Every time I close my eyes blowing that trumpet of mine, I look right into the heart of good old New Orleans. It has given me something to live for. –Louis Armstrong
Tag: Music
Creative Gathering | The Guitar
The weeping of the guitar
begins.
The goblets of dawn
are smashed.
The weeping of the guitar
begins.
Useless
to silence it.
Impossible
to silence it.
Frederico García Lorca, from The Guitar
Creative Gathering | Music and Peace
When playing music, it is possible to achieve a unique sense of peace. –Daniel Barenboim
Today, I shot a photo of a new colleague, a gifted violinist, as she performed for our chapel service today. She had such a sweet, peaceful expression as she played that I was compelled to pick up my camera. I attempted the impossible–to capture the profound moment when musician and instrument coalesced and conspired to unshackle us from the bonds of this world and invite us into that peace.
The Sense of the Beautiful…
A [wo]man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of this life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.” ― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
This is my son’s viola. I shot [and edited] this photograph a couple of years ago while he was preparing to participate with the middle school orchestra in his school’s Christmas concert.
When he was about 18 months old, my not-little one was so moved by a classical piece playing in the background that he started crying. He did not understand the music, but it certainly touched something in him. I’ve often wondered if he was responding to “the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.”
Don’t we–adults–sometimes respond similarly when we encounter something awe-inspiring? Have you ever been moved to tears by the profound beauty of a thing?
The Day the Music Stopped
“Hammond: B-3, 9th Ward, New Orleans.” Frank Stewart. 2006 [photo of a photo]
We will never forget. Hurricane Katrina. 08.29.05.
About the Image: I shot the photo of a photo nine years ago while in New York City. The Hammond B-3 organ was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina 15 years ago today [New Orleans, August 29, 2005]. The photograph is part of Traveling Full Circle: Frank Stewart’s Visual Music, which was exhibited at at the Lincoln Center in New York City in 2011. You can learn more about Stewart, longtime Senior Staff Photographer for Jazz at the Lincoln Center, and his body of work by visiting his website: Frank Stewart.
Guest Post | “Hear Me Roar” by Liv Grace
Today’s guest post for our series on living Black in the United States was written by up-and-coming performance phenom, Liv Grace. Liv Grace graduated from high school a couple of weeks ago, and she is already making her mark in this world. In this post, she shares a little about her music journey and her song and music video, “Hear Me Roar,” which she wrote in protest of police brutality and racial injustice in the USA. Be sure to watch the video.
Yoooooo! My name is Liv Grace, and amongst many other things I am a singer, songwriter, and producer. I’ve always been a lover of music and the arts. I’ve loved making music, writing, and editing films since the day I found out my Nintendo 3DS had a video camera. I started writing poetry and fictional stories around the fifth grade. I’ve been singing in choirs since I was really young. I’ve harmonized on praise teams all throughout middle and high school, and I’ve been “belting it out” in school musicals for the past five years.
What I love most about music is its ability to bring people together and make them feel something. A simple melody has the power to make us feel a plethora of emotions and a lyric can help us see the world through someone else’s eyes. I’ve always loved the feeling I get when I listen to music and I like being able to give that feeling to others.
I’ve always been composing harmonies. I remember watching a video of young Ariana Grande when I was in middle school singing into a microphone connected to a guitar looping pedal, layering harmonies and singing over it. I was mesmerized, and immediately I knew I had to try it. Unfortunately, my middle school allowance was not large enough to purchase a professional guitar looper and trying to convince my parents to purchase a $100 guitar looper for me—a twelve-year-old with no guitar—was surprisingly difficult. I decided to do the next best thing and downloaded a free beatbox looping app on my phone. I picked a random song from my iTunes playlists, listened to it on repeat and recreated the instrumental with only my voice on loop. My obsession with arranging and recreating harmonies ran wild from there. I found myself recreating Broadway cast albums and singing all of the parts. I’d post small clips of me harmonizing with myself and singing covers on Instagram.
