journey:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Musicians: (other than me and Peter Tomlinson) $1500
Mixing/Mastering $2600
Additional Studio Time (not my studio, that is) $1000
Artwork/Print Lay-out $1400
Duplication $1350
Bar Codes $200
Advertising (print and direct mailing) $800
Shipping Envelopes $100
Postage for shipping $600
Fund Raising Costs (materials for things I made to raise money) $175
T-shirts $290
Website (redesign to support fund raiser) $400
CD Release Concert (food, wine, misc) $160
Photography (promo headshots of me) $300
Travel (two trips to NY including food, rental cars, expenses) $1200</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Total: $12,075</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">So, when I divide $12, 075 (rounded to $12,000) by 350 (the number of CDs I printed), I get $34.28/CD. Ouch! So until the CD is in the black, each time I sell a copy for $15, I’m paying $19.28 to ensure that the buyer hears my music. It’s not a good business model!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">On the income side, I’ve raised $7400, which is good, but not enough to pay off the debt without printing more CDs. In other words, I’m hopeful that a lot of people will download the CD on iTunes.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Here’s the math on that: I work with a company called CDBaby. I sent them a copy of Journey which they’ve distributed to all the digital outlets they have relationships with including iTunes. CDBaby is my agent and toll collector. Every time someone buys one of my songs or a copy of the whole CD on-line, they take a cut then deposit the rest in my bank account. You pay .99 cents for a song, I get half of that; you pay $9.99 for the whole CD, I get about $4.70. Not bad considering I’m just sitting at home. When I get my statement from CDBaby every month, there are a lot of other bits and pieces of income too. Other digital outlets only pay 6 cents or 11 cents per song. Those are distributors that don’t charge the consumer anything to listen, so my royalty is based on their advertising income rather than on a purchase from a consumer. It adds up, but slowly.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">So that gives you a ballpark idea of how things go for an independent musician like me. If you’re interested, I’ll be posting more details on my website in the next week or so. I’ll include things like: how many hours it took to record the 34 minutes of music that make up Journey, why it takes that long, how musicians get paid, how much studio time costs, what’s mastering, etc. Stay tuned. And thanks as always for your support.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Bar</span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993597
2014-04-14T17:00:00-07:00
2015-02-17T07:25:31-08:00
The Truth About What I Want
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Yesterday, two journalists from the local newspaper came by to interview me about a concert I’m doing next weekend. When they left, I thought of all the things I wished I’d said and all the things I wished I’d said better. One of the questions Jillian asked was, “What do you want from this CD?” I’m not sure how I answered her, but later I thought: I want people to hear it and I want them to like it.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">But if I’m honest with myself, not only do I want them to like it, I want to hear about it. If they’re like me, though, they won’t listen right away. They’ll listen when they have time or when it feels right, which may be weeks or even months from now. By then, I’ll have moved on. The songs will no longer be the only thing on my mind. My excitement will have worn off. I won’t be as needy by then. And that’s a good thing.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">After Jillian and Jill left, I realized another thing: I want people to be interested too. Having the two of them here asking questions about how I write, or why I write, was a gift to me. I wondered, <em>am I so self involved that all I want to do is talk about my work?</em> <em>Is it really that interesting? </em>And the answer is, <em>yes, to me, it is.</em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">So I ask myself, <em>Is the point of creating to be interesting to oneself or to be interesting to others? </em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">And I think it’s both. Most artists want both. Most people want both.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> <em>PS Needless to say, if you want to write, please do! </em></span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993596
2014-03-30T17:00:00-07:00
2015-02-17T07:24:10-08:00
The Beach
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">I love walking on the beach. My thoughts go all over the place: From the opening paragraph of another book I could write, to deciding whether it’s worth stopping to write down the words of the opening paragraph of the book I could write, to the last time Forrest tried to nurse, which was eleven hours before he died, to memories of Peter, his father, and me walking on this same beach, which I’d forgotten about, to missing Brent because I love how we laugh together all the time.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Some people avoid being alone. For me, it’s comforting and necessary. This is my second solitary walk on the Ocean Grove beach today. I did stop to jot down that paragraph I was thinking about. Because I just finished a new batch of songs, I’d like to write about how they came to be so I don’t forget, and because some people might be interested in that.