Homegirl Quel (kel) in Austin

It's Friday! James Taylor's Music Makes Me Happy.

Growing up, it was nothing for my brother, sister and me to break out and sing together for no reason at any given moment or place. It was awesome on the awesome days, but it got us through some of the tough days as well. We still break out like that whenever we're all back home in Memphis together. My husband, Billy, has witnessed our musical outbreaks. It helps that he plays instruments and loves to break out singing and dancing whenever wherever too, so making music with our kids will come naturally. We sing and dance around with our dogs, Okie & Stella, all the time, so doing it with our real children seems like a natural progression. I can't wait.

Sesame Street and James Taylor have a lot to do with my musical childhood and present tendency to be a singing dancing goof ball at home and sometimes in public, depending on my mood. Here's the show/man/song that started it all:

Music & whatnot

One of the few times I really played in front of more than two people was when I first got my acoustic guitar and performed George Micheal's "Faith" for my cousin, Paula, and a few of our friends in the church parking lot.  Yes, that was one of the first songs I learned...I had a thing for George Micheal (both in Wham & solo) as a pre/young teen--I wanted to marry him...and Micheal Jackson too. What was it about fem men being heart-throbs in the '80s?

The other day, Billy was in the mood to play his acoustic guitar. He likes me to sing for him sometimes, so he asked me to pick something. My favorite song right now is "Boston" by Augustana. We pulled the chords up online and Billy picked it out pretty quickly. Once he had it figured out, I sang the lyrics full blast as he played guitar and it was awesome. Then we switched up and I played guitar while singing and he accompanied me on his keyboard and it felt awesome. Then we did a couple more songs by The Fray and REM. Then I asked him to perform Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" for me as I always do when he's in the guitar playing mood. I have the most fun when we make music together like that. Actually, I have fun anytime I'm singing full blast...to music or not...alone or not. I've fantasized about playing and singing in front of people.

There's a coffee house here in Austin that has open mic nights where people can sing whatever they want and be accompanied by the house band...a full, live band! How cool is that?! We saw a few people get up there one night and, I must say, I was about two vodka & OJs away from getting up there myself. I'd love to do it, but I'm such a wuss. I just wonder if I can ever be as free with a public audience as I am with a Billy, Okie and Stella audience.

Fake Jam Session

Billy and me had some laughs playing for Terri on her recent visit. I played harmonica and tried to play guitar. I was shy in front of her for some reason. We had a blst though. I don't know why, but I feel the need to stomp one foot while I play guitar. It's so silly of me, I know, but it makes it so much fun.

Musical Moment

from Guitar Girl-July 5

One Down

I performed Brown Eyed Girl for my folks this weekend. It was a total impromptu moment and I hooked it up. I also flexed my harmonica skills...two thumbs up all around. Billy and I did a "dueling guitars" thing too for a bit. It was fun.

Still a ways to go as far as my skills are concerned. Having lots of fun along the way.

More on my music thing at Guitar Girl. Check it out.

from Guitar Girl-July 5

One Down

I performed Brown Eyed Girl for my folks this weekend. It was a total impromptu moment and I hooked it up. I also flexed my harmonica skills...two thumbs up all around. Billy and I did a "dueling guitars" thing too for a bit. It was fun.

Still a ways to go as far as my skills are concerned. Having lots of fun along the way.

More on my music thing at Guitar Girl. Check it out.

One Down

I performed Brown Eyed Girl for my folks this weekend. It was a total impromptu moment and I hooked it up. I also flexed my harmonica skills...two thumbs up all around. Billy and I did a "dueling guitars" thing too for a bit. It was fun.

Still a ways to go as far as my skills are concerned. Having lots of fun along the way.

Bad girl...

I've been a bad girl this week. Absolutely NO practice. I have Fridays off though, so I think I'll dedicate some time to practicing every Firday at least. I know...excuses excuses.

It's all coming back to me

This weekend Billy taught me how to tune my guitar. I know that's the first thing you're supposed to learn, but somebody else has always been around to tune it for me. He finally decided to teach me. So, progress!
I tried to see if I could remember some of the songs I'd already learned, and Brown eyed girl came back the easiest. Billy helped me sound it out and showed me how to play using bars. Good warm-up.
This week I'll be working on Bob Marley's Redemption Song. Wish me luck!

It all started when

My dad bought me an acoustic guitar for Christmas my freshman year in college. The white girls who shared the suite with me would sing and play all the time, and I remember thinking, how cool it was that they could make music and sing like that. I sing all the time and it just blew my mind that I could possibly make music. They convinced me of how easy it was, and how you only have to learn 3 basic notes and you could play almost any song...learn to transition between C, G, & D and the rest is gravy:)

The first song I learned was Don McLean's " American Pie". I have always been into "white" music. I drove my Black roommates crazy one year with my music (1  year, because after that we all went our separate ways). That year I was all about The Cranberries (I have all their albums), James Taylor (fell in love with him as a kid when I saw him on Sesame Street singing "Let me tell you 'bout Jelly Man Kelley, he like his jelly with toooooast, a dede-de-de-de yada yada yada yada come home Jennyy! Oooooooh, can he come home Jenny can he come home Jenny can he come?" I've been singing this song MY WHOLE LIFE.) Live, No Doubt and Sarah McLachlan. Brandy, Aaliyah, Boys to Men, and of course Mariah Carey were holdin' it down for me on the R&B side. That just brought back the memory of my sophomore year of me and friends and me bonding over M.C....