In my junior year of high school, I decided it was time to start creating my own music. This was daunting, yet exciting. Ironically, around that same time my dad, brother, and I stumbled across a space connected to the Hirshhorn Museum called ARTLAB+. That space literally changed my life. In fact, the only reason I actually completed my very first song was because I needed it to apply and audition for one of their arts programs. I was accepted, but didn’t go in with high hopes. I showed up, I sang it, and they loved it! It was at that moment that I realized this thing I’d been doing as a therapeutic hobby was something I was actually good at! I’ve been writing melodies, producing instrumentals, and composing harmonies ever since.
Liv Grace. Photo provided by the artist.
At the beginning of the shelter-in-place [to flatten the curve of COVID-19], there was a moment when nobody in the US knew what was going on or how to deal with it. My school extended our spring break while administrators and teachers worked on an action plan, so there was this huge chunk of time in which I was able to focus on things that made me happy. I’d started a music account on Instagram earlier in the year, but rarely posted on it due to lack of time. Now, I had what felt like all the time in the world!
Like many others, I began to use this surplus of time to focus on things that I genuinely enjoy and to learn new things. I finally had enough time to pour into one of my passions—music. I started actively posting on Instagram and from this the opportunity arose through ARTLAB+ to share my creative process as a teen artist in collaboration with the Nicholson Project, an artist residency program.
Liv Grace. Photo provided by the artist.
A couple days into the process [and after I’d written a song on mental health for the project], the video of George Floyd’s murder took over all forms of media. It wasn’t the first time I’d watched my people carelessly shoved to the ground by law enforcement. Every time a video comes across my feed, my heart aches, but watching George groan in pain as he yelled for his mother was the last straw. I knew I needed to use my gift to speak out. I decided my mental health song could wait and began writing “Hear Me Roar.”
When it comes to creating, I overthink everything. I spend hours writing and rewriting, trying to find the right drum pad or the perfect harmonies to accent, but with “Hear Me Roar” everything just flowed so organically. The song just came to me. The chorus popped into my head as I was soaking in a bubble bath. The next day I sat and wrote two verses, a pre-chorus, a chorus, and arranged backing vocals in one sitting. The next day I produced the instrumental and just continued tweaking throughout the week until the song was finished. I let it breathe for a little bit, listened to it about a week later and called it a wrap.
The song was done, and I loved it.
A little after the song was finalized, I decided I wanted it to be released with a music video, so I grabbed my video camera and my dad’s mini projector and pushed my bed to the other side of my room. Over a couple days I filmed, directed, and produced the video.
“Hear Me Roar” is the song I needed to hear as we mourned the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and all the other Black people who lost their lives to police brutality. I needed a song that would remind me no matter how hard anybody tries, they cannot silence my voice.
We often see the tragedies and the news and feel hopeless, like our voices don’t matter. But they do! Not only do they matter, our voices have the power to move mountains and make change in the world. My hope is that “Hear Me Roar” can remind people how powerful their roars are and that they should use them to speak out on issues that matter to them. Right now, we are in great need of change and if we use our individual and collective voices, we can make that happen!
“Hear Me Roar” is available to stream on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Tidal, Amazon Music, Google Play Music, Youtube Music, Deezer, and Napster! It is also available to purchase on Amazon, iTunes, and Google Play Store. You can find links to all of these stores here:
A percentage of the proceeds from “Hear Me Roar” will be donated to the ARTLAB+ program. Individuals involved in the program devote their lives to uplifting and amplifying the voices of young artists of color and provide us with equipment, professional guidance, and a loving environment to express ourselves in our own creative and unique ways. I want to help the program give the opportunities they’ve given to me to other young Black artists.
You can find me and more of what I’m up to here:
We need your voice to create change, so keep roaring!
Liv Grace. Photo provided by the artist.
The Stage is Bare
The stage is bare;
the crowds are gone.
Lord, now’s the time I need your song
to give me joy and certainty
when no one else is watching me.
“The Stage Is Bare.” Lyrics by Gloria Gaither and others
Performed by Sandi Patty
#ThursdayTreeLove | Why Does the Willow Weep?
Why does the willow weep?
