Singing - lift your spirits

"I don't sing because I'm happy; I'm happy because I sing".  ~William James



I love this quote.  Nothing lifts my spirit quite like singing .... When I was a teenager I felt it was my prayer - my connection to spirit - a direct link to the power of the Universe.   Through the years I've suffered because I paid attention to other people's opinions about what was or is fashionable about singing - how exactly they felt the voice should sound.   But thankfully as I've grown older, and after years of coaching other singers, I've now got to a place where i don't really think about my voice at all; I only focus on the song - and if the song is fun to sing, or emotionally moving, then the pictures roll in front of my inner eye as I pass on the story and I come off stage feeling like I've had a couple of hours of meditation and relaxation.  


So, if you're feeling blue,  go and sing loudly - put on your favourite song and sing along at the top of your voice - or be like Sally Bowles in "Cabaret", - scream at the top of your lungs!   She went and stood under a railway bridge as the train was going by - much more romantic for the movie screen:))   but it's just as good to get into the car and roll down the windows(when no-one's listening) and just throw back your head and go for it.   I guarantee you'll feel better:))

My favourite church gig

I've loved the town of Annahuette since our very first visit there back in 2001.  The Henrietten Kirche is beautiful - such a wonderful venue to sing in - and the surprise of a Kneipe in the cellar is a hoot.   Lovely people.

With Herr Noack and Siegelinde after the concert.

The first time we visited I could speak little or no German and Tom spoke none at all  - these three wonderful gentlemen solved the problems of the world and communicated via the universal language of whiskey lol  I made the mistake of joining them!!!!   

Germany and Holland April 2012 Easter trees and Hallig Hooge

We're just back from our trip to Germany and Holland ... The tour was great - really enjoyable concerts everywhere we played .... It was the first time Tom and I had been back to Germany as a duo for many years and we both had a blast...  finally got him singing more than harmonies and we are home now with plans to get him singing on the new CD!!!!    It's only taken me 25 years coaxing lol.

Here are some of the images from the trip....

Easter Trees .... 

this was the first thing to hit us in Germany ... loads of the houses had trees festooned with Easter eggs but inside and out ... it was really cheerful.

 This thatched house was on the road from Kiel to the ferry out to Hallig Hoegge... very quaint....

HALLIG HOOGE

Hallig Hooge is amazing .... a salt plain or salt meadow would be the correct description .... these islands are below sea level and have a small dyke protecting them from the North Sea.
As you approach by boat you can just see a few little bumps ....

.... and as you get closer you see that there are houses built on each bump which is called a Waft .... there are 9 Wafts on Hallig Hoegge and a total of 110 residents .... The Canada geese were there at the same time as us - what a wonderful noise.

   

This was where our pension was for the night.

Tom getting set up for the gig .... look at the wonderful tiles on the wall - very dutch and very old .... It was the best acoustics for a venue that we've ever played in I think...  

Check out more about the Hallig at http://www.nordseetourismus.de/en/hooge 

Studio days Part Two.

Brendan's back for a second session to complete the basics of all the songs for the new CD.

A wee chat with Tom to start ...

 I'm doing guide vocals in the sitting room - Brendan's in the studio with Tom ...

The album keeps changing direction - it hasn't decided where it's going yet ...  I don't know how he keeps the idea in his head of where the track is going to .... a bare guitar that will leave room to be eventually coloured around by other instruments - a bit of bass or fiddle or accordion and definitely percussion ... and last but not least my voice.   Oh how exciting this process is this time.  


It was 20 years ago when we released the first album, The Light Beyond the Woods - I was in awe of all the musicians and hadn't a clue really as to what was going on.   I have never been happy with my voice on that CD but it lead me onto a journey of discovery that started me teaching other people to help them get over stage fright and deal with the beliefs that they couldn't sing.

It's been glorious today - the first sign of Spring in the air -  we could go out without a coat for a short while.