...It was the Fall of 1996, we had all finally found each other, it was the end of my above average GPA, and the beginning of the best 4 years of my life. We all lived on campus. I got to know friends I had grown up with all over again, and met my girls...I can't even imagine what college would have been like without them. And I digress...

Anyway, so I learned "Miss American Pie", Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" (I'm sure it had something to do with the fact that it was in a sweet scene in a Julia Robert's movie Sleeping With the Enemy...LOVE her), then George Michael's "Faith"--which I performed for my friends at church--they thought it was cool--then there was REM's "Man on the Moon" and Third Eye Blind's "Semi Charmed Life". And there was this song by Blues Traverler and a few others.

I've only ever dabbled with the guitar, and as you know, I'd d like to get really good at it. For all of those songs I learned, I hardly remember any of them. But, practice makes perfect...

Welcome to my other side...

My folks are planning a family reunion for next Summer. My mom told me today that there may be a talent show. How cool would that be? Everybody in my family knows I'm goofy, so I would totally be comfortable singing in front of them...not really...well sort of. Anyway, the goof that I am, there's a good chance that I'd be singing a goofy song too, so that'll help them (and me) not take me too seriously. When we were younger my (twin) brother and I recorded ourselves singing Four Non Blondes' "What's Up?" in 4 part harmony...we sang two parts on tape and harmonized with the tape as it played. We performed it for my mom...I told you, my life is a musical. My mom thought that was so funny. We were always making her laugh with our silly song and dance shows and other shenanigans. Anyway, I shall learn to play that song on acoustic guitar and it is a strong contender for the family reunion talent show. I have a whole year to change my mind as many times as necessary to actually convince myself not to do it.

Follow me on my journey to rock stardom (not really) at Guitar Girl.

Family Reunion

My folks are planning a family reunion for next Summer. My mom told me today that there may be a talent show. How cool would that be? Everybody in my family knows I'm goofy, so I would totally be comfortable singing in front of them...not really...well sort of. Anyway, the goof that I am, there's a good chance that I'd be singing a goofy song too, so that'll help them (and myself) not take me too seriously. When we were younger my (twin) brother and I recorded ourselves singing Four Non-blondes' "What's Up?" in 4 part harmony...we sang two parts on tape and harmonized with the tape as it played. We performed it for my mom...I told you, my life is a musical. My mom thought that was so funny. We were always making her laugh with our silly song and dance shows and other shenanigans. Anyway, I shall learn to play that song on acoustic guitar and it is a strong contender for the family reunion talent show. I have a whole year to change my mind as many times as necessary to actually convince myself not to do it.

FYI

I have done a terrible job working on my guitar skills. I do, however have plans this week to dust off the Yamaha and have Billy tune it for me. I'm starting with Redemption Song. I'm already pretty familiar with the lyrics, so hopefully it won't be too difficult to learn to sing it while playing. I learned it a while back, but I never perfected it, and of course, my goal is to significantly improve my skills and what better way to home my skills than to practicepracticepractice in hopes of perfecting a somewhat challenging song?

Everytime I "perfect" a song (chords and lyrics from memory) I'm going to make some physical or style change to make me more rockalicious...up to 10 things. I'm going to start with painting my nails no-black. I say not-black because I know that black is very "rockstar", but it's not very me. So, I'll keep my nails in a dark eggplant or blood-red type color. I have to keep my nails nubbed down to play, and I think dark nubbed down nails are really cute.

Once I can sing and play Redemption Song seamlessly, I'll paint my nails not-black.

I'm not sure what else I'm gonna do, but I know the list will probably involve getting a cool haircut, an extra piercing (in my ear of course), maybe a tatoo (yet another idea I am bootlegging from my sister...who may or may not be considering getting a tatoo). I'm starting small though...non-black nail polish is pretty harmless, and seems like the perfect place to start.

First of many

So, I'm hoping that this will be the ...first of many...entries on this blog. This is only a test run. My sister has 3 blogs, and since it was she who introduced me to "the blog", likewise, it is she who has inspired, my multi-blogging. Well, in her case it's multi-blogging, in my case it's bi-blogging. Are those even terms?

Anyway, I really want to be sure I'm going to keep up with it. SO, if I don't I won't tell anybody and I'll just take down the site and it'll be like it never existed. 

My hope is to bring you along on my journey to rock stardom...of course I'm joking about the rock stardom thing, but hopefully you'll keep up as I improve my musical skills. Right now I'm focusing on acoustic guitar, which I've dabbled with since my freshman year in college. Eventually, I'll be adding ukulele and harmonica (which I recently discovered after buying one, found out I have an uncanny natural ability to play) to my list.

I'll keep you posted on the songs I'm learning and I'll even record some songs for you to listen to. I'm usually shy when it comes to singing in front of people who don't know and love me, but everything is easier online, right?

I don't really want to be a singer or anything, I just love singing so much...it makes me so happy...that to be able to make music and sing would just be the sweetest thing. My husband has that ability with piano and guitar, and I've always thought that was cool. Maybe we'll do some stuff together.

If I sound cool enough, maybe one day I'll do it in public... in the park or something. I wouldn't look weird sitting in the park rocking out on acouctic soul...that's a pretty common site here...it's an Austin thing to do.