Two days ago I performed my first festival ever. What a great idea it is to bring people out in the fresh air to enjoy their neighborhood and music together. After this year's long awaited spring and the transformation from white to green this past Saturday in Somerville was awesome!
My set up was this: Behringer Ultratone amp, which worked beautifully for this setting. Nice and clean for keyboard and vocals. My keyboard was connected to the amp through phones output, since they don't have Line output in my keyboard. Still the signal was loud and clear. I used one Mackie MR5 reference monitor as a stage monitor on a stand. It doesn't go very loud but was just enough for a solo performer. It was nice to see a city worker, who happen to be passing by, staying to listen by my stage. It was also lovely to see children dancing, people on bicycle or walking their dog, listening, smiling, interacting.
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Here is some more awesome music. These artists have been around for a while. Enjoy! and if you like it, go ahead and share and have others enjoy it too! Alabama Shakes (US) Sia (Australia) Stromae (Belgium) Sela Suh (Belgium) Boy (Switzerland/Germany) There are so many great artists out there and it's always fun to stumble across some of them. Let me introduce here some of them.
Victoria Hanna, Israel Victoria Hanna's music is a product of her fascination and exploration of the Hebrew language. It is believed the sound of every letter holds a mystical power. This is a beautiful setting of Hosha'ana, a rain prayer. Emily Loizeau, France Everything comes together so well in this performance, her voice, playing, songs and Loizeau's beautiful spirit. George Ezra, UK At only 21, his deep vocals and quirky melodic gestures that makes it fun to listen to. Tune Yards, USA Creative looping. Merrill Garbus is an uncompromising artist. Interesting rhythms and strong vocals. On the way to discover myself I find that my art is changing too, I don't know if for better or worse. Improvisational elements on repeated harmony are creeping in and have this potential to build an amazing energy, a trance like energy. I have already experimented a bit with a similar idea of a build-up many years ago in my piece
R. II. This round, it might be coming to me from the influence of Jeff Buckley, who was inspired by Indian music. Music can sometimes speak better than words. As Goethe phrased so nicely: "music begins where words end". Therefore, Carrying less text on a energetic or even static music can leave a strong impression. It's incredible how Goethe was able to express it all in one sentence that makes so much sense. Hello there, Long time no see ;) Life is always moving forward with its great adventures and great joy from music . Here are a few aural delights for you. Hope you will enjoy! Until next time, yours, Florie. Samba, Composer: Max Bulhões. l go "aah" whenever l hear Paulinho Da Viola's voice. Another good artist, completely in a different direction. Love it Or Leave it by an artist from Israel, Asaf Avidan, with a special voice. Check out his music Yael Naim, artist who lives in France. Released three albums, two of them which are available- Yael Naïm and She Was a Boy. More new music by Yael is on the way. The song Paris is from her second album titled Yael Naïm, which includes songs in Hebrew, English and French. Paris touches me in a special way, it describes her feelings as a newcomer in Paris. The music carries the meaning so beautifully. The second song, Too Long, is the second track from the same album. I really like the palindrome idea in the video clip. A few days after the new year has entered I am back in the land I grew up in. I cherish every moment with my loved ones and feel fortunate to be able to spend this time with them.
The new year that enters will be built on an existing old one. We already have perspectives, history and a resolution to make things even better. I wish everyone the same or even better love, health, happiness, creativity, empathy and compassion. Here is for a great future! Starting a new project can be a shot in the dark. Building something from scratch is not easy but nurturing a project you strongly believe in is empowering and is my motivation but I am discovering new things about the singer-songwriter profession everyday by reading websites, blogs, consulting with other musicians, watching documentaries about how other musicians have started their career. In times, I find myself wanting to move the wheels forward quicker but I realize things take time, and that good things take longer to cook but at the end there is a yummy stew. I try to keep up with what I have to do- improving my writing skills, my musicianship, learning from the pros. In the youtube age, the latter has also become much more accessible. You can choose to watch whatever you'd like whenever. While developing all that, ideas for more songs are popping like mushroom (creativity brings more creativity). There are plenty of materials to draw from, as life is always surprising and exciting when you look at the right places. Some of my friends know that after our meeting they might get an email from me with a new song shortly after (yes, that had happened a couple of times). Now, there are lots of decisions to be made about the next steps; should I start working on EP (half an album) or LP (full length) album? Mmm, on the other hand, I should probably finish writing my dissertation paper, first.. (I know I should). Inspiration of the Day (With the spirit of my dissertation paper): |
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I have been writing songs for the same amount of time I have been writing classical music. Usually, with alternating periods where I write one or the other. Something happened and there is an urge in me to move forward with my songs (the immediate reason for that is described in my previous post). In the past four months, since June, I have been laboring on getting the right materials together, practicing, learning how to do things. Like a child, every new piece of information is a notable progress- booking my own shows, telling about my project, recording and writing new songs. I am ecstatic and feel like this is a materialization of my dream! Many years of songwriting have helped me to work out my craft to the point where I feel I have something valuable artistically to share. I will continue with this dream because this is one of my biggest joy in the world and I can not do otherwise!
New and rediscovered musical inspirations:
Exciting things are happening -- I had a debut performance of three of my songs. I have been practicing and playing home recordings of my songs to family and friends. But I haven't performed them yet in front of a live audience. In the past two days that's what I have been doing and it was an amazing experience! Watching the nodding heads and smiles of people who might have experienced similar things as I describe in my music was such an uplifting experience. I felt that they got the message of my music. I am very excited and looking forward to put on a full show together. Please, stay tuned!
I want to share all my recent inspirations. Here they are:
A wonderful discussion with Russian conductor Valery Gergiev, who happens to be one of my favorite conductors.
A wonderful discussion with Russian conductor Valery Gergiev, who happens to be one of my favorite conductors.
French pianist, Hélène Grimaud, playing Ravel's Piano Concerto in G, Vladimir Jurowski conducts the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. I just adore this music, in particular, the second movement and I like this sensitive playing of Grimaud.
The opera "Dead Souls" (1976) by Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin. This first chord, ha! I also like how Russian folk music style and singing style are integrated and brought to an a-tonal world in this contemporary piece.
Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir singing so beautifully this arrangement of the folk song: Ergen deda, cherven deda.
Hope you enjoy! :)
This blog is about new music, composing, living, experiencing. Thank you for visiting, feel free to leave a comment!
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