Very important that I get your answers by end of today preferably or end of Saturday for the latest. After Sunday I will fill you in on what I did with your offerings to this project.
This is a rough, first-time rendition/recording of the first verse of my 'Christmas' song.
*
Thanks to all who offered suggestions yesterday for my 'Christmas Challenge'. I did eventually find inspiration/it found me/we found each other at the same time.*
Around 6 p.m. I picked up the mini travel guitar and started to play simple notes on two strings. These notes immediately inspired a melody, from which flowed four lines of simple words. So ... after days of procrastination and nothingness, within five minutes, I had my first verse. Hooray! Something at last. I quickly recorded the melody/words in Garage Band to commit them to memory.
I'll work on other verses today, keeping them just as simple (which, incidentally, is what I am calling the song: "Simple").
In recent times, Christmas for many (most?) is a commercial whirlwind of traffic, frenzied shopping and a long list of stressful, expensive have-to's: have to make cake, pastelles and sorrel, have to have to paint the house and put up new curtains, have to organise a huge Christmas lunch, have to get ham and turkey and grog, have to buy X amount of gifts, have to do this and that ...
No, it doesn't HAVE to be that way at all! It can be very SIMPLE!
Basically, whether or not 25 December is the day that Jesus was actually born, it's the day that's chosen to celebrate the Christ birth. One does not have to be religious and dogmatic or even Christian to acknowledge the Spirit of LOVE introduced to the world by one of the great beings who walked this Earth: Jesus, who was a Hippie. Love is really what we need to give, receive, share and celebrate ... not only on this one day of the year, but every day, if we can.
If one of our great Teachers showed us (by example) to love each other as we love ourselves ... (is that it? Or is it 'Love each other as I have loved you'? Or both?) ... then where have we gone wrong? Maybe we don't love ourselves enough to really love others!
I think this is what my 'Simple' song will be about.
Posts
6 comments:
no it doesn't have to be like that - but to some ppl THAT is simple.
A simple pleasure.
I enjoy doing most of those things mostly because i don't consider it the be all and end all to having a great christmas. There's a feeling associated with this time of year and i absolutely adore it and want to milk every drop of it every year :) Christmas baby INDEED!
Indeed. You literally ARE a Christmas baby (born 24 Dec) and it shows.
Hey Elspeth you know I never knew you also sing although know you do the music...I did piano and the indian equivalent of harmonium when I was a child and some dance but I dont recall the western music notes etc now...but I know the Hindi ones cause in Indian music it is the same letters from the hindi alphabet and the music is built up out of the raags etc which you can learn to sing and I think build up the songs and music out of it...at least up to what I understood or learnt it was different from western music as in I was never taught how to write music just the hindi letters and the raags, sangeets etc. I unfortunately now can play no instrument...I tried learnign guitar at about 20 not formally but from a cousin who plays a bit but realise I couldnt handle it on my fingertips...so been thinking I can go back to keyboard stuff so at least I will have some way to express music...great that you can do this...it sounds like a female Nappy Mayers kinda feel...
Wow. Musician Kwesi Michael Mosi Stewart just sent me this link with his addition to the mp3 I featured above:
http://bluephoenixtt.com/elspeth.mp3
I love it when someone accepts an invitation to interact and takes it a step further!
Elspeth, will you please write out the lyrics you are singing? I have poor hearing and music is harder to hear than speech (even with my 2 aides)...I use the written caption words on TV to watch now.
Thank you. Am glad your friends are chiming in with suggestions and even music/words.
Wonderful interactive creation!
Christmas/Chanukah even though very different in origin/meaning/source/reason
bring family/friends together
and are a time of shared happiness.
And I love the concept of keeping it simple.
My lyrics:
Maybe this sounds a little simple
Maybe this sounds a little plain
Maybe this sounds a little humble
Maybe this sounds strange
(Will add Kwesi's lyrics under the post featuring his version)
Post a Comment