Usually when I sit down to write my post I have pretty good idea of what I want to share. It may take me a few iterations and several passes with spell check to get it right, but I at least have an idea of where to start. This week, my head is so full of things going on, things I need to do, events coming up and things I want to get to, that, sorting through it all is a bit like trying to look for something in boxes, behind heavy curtains in a dark room and the batteries in the flash light are dead. So, join me while I sort through a few of my mental boxes and see what I can share with you.
I’m going to start with a nice deep belly breath and a big exhale. Join me. It feels pretty good. Breathing is one of those things filling my head right now. I know, we just do it, why would you think about it? Well for a few reasons. Starting with singing. A friend was watching some of the videos I’ve posted of my Blues Jam sessions and as much as she enjoyed them, she shared with me that she found herself trying to breathe for me. I am very grateful to her for pointing this out. She’s right, I haven’t been breathing properly. It would help a lot if I did though. It would help with my vocals, and it would help with my nerves. Remember those shaking legs. They might still shake but they might try to keep in time with the beat a bit better.
There’s some irony in her pointing this out as well as some synchronicity.
The irony first. I was watching a YouTube of a talk show that had made a visit to a vocal studio and they specifically discussed breathing. Particularly as it related to how a singer could hold a note for so long and whether or not it had to do with lung capacity. It doesn’t, just in case you were wondering. One of the things it has to do with is how they breathe. From the belly. To go along with that, I had been watching a video performance of Olivia Newton-John and at one point, where the camera is, if you know what you are watching, you can see her do that belly breathing as she sings a couple of the phrases, one after the other. It’s kind of cool in a geeky sort of way.
The synchronicity? The next day, after my conversation with the friend about my breathing, I had a yoga class. The focus of that yoga class was breathing. Deep belly breathing and connecting with the breath. If you’ve taken a yoga class, then you are probably aware that breathing is very important in yoga. It is in Taekwondo too, though it’s not always explicitly taught, like it seems to be in yoga. Talk about the Universe trying to tell you something. So here I am, basically, remembering how to breathe. It may be
what gets me through everything I’ve set out for myself and whatever else comes along.
Remembering to breathe will get me through the airport this week. I’m traveling, to go see a concert. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back. Though, if you follow me on social media, watch for some updates. If you don’t follow me and want to, there are some links to the side here. I’m excited about the trip; however, it does cause some disruption to routine and adds a load of stuff to think about and remember. Like what to take. My concert ticket. What to pack to wear. Yeah that’s a whole other issue. What other things to pack. Getting to the airport. Getting a sitter for my pets. Making sure my home is not filthy so I won’t be
embarrassed for the sitter to come in. Taking out the trash before I go. You know the drill.
In all of this I have managed to work on some music and some painting. I worked on that second pass of the Flame Red for the Ovation Painting. I made quite a bit of progress and if I weren’t traveling this week, I’d be finishing it up and moving on to the next step. Which will probably be the blending layer of red. That’s where my thoughts are on this piece so I might as well get those cleared out so I can make space to think about how I want to handle the fret board and a few other areas that will require some color mixing. I took a picture of the progress for you.
Music is the easiest thing for me to work on, or remember to work on. If I walk into the music room and turn on the amplifier and don’t have an exit strategy, I can be there for hours, and like now my tea will be way to strong and dead cold. I poured a cup of tea and forgot about it while I was writing this for you. As a result, I did get quite a bit of practice time in for both guitar and vocal. And yes after my conversation about breathing, I had to go right in there and experiment and try it out.
I’ve been practicing guitar so much lately I have worn the strings on my Gibson out to where they are sounding a bit dull. It’s already time to change the strings that I just put on in December. Unfortunately, I don’t have another pack of the ones I put on there so I ordered some. Since the strings are not here yet I have been playing other guitars. I found two more that needed new strings. Those I had a spare set of strings for each so I have changed them. I have one more that, while the strings don’t sound bad, the ones that are on it were some I was trying out to see how I like them. They are ok. I don’t like them. So I want to change those to the strings I like. Which I have a spare set of. However, this is the classical guitar and restringing it is usually the more time consuming restring of the six-string guitars I have. Oh, but that Schecter. With the locking tuners. Wow. That was a quick and easy restring. Here’s a shot of my tools and one of my string surgery patients.
I suppose, on the surface, it doesn’t seem like I’m that busy. I just come home and play guitar and sing, or paint. It’s not like I’m in a band and have rehearsal several nights a week and performances other nights. And unlike my very talented friend in Austin who is an artist, I’m not preparing for an art show, or writing articles for artist magazines. But that’s just the surface. And all of it takes large amounts of time. But every once in a while, you get an unexpected opportunity that makes you stop a moment, admire and breathe. Here’s one I tried to capture one morning this week as I was getting ready for the day job. My camera doesn’t do it near the justice it deserved.
While you enjoy that, I’m going to take a deep breath and enjoy the song that’s playing on my computer before I plunge into my week. There’s so much going on. I hope to have really fun and cool stuff to share with you when I get back from my trip. No, you won’t have to sit through a slide show of my vacation photos. I’ll try to keep them to an important minimum. See you then.