Many thanks to Alan Horkan for recording these demo’s. Many thanks to Marie Dietlin for providing the recording studio. Marie’s website: http://www.create-change.org/en/index.html
T’was Pretty to be in Ballinderry:
This is a lesser known traditional song. I have deliberately sung it in a different key then what it normally would be sung in because if I am singing it a’capella, this is how I enjoy singing it. I have also deliberately altered the lyrics to suite how I wish to tell this story through song.
Cherokee Morning Song:
I was taught this song in approx. 2002 or 2003, I don’t really remember. I had gone to the Mission Friendship Centre for the weekly healing circle (I was a regular around there for a few years for several reasons). One evening I arrived and other then the woman who was at the time running the circle (she was doing this temporarily since the elder who normally ran the circle was ill for a while), I was the only one in attendance, except for 3 women elders (all super graceful, strong presences, beautiful women) who had arrived (they did not know each other), each there by intuition with the intention of sharing their teachings (each came from a different place in Canada, all three in Mission only temporarily). They decided to teach me 3 songs, the Cherokee Morning Song, the Women’s Warrior Song and one other song. The Cherokee Morning Song is the only which stuck with me and I have memorized. This is the oldest dialect of Cherokee and I am told by the elders that it is the language of the spirits. This is a song you sing with the intention of taking a moment to really think about what the sun gives us; Vit D, without the sun there would be no plants and no food, et cetera. It is meant to make you really present in a place of gratitude of all the gifts the sun gives us; it is also something you sing when you feel you need to call the sun to come out.
Words – Cover
This is a cover of a song called “Words” by Ane Brun. I sung the song a bit higher and off key on purpose because this is how I wanted to sing it, I wouldn’t do that if I was singing with musicians but since I was doing it a capella, I decided it didn’t matter. If you don’t know the song, you probably won’t notice.
I am going to be posting more singing demo’s in the coming weeks. The purpose in these singing demo’s is two fold.
1) So I can send these to my Grandmother in England & my Grandparents in BC (and of course to share it with you)
2) The other reason is so that I can show local musicians what I can do right now for the purpose of experimentation, collaboration & jams; to find cohorts of musical mischief. Right now my strength is mostly with traditional Celtic songs, but I also enjoy making my voice sound like flutes. I used to be able to imitate Chinese violins but I stopped practicing this so I am re-learning what I was doing before, but I wish to expand further then what I explored before, to see where else my voice can take me, using my voice as an instrument.
I really love rock & roll (The Tea Party, David Bowie, Robbie Robertson & The Red Road Ensemble), especially the old stuff from the 60’s & 70’s (Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin et cetera), but I love music that is progressive & spans accross genres, so I am interested to see how my voice could be used in an experimental context that would go beyond genre limitations.