Tag: music

Getting Back To The Basics

Listening to someone new on my Amazon Music app, Iron And Wine, I couldn’t help but be transported back to a different time.

The song had a catchy title….something about being naked but don’t let that deter you from listening. Instrumentality it was mello and the lyrics made sense. The sound was soothing not unlike something I might would have listened to during the Woodstock era.

It made me appreciate once more the music of the past. You just don’t find artists or music like this anymore. This was refreshing. It took me back to my teenage years when unlike today there were moral boundaries. Life was simpler and people were actually happy. Yes, we loved to cruise around the hottest drive-ins and I even got caught coming home late on occasion but life had meaning.

It’s reflection on better times that will strengthen our desire to not just settle but to strive to get back some of the values we had back then.

Do I want to give up my new car or Wi Fi? Probably not but if it would mean we could live in a less violent world and a world that has a strong value system, then yes I would. Progress is not always in our best interest.

The last few years have more than ever shown that it’s not the wealth of this world that matters. We need to get back to the basics. It’s really simple, put God first. Next to God is family. God from the very beginning laid out a value system that works. LOVE

May God bless you abundantly.

When Notes Fly

There has always been music around me. When I was just a small child my father would wake me up singing things like “Wake Up Little Suzzie” or “You Ain’t Nothing But A Hound Dog”. At the age of eight my parents made arrangements for my aunt to give me piano lessons. I drank up the lessons on notes like a wino devours his last bottle. It just wasn’t possible for me to get enough of it.

Unfortunately for me, the more time I spent on the piano the less time I spent on my studies. When my grades began to plummet, so did the lessons. To my parents way of thinking that was the quick fix to the problem. My grades only improved to a marginal level. It wasn’t that I wasn’t smart or anything, but that I just got bored easily. Music for me was a calming tool that made all my thoughts come together.

The piano in our house sat idle, just there for me to look at. Not being allowed to play, I soon lost the desire to. Oh the notes rolled around in my head still but they no longer had meaning. Five years went by, I guess my parents finally figured out that without music I was nothing. On my thirteen birthday I was handed a very large box. It contained a guitar. A short time later my father took me to town for guitar lessons. It wasn’t the piano but my fingers seemed drawn to it. I played for the church youth group and for anyone who listened.

I had no desire to play professionally, but in 1995 my husband and I went to Nashville to do a TV show. While it was fun, that was all it was to me. Oh we talked to artists and producers and it became very apparent that talent had nothing to do with getting a record deal. By the time the producers, songwriters and managers get their cut there is little left for the artist. Not the kind of lifestyle I wanted.

At 69, I still play for church on occasion and senior citizen functions and that is just fine with me. The moral of this story is do what make you happy not necessarily what makes other people happy. If you make other people happy, that’s a bonus!