What secrets does she keep? –Ruth Elaine Schram
As I thought about a photograph for this week’s Thursday Tree Love, the weeping willow I captured five years ago [while roaming the neighborhood] insisted on my taking note of its character. Though the tree seems weak with its weepy, leafy branches, it is actually flexible and strong.
Considering the last several months–point taken.
I have a writing deadline to meet [eek!] and [therefore] no time for a longer post. Instead, I’ll leave you with “Interesting Facts About Weeping Willow Trees” and my favorite [and totally awesome] willow songs–Billie Holiday’s bluesy “Willow, Weep for Me” and Ruth Elaine Schram’s wistful “Why Does the Willow Weep?”
Enjoy!
I am joining Parul Thakur for #ThursdayTreeLove every second and fourth Thursday of the month. If you would like to play along, post a picture of a tree on your blog and link it back to her latest #treelove post.
Good Vibes | Music, Hope, and Monochrome Mayhem
I always want to talk about important subjects, but with hope. Music is supposed to heal people. — Fatoumata Diawara
At the beginning of the year, I thought I’d focus on developing my monochrome photography skills, but life got in the way. Before I pressed pause on that venture, though, I was able to coordinate and complete two “Monthly Monochrome Mayhem” swaps in the “A Thousand Words” group on swap-bot.
Through the swaps, I made another photographer friend, Betty H., from the United Kingdom. She does a lot of concert photography, so she shared photos from a show at Birmingham Town Hall that featured Fatoumata Diawara and Staff Benda Bilili, singers from the continent of Africa.
Diawara is a Malian singer-song writer and actor whose music:
draws elements of jazz and funk into an exquisitely sparse contemporary folk sound – refracting the rocking rhythms and plaintive melodies of her ancestral Wassoulou tradition through an instinctive pop sensibility. At the centre of the music is Fatou’s warm, affecting voice, spare, rhythmical guitar playing and gorgeously melodic songs that draw powerfully on her own often troubled experience. –from Fatoumata Diawara’s Facebook Page.
Diawara opened for Staff Benda Bilili, a group of disabled street musicians from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The group consists of:
Four senior singer/guitarists sitting on spectacularly customized tricycles, occasionally dancing on the floor of the stage, arms raised in joyful supplication, are the core of the band, backed by a younger, all-acoustic, rhythm section pounding out tight beats. Over the top of this are weird, infectious guitar-like solos performed by a [young] prodigy on a one-string electric lute he designed and built himself out of a tin can. –from Staff Benda Bilili’s Facebook Page
The name of the group translates roughly to “see beyond [appearances].”
Betty says the musicians were “a joy to photograph.” I can tell! There’s so much energy in the photos that I can feel the good vibes.
The spark is even more apparent in the original color photos.
Aren’t the photos spectacular? Betty confessed that she frequently converts concert photographs to monochrome because “working around the choices of the lighting technicians” can be challenging. I see her point, but I love the mysterious aura of the color photos too.
Indie Week’s interview of Fatoumata Diawara outlines her philosophies of music and life. And if you have never heard this soulful singer, please take a listen to Fatou, her debut album.
And then, turn to the rhythmic fusion of soukous (influenced by rumba), rhythm and blues, and reggae found in the music of Staff Benda Bilili.
As Diawara points out, there’s a lot of difficulty in life. There’s also hope, joy, and laughter, which make the tough stuff bearable. I feel all of this in the music of Staff Benda Bilili and Fatoumata Diawara. Don’t you?
Until next time…
More #TreeLove | Live Like the Tree
If I could offer you any advice it would be to live more like the tree. Root yourself deeply in the One who gives you life. Extend your branches outward to aid those in need. Bloom abundantly growing steadily in every season, and be resolute in your calling to breathe life into a starving world. —Chante Marie
I couldn’t resist sharing a little extra tree love this week. My [former] student, singer-songwriter-artist Chante Marie, speaks to the trees too. She shared her ink drawing of a tree and the tree inspired advice above on her revamped Instagram page recently.
For more inspiration, check out Chante Marie Official on IG and her new single, “We Need.” It has nothing to do with trees, but it’s just as beautiful.
Happy Weekend!
Pics and Posts 