Hi, welcome to my blog! In these pages I tell the story of my musical journey and invite you to start a musical journey too. Or you may already be on your journey and would just like a little company. If you would like my help all you really need is yourself because your most precious musical instrument is within you – your voice! But sometimes it is fun to have another instrument as well. It adds another layer to your musical experience. Where there is more interaction there is more life!
Lost in the Colours – A Deep Feeling Guitar Loop
My eleven year old son is even more light and colour sensitive than me. He has been saying that he ‘can’t do’ music for a few years now because of the pattern and the sound. I have continued on my own musical journey without my kindred spirit by my side for 3 years, hoping that he may feel my passion and change his mind.
When I bought my looper pedal, 3 months ago, he wan’t that impressed and said he didn’t want to try it out. I continued to make my loops and sing the praises of my looper pedal and yesterday he started to ask me about it. The more I told him the more interested he was! He started to talk about pitch and tone and sound quality And then today he was insistent that he helped me create some recordings. He is such an intelligent boy and could see potential that I couldn’t see in the pedal. He inspired me to explore the presets on my new amplifier and managed to identify the battery flat symbol which would have confounded me for hours had he not!
I could see the cogs in my son’s brain whirring as he helped. He doesn’t ‘get’ Blues like me. It feels too much clutter. I could see him trying to work out how he could access music in a way that feels right to him and I feel deeply touched to witness this.
I went on to create my loop that has the most feeling so far – ‘Lost in the Colours’. For a moment as i created it, I forgot about my issues with the colour and the light and was just lost in the layers and the colours!
Breaking through the Cloud! – An Electric Guitar Loop
Playing music for me isn’t as easy as just deciding i am going to play something. First I have to look out of the window and see how the light is that day.
On the day I created this loop it was cloudy! So I thought maybe I should play something very simple but when I just tried to play single notes they seemed to echo in my brain in not a good way. So I started to strum chords quite quickly and suddenly felt better hearing more sounds at once with less resonance.
Once I recorded my strumming loop I found I could play a simple line of music over the top because somehow within the context of many notes, the single notes sounded OK to me. I felt like I was able to break through the cloud!
My Second Blues Loop – ‘Layers of Colour’
Being colour sensitive I can’t appreciate colour as I would like. If I try to paint, the colour of the paint may disturb me. It could be the colour of the paint in the tube, on the page or mixed with other colours. And even if I could navigate this, the sun may suddenly go in and my perception of the colour would change quite radically.
For this reason I have decided to work with sound and using my looper my pedal, to my delight, I have discovered that I can layer up sounds as if I was layering paint. I can feel the colour and the texture of the sound and it gives me a feeling of creating something whole which makes me feel complete.
My First Blues Loop with My Looper Pedal!
I finally worked out how to use my looper pedal and I must say I am quite impressed with it! Here is my first Blues loop.
Following My Ears – Going Electric!
Hi everyone
So. . . it is late August . . . and time for me to formulate some thoughts about my musical journey.
Well. this year, back in May for my Birthday I had an electric guitar. This was a well-thought out decision. My 10 year old son, who like me is all things sensitive, has a problem with the sound of acoustic instruments and in my journey to help him I discovered I had the same issue. I suddenly understood why I had always felt so tense and found it so tiring playing my instruments. So I decided to go electric and it is SO much better for my ears and my brain! I tried an electric violin but was really disturbed by the fact that the sound comes out from somewhere far away – the amplifier – and not directly from the action of my bow. This made me feel disconnected to the music that I was making. When I play electric guitar this doesn’t bother me though. I feel so relaxed just sitting with the guitar on my lap and my arms and fingers feeling free. It has a clean sound with less resonance to disturb my ears and for the first time ever, I am truly happy playing an instrument!
Having received my guitar and then bought an amplifier, I still wanted more kit! This seems to be the way when you go electric. You can’t make do with a box of rosin and a new string any more! The effects pedals weren’t quite me but I really wanted a looper pedal so I could record over patterns that I have created and make layers of music to my heart’s content. So now I have a looper pedal but of course next I found I needed another lead (as you do!) So when my lead arrives I will be starting to loop my loops! Please look out for my videos.
Jennie
Musical Doodles – My Snow Metronome!
This is a very slow snow metronome as the ball was kind of cold!! Brrrrrrr 😀
Musical Doodles – The Phone Tap!
I find the most enjoyable musical experiences I have are completely spontaneous ones. This is my doodle of the day – The Phone Tap!
