Monday, April 11, 2011

Bits and Bobs...some Gaelic music, some gentle musing, some good advice...

Just some bits and bobs to share!  I got the link to this fabulous post by artist Austin Kleon from a friend on Facebook (so FB comes in handy sometimes!).  It's funny, but also so very true...there's some great advice in there so make sure you read to the end!  Funny the way my brain works... his website is (as you might imagine) called www.austinkleon.com.  Except that until I actually read his profile, I thought maybe it was 'Aus tinkle on'...hmmm!
Great advice for artists from Austin Kleon!


Now that I've worked out how to upload mp3 files, I thought I'd share this.  I've mentioned a few times that I used to sing in a Scottish Gaelic ensemble, so here is a song from our one and only CD. This was recorded in 1999, back when I was a young(er) thing.  It's a lament and a lullaby, and it's about events that happened back in the 16th century, I won't say any more about its meaning than that.  If any of you are Gaelic speakers, please, PLEASE do not laugh too much at our pronunciation, we tried our best!  The two wonderful singers with me are Melinda (who also arranged this piece) and Jane (and no, it's not me playing guitar!).  If any of you out there have sung in a choir, or even just a small group, you'll know the joy of singing with other voices, when I sang this song I couldn't wait for the second chorus when the other two voices would join in, it gave me goosebumps every time.  I think the final chorus is my favourite part.




And here's an article that caught my eye in the local newspaper.  Now why does it seem to make such a lot of sense to me?!  It's no news that in times of fear and stress (like war) people tend to be more politically conservative.  But it's interesting that political views may be influenced by (or perhaps may influence...they're not sure which yet) which part of your brain is more developed.  Greater development in the area associated with understanding complexity, and your political views are likely to be liberal (that's 'small l' liberals...because here in Australia we have the peculiar situation where our conservative party is called the 'Liberal' party!)  Greater development in the section that processes fear, and you're likely to be conservative.  Of course, nothing is ever as straightforward as that, and the newspaper has probably pulled out the most sensationalist few lines of a report that is many pages long.  I might go a-hunting further.

And for lots of WONDERFUL music, about and by Gypsies, head over to Terri Windling's Drawing Board Blog, marvelous stuff to be heard there!

4 comments:

Windsongs and Wordhoards said...

The Gaelic piece is just wonderful... It gives me goosebumps too. I grew up with Irish and Scottish folk and was entranced from an early age by the beautiful gaelic songs. I've always wished I could learn to speak it or even understand it - I love the complicated spellings on the page and the soft flowing syllables.
Do you still sell your CD? If you put it on etsy or something I'd definately buy one.... Your singing is wonderful!

Anonymous said...

Your song is quite beautiful. Thanks for sharing! You have posted so much great stuff today, that I'm still internalizing it all. I love Austin's advice, and can really keep all of it in mind with my own writing. However, the one advice I feel most compelled to respond to is the one about giving your secrets away. I've discovered so many incredible artists simply because they've decided to "give their secrets away" by blogging. If it hadn't been for your blog, I probably would never have come across your artwork. I probably never would have seen a whit of Rima Staine's amazing works, nor anything by all the other artists whose blogs I follow on a regular basis. I'm so grateful to the amazing interconnectivity that the internet allows--it folds the world into smaller pieces so that we may better touch each other's hearts and minds.

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Aida said...

The singing is amazing.
Thank you for sharing it~ from this side of Asia
a bit of Ireland is always welcome.

and the post on "stealing art" is so fun~ and kinda true o.o;;;
after going through art-school art went from pleasure and passion to self-promotion and confusion~! And now, as it's soon to be over, it's finally reverting back to pleasure and passion, with more positive views surrounding it~ The journey is tough, but worth it~!

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