July’s greeting

 

Hello everyone and a belated Happy Summer to you! I have been busy moving to a new apartment and so I have neglected to keep you all updated. I have been enjoying my musical activities and yesterday I played the National Anthem at a local Tom Sox baseball game with my steel drum band! That was a lot of fun. 

In addition to music and art, I have been doing some birding this past spring and summer. I was gifted an old Nikon camera and I go out birding with a friend about once a week. We were really lucky a few months ago to have an amazing experience seeing some Barred owls! Attached is my favorite picture from that night. We were sitting on a bench underneath this big tree while the owl looked down at us. That was amazing! 

Last month I had an art show up at the local library.  That was a good opportunity for me and I appreciate that! 

I have continued to enjoy my work playing music for hospital and hospice patients. This fall marks my 22nd year at the UVA hospital. 

Mostly, I wanted to say hi and wish you all peace and happiness this summer! 

Thanks for stopping by. 

May Day

 Hello everyone ! 

It’s a beautiful time of year with all the flowers and trees in bloom. I have been enjoying going birding with friends as spring is a time of year for lots of birding activity. Last week friends and I got to see some Great Horned owlets up in a dead tree off one of a local trail. We also saw one of the parents but their face was hidden behind leaves. Today I am going out again and this time we plan to visit Ivy Creek Natural Area where there is a Barred owl box with owlet’s there. Hoping to get some photos! 

Music has been going well too.  My jazz band the Flashbacks played our spring concert last weekend and that was a lot of fun! Also over the last month or so, I have graduated from congas to drum set in the steel drum band I play it. It’s been so good for me since I have not played drum set with any regularity in over 40 yrs. I am enjoying being back at it! 

I continue to  enjoy my guitar lessons at the Classical Guitar Corner Academy. I met a member who lives in my town and we’ve gotten together a couple of times to play duets. We plan to meet once a month and record at some point, so I’ll post our videos here when that happens ! 

There is a new local classical guitar group forming in the area called Circle of Strings. Our first meeting is at the downtown library this Sunday. I am practicing some pieces to play for that and another member and I are planning to  play a duet too. This will be fun! 

My art is going well too and attached is my newest piece that will be part of my show at the Northside Library in June. 

That’s my update for now and thanks for stopping by! 

Time travel through music

 

Some months ago, I enrolled in the Classical Guitar Corner Academy  and I continue to love it. I am now far enough along in the curriculum that I am now encountering pieces I studied from the early 80s. The pieces pictured above by Luis Milan are renaissance pieces first published in 1536 for the vihuela (a Spanish plucked instrument similar to guitar). Back in 1981,  when I was working on these Pavanas, I was not exposed to old music from the renaissance. I didn’t really understand what they were for (dances) or how to play them.  I remember when i finished playing Pavana No 1 for my teacher, his question still haunts me. “You played all the right notes but where was the music? “  I said I didn’t know. And thus bean my real education in music. 

Around the same time, I befriended an opera singer. One day she sang for me an Aria from the soundtrack “Diva” that we loved. She told me her teacher said she shouldn’t even attempt to sing it until she was at least 35 years old. I thought that was really weird! (She was only 25 at the time) We both wondered what he meant by that. 

Years later, I do understand it. We’ve all seen younger people singing the National Anthem or some kind of sacred song that has a religious, historic or spiritual  meaning.  We see in them their flashy technique and how pretty their voices sound but they are not really connecting to the words or meaning of what they are singing. To them it is a series of notes, a technical exercise. Where the human voice is meant to convey the emotions hidden within those notes. It takes emotional maturity and life experience to be able to know and unlock that emotional expressivity. 

And so  now I started thinking of that and believe the same is true with instrumental music. An instrument is really only mimicking the human voice. Now I am encountering these old pieces 45 years later, how will that change how I play the music? I am still exploring that! 

Stay tuned and thanks for stopping by. 

Winter into spring!

 

Hello everyone and Happy February. I checked and found out we have 46 more days until spring. That seems like a long time but it will be here before you know it. 