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Right now, I’m scribbling on a crumpled piece of yellow paper I found in my pocket. (I’ll type it out later). I’m standing by the edge of the water, which means every minute or so I have to back up so my Nikes don’t get wet.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">This morning it was raining like it did all weekend (I got here Saturday). This afternoon, it’s warm and sunny so I’ve taken off my hat to feel the heat on my face. Sometimes when I get to the beach I start to cry. Not from sadness, from relief. It’s as though all that water and those waves are scrubbing me off, taking away all my tiredness and worry. One of the things I thought about today was how lucky I am. That can make me cry too. Here I am with time to walk on the beach and think about things. I wondered this morning if a father, let’s say, who was an artist before he had to move his family to a refugee camp in Eastern Europe, still took the time to wonder about his circumstances. Did he still think about how he would draw it or write it? My guess is, he would, but it’s a whole lot easier for me.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Saturday night I read <em>Art and Fear</em>, a book by David Bayles and Ted Orland. I read it in its entirety before every workshop I lead, something I’m doing this weekend. I recommend it to all my students too, although I’m not sure anyone has ever read it. At least they’ve never told me they have. Ted and David write about creativity – why we do it, why we quit doing it, and what inhibits us along the way. I don’t think they ever talk directly about fear, but they suggest that that’s what keeps many of us from digging deep and getting our creative work done. I agree. On page 92, near the end of the book, the authors talk about books that artists write that describe their process. They end with: “Every artist could write such a book. You could write such a book.” When I read that last sentence, I knew it was the book I wanted to write and will. That’s what the paragraph I wrote on the beach this afternoon is for.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Now, I can hear the ocean and the wind from my third floor room. Feeling the moisture, seeing the ocean, and walking on sand has done me a world of good. The Methodist Tabernacle at the center of this town is ringing its bells. 6:00. Time for the day to wind down. Time for me to eat again.</span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993595
2014-03-25T17:00:00-07:00
2022-04-22T10:34:02-07:00
Bittersweet - Journey is done!
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"><em>Journey</em>, the new CD, is finished. I left Dave Cook, the engineer, in his studio about an hour ago. I love being in his space. I love working closely with him; listening to every phrase, every note, every pitch, every part, just to be sure we’ve got it as close to what we want as possible. We could keep changing things for days, but at a certain point, it’s time to say: we’re done.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">To be honest, I left in a hurry so I wouldn’t cry. When a recording is finished, there’s a part of me that doesn’t want it to be done. The process of writing is so consuming and enjoyable. It’s me alone with me making something out of nothing. With the help of a few trusted friends, I see my imaginings come to life, then poof, it’s done and the rest of the world is invited in. Most don’t know what it took to get to this point. All anyone will here is 34 minutes of music. 11 songs. But behind those songs are years of trying to figure out what needs to be written and how. I lose sleep. I live with the music on my walks in the morning, when I’m eating my meals, when I’m talking with friends. It’s on-going and endless, and I love every minute of it.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Now, others will decide whether they like what they hear or not; whether it means anything to them or not. I want them to like it, of course, but after all these years, I don’t worry about that so much anymore.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">I taught a class at the local high school last week about the business of music. We were talking about all the ways a single song can generate revenue. One of the students, a senior, asked me at the end of the hour what motivated me to write. It seemed like he wanted to know because he wanted to write too. I told him some people write to make others dance, some to make money, others to get famous (or rich or loved) but that I wrote because I wanted to understand my self and the world better. As I was answering I welled up because writing has become so important to me. My survival in many ways. I was grateful when I could see that he understood.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">So the songs are written. They’re recorded in one of a hundred ways they could have been recorded. The versions I settled on are ready to be duplicated and sold and sent out to anyone who wants to hear them. They represent a little bit of what I’ve felt and seen in the last five years.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">I’m sad because another stage of my life is behind me. And I’m happy too, because I love how it’s turned out.
Thank you for being part of the journey.
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Love, Bar</span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993594
2014-03-18T17:00:00-07:00
2022-05-11T06:14:42-07:00
I'm Done!
