Music

Go Back to Go Through

/ still a dreamer / 8 Comments

Lately, I find myself drifting back through time. It seems necessary to my creativity for me to go back before I can go through.

I am searching – I want to use my writing and art to reach out in a different way than I have in the past. How will I do that?

Conversations about art, music, and writing with people in my life now get me reflecting. And remembering … recently, I felt a song trickling through my mind. It was a Peter, Paul and Mary song, but I could only grasp a phrase. A search brought it back to me – Bob Dylan’s Dream. And with it, a flood of memories.

One memory was of my junior and senior years in college when four friends and I would hang out in the evening in Susie’s apartment and play music and sing together. They all played guitar, and we all could sing and knew a wide range of folk songs. Just sitting and singing and playing by candlelight into the wee hours of the morning were such incredible times. I don’t yet know how that memory will play a part in my going forward, just that it will.

Bob Dylan’s Dream, written by Bob Dylan, sung by Peter, Paul and Mary, 1967

I recently went to see a fabulous show of Japanese printmaking from the 1950’s to the present. I looked so, so closely at those stunning prints, noticing just how they were made, recalling the necessary techniques. I studied printmaking for two semesters – woodcutting, etching, and lithography. And these masterful Japanese prints brought that back, too.

“Red Wall”-1992. Zinc etching and woodblock print on paper by Hodaka Yoshida

I am being readied. I am preparing for some leap forward that I cannot yet see, but these memories are stirring the things I need to know, so long put aside while I did other things with my life. Sometimes it seems like I’m dreaming or wasting time, but I know I’m not.

I’m taking a deep breath and – not always so easy – trusting in the process.

Missing Writing

/ still a dreamer / 6 Comments

The fact is, I write every day – I journal – but I miss writing. I want to say “real writing”, the kind that isn’t just one’s personal ups and downs, the efforts to figure things out, the daydreams and fantasies. (Because none of that is real, right? Haha.)

Maybe a year ago, needing to become more active on social media to promote my children’s book, I discovered Instagram. I love IG because it feeds the visual aspects of my heart, my mind, my soul in a very different way than writing does. So I’ve been hunkered down over there for a bit. (Please come visit me on Instagram @jeannebalsam )

An extremely simple example of AI art using Midjourney and the prompt “A swimming pool filled with stars on a moonlit night.” Image courtesy Wikipedia

And what have I found? A community of children’s book people, an immense amount of positivity, and an endless treasure trove of art that is firing up my brain. Some of it is illustration, some is videos/reels, but a great source of fascination is the AI art (Artificial Intelligence) – see above. People using programs such as Midjourney are creating often fantastical images, but to my mind, I see magic.

I love that in every way – art, writing, music – and it seems that some magic is calling to me. I want to be where the magic is, for it to take me and my art to some new, unexpected places. It sparkles.

Still, I miss writing. I feel like I am being readied for some new union between word and image. After being absent for a bit, I also miss my friends here on WP who inspire me, too. (But I’m getting to you …)

Where is your magic? Is it dancing? Is it calling you?

A little inspiration of late – 51 minutes of uninterrupted beautiful music that fills me with dreams. Maybe you, too.

A Little Hope and Happiness

/ still a dreamer / 12 Comments

We are all challenged in so many ways nowadays – every single one of us on this planet. Some days more, some days less. I wanted to make a meme that might touch everyone, and would give you hope, some encouragement, no matter what you are dealing with today. Here’s what I came up with.

Does this work for you?

And then … a note on social media, that ever-hungry, (sometimes) beast that would like to devour our time. But here’s something I really like about it, particularly on Instagram. I am finding so much new music to love, thanks to people I follow who share it on posts and reels.

That I am being exposed to music in different genres, from different cultures, in different styles – it just makes my heart sing. The following is one of the loveliest pieces I have heard in a while. I guess you would call it folk/pop (?), and the song is “Bloom” by Lullanas. Thanks to @sawsanakar for opening my ears and heart to this piece. I hope you enjoy it.

May you be well, looking forward to an enjoyable weekend, and maybe just a little inspired.

Film, Music, Dance, Editing

/ still a dreamer / 13 Comments

Speaking for myself, I have loved music and have been dancing all my life. How about you?

So when I came across this, I wanted to be up dancing — it was Bruno Mars, after all — but I was too mesmerized by what was happening on my screen to even so much as look away for 2 seconds. Check out this compilation of movie clips, all before 1953, impeccably timed to “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars, and watch on YouTube!

If you’re not smiling after watching this, please take two aspirin and call me in the morning.

The amazing video was created by Nerd Fest UK, who comments on the magic of editing:

“Film Editing is the one art form unique to the cinema. All other constituent parts of the medium derive from something else that came before. Writing and composing had been around for centuries; production design, special effects, acting and directing all came from the theatre, and sound was a later development following on from the phonograph. Even cinematography had an ancestor in photography. But editing had no ancestor. It was invented by the cinema and remains the essence of it.”

Music Frames Life

/ still a dreamer / 7 Comments

Certainly one of the joys of the internet is how you may start in one place and travel down a path to someplace magical. It started a few days ago. I was visiting one of the blogs I follow, Salmon Brook Farms, and there I found a video of it’s author, Lavinia, playing acoustic guitar and singing. A Martin guitar, I found out upon inquiring. Her playing is exquisite  and the sound of the Martin, so very soulful. It made me remember how much I love this kind of music.

acosuticguitars2

For me, and perhaps for you, music has framed many life experiences. You could play me any number of different songs in any number of types of music and it would be as if a spotlight turned on, and a video played of some segment of my life gone by, complete with the people there at the time, location, and every feeling I went through in that moment. Music is so very powerful and weaves intricately with memory to form these deeply felt emotions. I realize how much I have missed it in my life of late.

So when I listened to Lavinia playing, I thought of all the wonderful acoustic guitar music I have right here in my house, going back to early folk, and including guitarists like John Fahey and Robbie Basho (these on albums), John Renbourn (on tape), right to more current times on CD (Snuffy Walden, Nightnoise, Jeff Johnson – with Brian Dunning – and others) and one of my all-time favorites, Will Ackerman. To say the man is incredibly gifted is an understatement. So while part of my day today was earmarked for me to be at my desk working on taxes, I saw an opportunity to turn on my Mac with it’s wonderful sound system, and which sits on the desk immediately behind me, tune in to YouTube, and listen to Will.

Among his many songs, all written by him, I found a video of him playing what he considers his best song, The Bricklayer’s Beautiful Daughter, below.

But what truly touched me was in another video in which he discussed his work over the last 35 years, how he creates, and samplings of his music. I found that the piece I most love, The Impending Death of the Virgin Spirit, was written to express the feeling of Will’s innocence the night before his mother took her life when he was 12. I have always been deeply moved by this haunting song from the moment I heard it; now I know why.

Will Ackerman is just one of numerous outstanding musicians to record on the acclaimed Windham Hill label, which he founded, never imagining it would become as immensely successful as it did. You can learn more about him on his website, where he also shares tunings for his songs by album.

I’m just listening as I work and finding my every nerve ending remarkably soothed. If acoustic music appeals to you, check in on Lavinia, too, whom I thank for pointing me on this path of rediscovery. I’ll be listening more.