I can tell the music fervor that ambushed me November 2006 (and resulted in my taking up the guitar the next December) truly is a result of brain damage. Because it hasn’t stopped. Every other hobby stops, but this music thing keeps going. (And incidentally, even though the neurologist dismissed it, the guitar-playing is in my file. Just in case the symptoms someday are “heat sensitivity,” “parasthesias,” “helpless attempts to play guitar.”)
So, today was a big day in my musical life.
Today In Music
In Which I Begin to Learn to Read
I got my copy of The Folksong Fake Book and looked immediately for Kevin Barry, one of my favorite Pete Seeger folksongs. I have fond memories of being ten, planting my feet apart and challenging the Crown to shoot me like an Irish Soldier. (Do not hang me like a dog.) But ironically it seems The Folksong Fake Book assumes I know how to read music! It does not tell me where to put my fingers! Like I know this! Come on! Get real.
So, the Big Milestone was that I mapped out what every note of Kevin Barry was on the scale, and then found where they were on the guitar. It only took three attempts but I worked out the first two lines of Kevin Barry. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll have the other two lines. And perhaps someday I can look at the notes and just play it. I’m just paying my rent every day in the Tower of Song.
In Which I Am Tragically Disappointed
Yeah, Leonard Cohen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame yesterday, then today by some remarkable coincidence he announced he’s going on tour! ON TOUR! Maybe with Leonard Cohen ’08 Tour T-Shirts! Squee! I immediately linked to the tour list:
Toronto CA – Okay, well, he’s Canadian, that makes sense.
Dublin IR – Whoa. Ireland. Well, he can visit there, as long as he swings by Saint Louis on the way back to Canada.
Manchester UK – Well, since he’s there.
Montreal QC followed by Glastonbury Scotland – This does not look good. I’m thinking Leonard won’t be visiting Saint Louis.
Then Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, France, and Bennicam ESP, and I don’t even KNOW where ESP is, much less Bennicam.
Then he winds up in Athens…Greece. Damn. For a moment I thought it might be Athens Georgia. Pah. So, no chance to see Leonard Cohen Live. Well, with credit cards all things are possible, but the man at least could drop by.
In Which I Indulge in Another of My Musical Hobbies
Is it a matter of pride among artists to misspell their own lyrics?
Carbon Leaf
Desperation Song
“I’m turing it from shade to light”
T-u-r-i-n-g. I think I might have to stop reading lyrics. Is there some underground code of bands that they don’t have true band cred unless they have a typo? Or, more believably, this is probably like the riders that bands have that require the venue to remove all the brown M and Ms from the backstage M and M bowl. They want to see if we’re paying attention.
7 responses to “A Day of Musical Milestones”
I thought of you immediately when I read Mr. Cohen’s tour schedule online yesterday. I decided that Ireland would be your best bet. I can picture you there at the concert, then dropping by a pub afterwards and hoisting a few. Go for it!
I hear ya on the issue of your doctor putting things in your record. My neuro and his nurse practictioner both gave me the blank look when I asked if olfactory hallucinations could be MS-related. But after telling me neither of them had ever heard of such a thing, they put it in my chart and now each year they ask if I’m still having them. and yes, I am.So someday, “heat sensitivity,” “parasthesias,” “helpless attempts to play guitar” and “smelling things that aren’t there” may all be part of the diagnostic checklist. Our contribution to the fight against MS.
Ha! Jammies you just think they are writing that, when, in fact they are writing one thing, “Crazy” *runs off*
Oh, Queen, I can help! My husband is a musician, to say the least about his number one hobby/trait, (I’ll put a pic or two on the blog tonight). He found this new stuff called tablature,(spelling???). You don’t have to read music to learn songs with this system. It is available all over, just google it.
KC – You know Gary’s family were HUGE Irish mobsters. Maybe they’ll buy us a beer in the old country.Jammies – Yes. Someday we’ll be in the medical books. And then doctors will take credit for “the Jammies Effect.”Zayrina – or, “crazy but smells good.” OR does she just THINK she smells good?Judith – I was expecting the folksong fake book to give me tabs, just like my rock fake book. Actually, I feel tabs are kind of hard. You have to tilt your head sideways to read them when you start. Kind like reading a book made of smileys. 😉
And the “Mediocretia Effect”–don’t forget that one!
Jammies – Or we could share. All freaky previously unknown phenomenon could be the “Jammies-Mediocretia Effect”