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Five years and twelve songs later, I can finally say, this recording is done…almost. What I mean is that all the lyrics are written, vocals are sung, piano and guitar parts are recorded, and there’s nothing more I can do. By this time <em>next</em> week, I’ll really be done. By then, Dave Cook will have mixed all the songs, and my friend Lucy will have the final master to send out to the duplicator. I can hardly wait.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">I’m not sure what to say here this afternoon except “thank you.” So many of you have helped to make this final stage possible. I don’t know where I’m headed with this recording yet. I’ve never put a CD out without scheduling the requisite shows to promote it. This last couple of weeks, I’ve resisted booking anything. I’m not sure why except that most of the venues I know are in New York and I live in Colorado. Traveling back and forth is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive. Every time I go back to Woodstock, I’m so glad to see everyone, but I’m also torn.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Once I have copies in hand, and your responses to lean on, maybe then my path will become clear. For now, I’m just glad the songs are written, and that there is at least one version of each recorded.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Thank you again and again.
</span><br><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;"> Love,
Bar</span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993593
2014-03-09T17:00:00-07:00
2015-02-17T07:20:33-08:00
How to be Idle
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Two weeks ago, my friend Cathy gave me a book called <em>How to be Idle: a Loafer’s Manifesto. </em>I can’t remember what prompted her to lend it to me, but I must have been fretting about my tendency to be over-busy, even to the point of being short with friends, short with my time at the piano, short with Brent, short with pretty much everything I care about. Without saying a word, she got up from her couch, walked over to the bookshelf, pulled out the book and handed it to me. I laughed when I saw the title, then told her I’d bring it back as soon as I was done. She smiled, knowing it was just the right thing.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Despite the book’s title and the cartoon of a guy sitting at a table with a cigarette and a pint of beer, the content of the book is serious. The author, Tom Hodgkinson, advocates for all of us to slow down, take a nap, quit our jobs if they’re boring you us death. He argues that most of us are spending too much time doing things we don’t enjoy. It’s Buddha talk in 21st century language, and exactly the message I needed to hear.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">I decided I would dedicate last week to seeing what it felt like to only do those things I really enjoyed, and only do them when I felt like doing them. Tricky business when I’m finishing up a new recording and there are a million things left to do. But guess what I learned (and was reminded of as I began to delete the ‘million’ in the previous sentence): that I exaggerate to myself the number of things I have to do; and, I always, like just now, use language in my head and with others, that reminds me, incorrectly, that I have a million things to do when in fact, I do not. I have much to do, like we all do, but I don’t have a million things to do. All last week, I stopped myself from being busy when I wasn’t really busy, and all last week, I was happier and much, much easier to live with (according to both my husband and my self).</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">To be honest, I missed writing my blog last week. The reason I did was because I was doing some other writing that was floating my boat so I let it go for a week. It was a good feeling to adjust in that way. I’m not sure I recommend Tom’s book to everyone, but if you tend to overwork, and especially if you tell yourself you have so much to do when you don’t, it might be worth your reading it. The idea I found most powerful that he writes about is that better creative work is done when a person has time to reflect, to rest, to dream and contemplate. I think that’s true. It was nice of Tom to give me permission to take that time.</span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993592
2014-02-28T16:00:00-08:00
2015-02-17T07:19:07-08:00
Happy Day!
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Last Friday I decided to avoid the phone and stay off my computer for the whole weekend. I’d spent too many hours at my desk last week and needed a break. It was the right thing to do.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Today, after two days away, there’s been a windfall. My college roommate called. My friends Annie and Maureen called. My friend Ann who I’ve known longer than anyone else in my life wrote a long email. I hadn’t heard from her in years. And then a high school friend, Sarah, wrote too. Needless to say, I haven’t gotten any work done today, but I’ve been smiling since I woke up.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Over the weekend, while the computer was turned off, Brent and I got sucked into the <em>House of Cards</em> phenomenon on Netflix. We’d watched Season One at a reasonable pace the preceding weeks, but once we got started with Season Two on Saturday morning, it was a marathon. Taking the time for this sort of mindless mini vacation was valuable. I slept long and hard last night. Woke up feeling as good as I’ve felt in years.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">It’s gotten me thinking about the history of weekends. Saturdays or Sundays have been Sabbath days for centuries. My guess is that the concept of two days off each week is a modern idea. For me, it’s hard to discern between days off and days at work if email is involved. My personal and professional lives overlap too much with email. The only way I can take a true day off is to stay away from my computer.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Thanks to everyone who bought a CD or sent a donation in response to the fundraising campaign we launched last week. In addition to the long emails and phone calls I’ve had with old friends today, I got a bunch of your gifts this morning. It’s been a really good day. I can’t tell you how much your help lifts my spirits. Not only is the weather outside spring-like, I feel like my own spring is at hand.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Love to you all, Bar</span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993591