This year, 2026 marks my 50th anniversary of playing the guitar! To celebrate that, I joined a the Classical Guitar Corner academy, which is a great place online to study classical guitar. I recently met a member from CGC and we played some duets together. That was a lot of fun! Some of you may not know that I studied classical guitar many years ago from 1981-1987. Then I moved here from Chicago and I stopped playing formal music and began writing my own songs and I performed in local venues through the 90s. Then on my 40th birthday, I went back to classical guitar for a few years. Since then it has been on and off but I am “on” it again and loving it! 

Back in December I got to play the drum set again for my jazz band on NYE at The Center at Belvedere. Some of you may not know I started off as a percussionist in high school and later took up the guitar my senior year. So it is fun to have both percussion and guitar to play! 

I continue to enjoy playing therapeutic music for hospital, hospice and nursing home patients and this year is my 21st year doing that. In addition, a nursing home where I used to work nominated me for a hometown hero award. I am so honored by that. Thank you! 

The picture above is of the first collage I made in 2026. I am working up material for my art show at the Northside Library in Charlottesville in June. 

Thank you for stopping by and spring is on the way! 

Happy New Year 2026!

 Hello and  Happy New Year to one and all! I didn’t realize some months have passed since I last posted here. I hope this finds everyone well. I don’t know about you but I am ready for a new beginning. 2025 brought a lot of changes for our country, most of them not positive but I am hopeful that 2026 will bring good things to all. 

2025 was a good creative year for me though. I was fortunate to be in 3 art shows. One of them was a fundraiser for the local library with a local non profit. That was a great event for us all and I loved being part of that. 

I played in several concerts last year as well. Our jazz band played spring and summer concerts and my steel drum band played in various festivals around town. 

I  continue to enjoy my work at hospice and the hospital playing for patients on my guitar. 

The year 2026 marks my 50th year of playing the guitar, so to celebrate I joined an online classical guitar academy and I am very much enjoying it! 

I wish you all peace and joy and prosperity in the coming New Year and always! 

 

Hello and I hope this finds you well in our last weeks of summer. It has been quite a busy summer for me. I have enjoyed playing music in my bands and for my hospital and hospice patients. 

I continue to make art as well and above is maybe my favorite so far. I have always loved lighthouses and since I have lived in Central Virginia miles away from the sea, i have missed the Oceanside. 

Yesterday I found a new use for my collage.  I have a  patient I play for in hospice who had no photos or artwork on his walls. I asked him if he’d like for me to bring him something of mine to hang. He said he would love that. I brought him a few to choose from and this is the one he selected: 

I call it “Protector.”  After I hung it up, he looked at it and said, “I feel peace.” This is a man who loves nature and animals as much as I do. On the TV in his room, he has images of the forest with no sound. He is rare as other people I see often have the loud constant noise of the TV blaring. 

To me having beauty around us is so important. I put another one of my collage in the room of a woman who was in her final hours of life. That room also did not have any art in it. I am glad my pieces will find new homes. 

Today I am playing percussion in my steel drums band. I have played in this band 2 years now and we have really improved! 

Thank you for stopping by! 

Jean, if you are reading this.. I need a title for the lighthouse piece! :) 
 

 

Liberation

 

Hello and Happy June! In a matter of days, summer season will begin. I have enjoyed the spring. I continue to be busy playing percussion in 4 bands. In my church band, in my steel drum band, in a Kirtan chanting band and jazz band. Drumming brings me so much joy. 

I have also really been enjoying working on some classical repertoire of pieces that I used to play many years ago. Part of the reason I dropped some of them is because they were not appropriate pieces for my work as a therapeutic musician.  Sometimes the tempo is too fast or there is some tension and release in the composition - whereas in my music for patients, I play pieces that have relaxing melodies and tempos. 

One my favorites I am working on is a renaissance piece “Guardame Las Vacas”   . It is the first written example of a theme and variation. I love this because one can see the form of “theme and variation” like a mythological “hero’s journey.’ The opening theme represents home and all of the variations symbolize all of the transformations, transitions, challenges one undergoes in a journey. It is most satisfying to play! 

The collage pictured above is called “Liberation.” The flying penguin to me represents liberating oneself from the constraints of what is possible. It is a humorous image and yet to me it is also a serious display of inner freedom made manifest. Wishing you inner freedom and peace in this coming new season.