My Dear Music Family,
I thought I’d pop my head out of my isolation bubble to connect, catch up, and tell you how much I miss you all and love you.
What a crazy year this has been! Life has changed so much over the past 9-10 months with so many ups and downs and waves of emotion until I finally settled in, best I could and embraced our new reality, including lots of zoom sessions with students, family and friends.
One of the benefits is being able to spend more time with family I normally don’t get to see as often, like my dad and his wife Laura. They started attending our “Zoom Church” Sunday Service (The Methodist Church in the Pacific Palisades) and I love sharing this with them. It’s been such a huge comfort and support for me during this time. My family has become even closer during this lockdown, their encouraging words a healing balm when I’ve been feeling down. It’s so good to see the faces of my church family (and their pets!) each week. A time where we can all lift each other up.
John and I have been recording “church songs” for the service, and it’s been not only fun but a good musical work out!
Here’s our song for Christmas Eve. It’s a Spiritual recorded by Odetta in the 60s, and we found it so haunting and beautiful.
Professionally, I’ve grown in ways I didn’t think was possible. For decades, I have been trying to “succeed” at being a professional Musician. Being forced to quarantine and stop the freelance life has made me think about what “success” truly is. It’s less about fame and fortune and more about igniting the light within me.
I’ve been given myself the time to thoroughly follow my joy and put my full attention on songwriting. In this dark time, I’ve found a silver lining and am I grateful!
The pandemic has given me the best gift ever, a big hot streak of creativity and songwriting!
Along with my amazing writing partner, John Bigham, we’ve written 15 songs so far. It has been a saving grace for me. We have been demoing the songs and doing pre-production.
This is literally a dream come true! More on all of this at a later date, but I am so excited about this music! We can’t wait to share it with the world!
The pandemic has also given me the time and inclination to finally get set up to learn pro-tools and get my recording chops together. Phew! The learning curve is a little steep, but I’m patient with myself. Thankfully John has been using pro-tools for years and can do the heavy lifting there.
This holiday season may your heart be comforted by the love of those around you (literally and virtually).
Wishing you radiant health and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
I’ve been so happy to teach a few piano and voice lessons online during this time. It feels lovely to be of service. At first, the technology felt daunting, but now I’m getting the hang of it, and lessons are going quite well. My students vary from a 90-year-old, isolated in his care home, to a teenager in performing arts school, to a Disney Executive! Read about their experiences here and find out how much lessons have helped them. We need music in our lives now more than ever. If you’d like to try it, I’d love to work with you! To talk with me about lessons, send me an email to get started.