If I Were A Blackbird - the start of a journey

I was standing in the middle of the floor at a singaround  during the  Holmfirth Folk Festival  back in the mid 90s - Tom and I had just met a bunch of lovely Yorkshire singers and I was blown away by the concept of the singaround which was something that I'd never encountered before.  I sang "If I Were A Blackbird" and afterwards Maggie Boyle told me that it was a Delia Murphy song.  I'd only vaguely heard of Delia before that, but I'm fascinated by the story of songs so I started researching her and storing away the bits of useless information that I found.

Fast forward a few years to the Tron Folk Club in Edinburgh and I met Alex Burns - sadly Alex is no longer with us - but that chance encounter changed my life in ways that I couldn't see at the time.  I sang "The Connemara Shore" and asked the audience if any of them had ever come across it before.  Alex thought he had it in his collection of gramophone records and several months later a cassette recording of a selection of his gramophone collection landed on my doormat.  And there, was my proper introduction to Delia and her songs.   

All of a sudden my lonely "If I Were A Blackbird" - or is it If I Was A Blackbird"? had a home and I could remember all the dozens of songs that my mother sang that inevitably were way too uncool for a teenager so I'd filed them in the "not worth considering if you want to be Linda Ronstadt" category...!!

The song became the first one I recorded when I decided to do an album of songs from my childhood in 2004 - it was also the first one that Delia recorded in her very first recording session in 1936.  She was the wife of the Irish minister in London and in diplomatic circles she was mixing with the arts and cultural leaders as well as politicians and diplomats.  John McCormack was a friend of hers as was Margaret Burke Sheridan and when the denizens of the recording industry starting looking outwards from London to find suitable projects to record someone suggested Delia - she was the life and soul of the embassy parties, playing piano and leading singsongs with her vast repertoire of Mayo songs.  So she went in for her very first session in 1936 and recorded 6 songs and became the first Irish person, male or female, to be recorded singing in her own accent, a fact that makes her recordings the beginnings of Irish folk music as we know it from these islands and an early native addition to the work being recorded in America by the McNulty Family and Flanagan Brothers among others.  

In our house we sang If I Was A Blackbird - probably our colloquialisation of the correct grammar - nowadays I find it difficult to be proper and sing "were" .. but here are the words as I sing them.  I also sing the chorus after each verse.   I've read somewhere that the song dates back to the 1700s and there are various theories as to who the Blackbird is or was - some say it was Bonny Prince Charlie as he was sometimes referred to in this way.  However most often it is considered a Dublin street song and started appearing in books from the 1920s onward.  There are interesting discussions about it at Mudcat

If I Were A Blackbird (traditional)

recorded by me on the Songbirds CD  (Glenshee Music GSR001) - available from CD Baby or my shop at www.filcampbell.com

If I was a blackbird, I’d whistle and sing

And I’d follow the ship that my true love sailed in

And on the top rigging I’d there build my nest

And I’d pillow my head on his lily white breast

I am a young maiden and my story is sad

For once I was courted by a brave sailor lad

He courted me truly by night and by day

But now he has left me and gone far away

He promised to take me to Donnybrook Fair

To buy me red ribbon to tie up my hair

And when he returns I will greet him with joy

And I’ll take to my bosom my dear sailor boy

His parents they chide and will not agree

That I and my sailor boy married should be

But when he returns from the ocean so wide

He’ll take me and make me his own loving bride

If I was a blackbird, I’d whistle and sing

And I’d follow the ship that my true love sailed in

And on the top rigging I’d there build my nest

And I’d pillow my head on his lily white breast

Fire Proofing Cert...

I've been spending today sorting through old files looking for one bit of paper that should have already been on the computer.

It's wonderful starting to find new gigs ... there's lots of them there to find ... and I am so grateful that there is interest in my work ... thank you angels.  But the downside of each new booking is that each one generates a list of paperwork to be provided ... fire proofing for the back drops; insurance for the theatre; set list for the copyright agency; stage plan for the techies; press release for the media; flyers and posters for front of house ... and hours later I still haven't gotten to my list of things to do today!!   Anyway, I've at least found the fire proofing certificate.   Now it's on to creating a slide show to screen behind me singing and lastly create a script for the flow of the new show.