2014-02-09T16:00:00-08:00
2022-04-26T12:29:56-07:00
Finding the Balance
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Yesterday was the 12th anniversary of Forrest’s death. I always take the day off. It’s not a particularly sad day, just one that I like to separate from the rest. I don’t do email or anything else on the internet, I don’t plan anything, I just get up in the morning and do whatever it is I want to do.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Brent made breakfast for me, which was nice except that it was 6:30 in the morning when he delivered it. The gesture was so sweet, and so like him, that I rallied, ate, then went back to sleep while he walked the dogs. Decadent. I never miss walking the dogs. When I finally got up for what we call second breakfast, it was 9:00. There was no point in getting dressed since the dogs had already been out, so I stayed in my PJs until they had to go out again at 2:00. In the meantime, I finished a book by Louise Penny called <em>Still Life</em>, and finished all the easy parts of a puzzle we’re working on. At 6:00, 60 Minutes came on, then the McCartney/Starr reunion celebrating the night the Beatles debuted on Ed Sullivan 50 years ago, then Downton Abbey. Finally, at 10:30, we went back to bed and I slept as well as I ever have. It reminds me that un-busy days lead to sleep-filled nights.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">This morning I’ve woken with a bit of sadness. Not about Forrest, although his absence is probably wrapped up in my emotions. Every day there’s a choice for me: enjoy the process of making music, books or anything else I like to create, or, get to work and promote that same creative output. Needless to say, there’s a balance. But the bigger question nags at me: how badly do I want the bigger prizes? Do I want to be insanely driven, working 16 hours a day, which is what it takes to get somewhere in the fields that I’m working in, or, find a more sane blend of creative time and promotional time in each day and not shoot for the stars. To be honest, I don’t know the answer. There are days when I’m dying for more success. I want my music to be heard, I want to sing for as many people as I can find; then there are other days when the joy of singing alone in my studio is so profound that I can’t imagine needing anything more.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">Today, I’ll work towards the bigger goal because there are new songs that I want to share. To do so, many things have to be put into place. I’ll work on those things this morning. Later today, I’ll fix a piano part, check a vocal I recorded that I’m not sure of, and then sit down to work on the lyrics for the last song I have to record. They’ve eluded me so far, but I’m hopeful.</span></p>
barscott.com
tag:barscott.com,2005:Post/5993590
2014-02-02T16:00:00-08:00
2022-04-24T22:37:18-07:00
Busy-ness
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">I’ve spent most of the morning updating banking information for Sound Exchange, which is a company that distributes royalties to musicians like me. Turns out all the work I did this morning was already done, by me, within the last year. Meanwhile, there’s a guy in my bathroom tearing up the tile he installed eight months ago. The grout failed, so he’s doing it over again. I can hear him grumbling and swearing as though it was someone else’s fault even though it’s just one of those things. He had insurance. He’s getting paid, but he’s grumbling anyway. Neither of us is having a great day, but I’m in a better mood than him.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">My problem is I have too many things I want to do. I want there to be more time in the day. I don’t want to have to prioritize and not get to do everything.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">For instance: I finished another lyric (second-to-last, hallelujah!) and I really want to record the vocals today. Alas, the tile guy is making too much noise. And because the CD is almost done (hallelujah#2) I have a lot of business to take care of: songs to register at various licensing agencies, songs to post on itunes, Pandora, and similar outlets; money to raise, letters to write, headshots to take, artwork to complete for the CD cover, video to shoot, new website host to advise on how to update my site, learn how to let him do his job and not do it for him, finish one last tune, do my taxes, file 1099s, you get the picture. I know every single one of you has a similar list so I don’t feel alone, but I still want more time to play the piano, write more songs, write a book or two, make stuff, cook, eat, have friends over, and walk the dogs.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family: 'Goudy Bookletter 1911', serif; font-size: medium;">As I get older, I find what I want to do more than anything is slow down. I still tend to function at high speed, but gradually life in rural Colorado is teaching me how to let things go. I make lists. I check things off. Somehow, the things that are most important get done.</span></p>
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