And in the process today I've made a good start on clearing out my filing cabinet.   OK, next ... insurance ...ho hum...

I also found this that a friend sent me many years ago - made me smile:))

I'm Tired
Yes.  I'm tired.   For several years I've been blaming it on middle age, poor blood, lack of vitamins, air pollution, saccharin, obesity, dieting, lack of exercise, and another dozen maladies that make you wonder if life is really worth living.
But I found out it ain't that.
I'm tired because I'm overworked.
The population of this country is 51 million.21 million are retired.That leaves 30 million to do the work.There are 19 million at school.That leaves 11 million to do the work.2 million are unemployed and 4 million are employed by the government.That leaves 5 million to do the work.One million are in the armed forces which leaves 4 million to do the work.3 million are employed by County and Borough councils leaving 1 million to do the work.  There are 620,000 people in hospital and 379,998 in prisons.  
Which leaves 2 people to do the work.
You and me.
And you're sitting on your backside reading this.
No wonder I'm bloody tired.

Yuletide

The Winter Solstice is always an exciting time for me - a new year beginning, the holidays still to come and a chance for the next 10 days or so to look back on the past year.  And it's been mostly a really positive year.

  This time last year we were encased in snow - an experience I've never known before and it made for a very relaxing Christmas time.   But it's very reassuring that everything is back to normal this year - much nicer to be able to get outside and do things, see people and share the holiday.  

Professionally in 2011, Tom and I released our second Songbirds CD which was very well received everywhere - we got loads of radio play all around Ireland and on Irish programmes abroad and we were featured on RTE TVs Nationwide programme - the clip of that is still on my website if you haven't already seen it.  Click here to link directly to it. 

Apart from that I had a solo tour in America which was great fun - thank you to everyone who hosted me during that time and who fed and watered me along the road.  Tom and I played several times in Scotland and England and together with Brendan we played the St. Patrick's Day Concert outdoors in the London Borough of Brent which was really exciting for us.  And also with Brendan we did several Irish shows including our first concert in my hometown - Belleek in Co. Fermanagh - and had a very enjoyable night in Newry for the local hospice.  

Our studio, Ballyneddan Cottage Studio, was busy all year - Tom engineered and helped produce CDs for Shane Morgan, Patrice McKevitt, James Curran and the Mourne Grange Camphill Choir, as well as editing a yoga video and recording voice overs for a Hungarian tour operator!   I've been making the coffee for a very interesting bunch of performers and enjoying every minute of it.  

And lastly my community choir has finally found its feet.   I am passionate about helping people find their voices.  So many adults have been badly affected throughout their lives by having been told as a child that they could not sing. My feeling is that everyone can sing - of course we're not all going to be Pavarotti or Barbara Streisand but we all have the need to use that muscle.  

So, after short series of workshops in Rostrevor last winter and in Castlewellan in the Springtime, we settled in to a regular Monday night workshop/practice in Warrenpoint Town Hall. This group of singers of all abilities and ages will continue throughout the Spring and my vision of having a second group working in Castlewellan will hopefully bear fruit early in the Spring as well.  There'll be a few performances coming up so I'll keep you posted about that.  

So now on to 2012 ... wow ... where's the time flying to.  I never thought I'd live past the year 2000:)))  A new CD and loads of travelling will be the order for the year -  back to Belleek for a follow up concert in February, a German tour in April, some Irish dates in May, France in June, Australia in September and UK in November - with teaching in between and the choir running alongside all of that, it should be a pretty busy year.   I'll try to keep doing some updates on Facebook and by mail, although I'm not very prolific with that side of things - maybe it'll be this time next year when I get back to say hello.  

In the meantime, I wish you all the blessings of the winter solstice and the holiday season.... have a good rest if you can get it, look after yourself and have healthy, happy and prosperous New Year.