I decided to upload the piano part of this music.  although it was great having Sophie work on the music with me, the balance wasn't right and the melody was often covered up. Only toward the end did I add a little strings that had already been recorded

When Clowns Can't Make You Laugh Anymore (Piano)

It has been a difficult year with no end in sight. It used to be easy to ignore what was going on in the world and stay in your pretend bubble if you wanted to. we need to face reality and stop pretending our lives will go back to what we thought they were. I am trying to figure out how to write happy music but when I sit down and improvise what I am feeling it is sadness that comes out. Sadness for people dying who didn't have to. Sadness for people who chose to listen to opinions instead of searching for truth. Sadness for those who became orphans at every age. Sadness that my great grandchildren won't experience the carefree youth I had because so much has been, and is being destroyed in the name of profit. That is what this music is saying. Nothing will be the same again.

I spend much of this summer where I was unable to record anything I played. This is the first music I have uploaded in several months

Pretending All Is Right Tonight

First improv of the year. Last year was a hard year in many ways, personally and for America. So lets begin the year with a smile, and hope that we can turn it around. It just started to snow. Time to crawl into bed and put my head under the covers and think of Spring!

One More Time Please

Ten years ago I had a liver transplant. They never tell you who donated it because of privacy issues but you can write a letter and give it to your transplant co-ordinator to pass on to them and they can contact you if they want to. I didn't do that.The first couple years were touch and go for me and I was in and out of the hospital quite a bit. The years that followed were rough. The medicine I have to take causes cancer and I had more surgeries for that. Liver disease caused my bones to be brittle and I've broken quite a few. About a year ago my drs said that whatever I die from it won't be my liver. It is functioning very well. The man who gave me his liver has a family I'm sure. Hopefully their grieving causes them less pain. I wanted to write music for him, for them that expressed my emotions at having ten years of life I came close to not having. My doctors told me I would not have lived another two weeks before I would have gone into a coma. I would have missed my grandchildren growing up and three great grandbabies being born and a fourth on it's way.  I would have not recorded 100 pieces of music so far as my legacy to future generations. Not a day has gone by that I have not thought about this man. He checked the box 'organ donor' on his drivers license. We rarely know when the end is coming. We need to appreciate every day we have. If he could only now see through my eyes.

If You Could See Through My Eyes

There is so much going on in our world today and we have no idea how it is going to fall. It was hard enough just thinking about America and how close we are to losing our way of life because we weren't paying enough attention to what our so-called leaders were doing to us. But now it encompasses so much more of the world and so many more people are hurting - losing more than just their way of life. They are losing family and friends, their homes, their culture and are fleeing for their lives. I can do nothing to help them. But they have shown us what it means to fight for your country. Maybe ignorant Americans can learn something from them instead of wrapping themselves in silly flag costumes and chanting "Lock her up." How can there be a sense of pride in our country when half of us wants to stop teachers from from educating students about the reality of our history because white students might be uncomfortable learning about how racist we have been. We have plenty of reasons to feel sorrow but we don't have time to sit and cry about it.

No Time For Sorrow

Explain a green world to a child
who has never played in the grass
Explain how it sounds to hear a bird sing
That flies through the sky in the wild
Explain the sound of a babbling brook
With sweet wind as it blows through the trees
Lay in the grass and watch the clouds pass
Feeling happy, so lazy and free.

My grandchildren cried when I said, "Go outside,"
as they clutched their phones in their hands
Playing meant games, addicted to screens
Play outside? I don't understand
Their memories of childhood, how will they explain
When playing outside was remembered as pain
I'm glad I'll be gone. I won't have to know
What the world was like when the food wouldn't grow

So many are waiting for somebody else
To wake up and fix the mess that was made
Who cares if the children are hungry and poor
You had to give birth since clinics locked doors
Who cares if the storms, the fires and drought
Destroyed their homes and made them afraid
The rich need more money, corporations say,
"Climate change is here to stay."

The wars, the bombs, refugees fleeing
Leaving their family by the side of the road
Thank God it isn't us, we say
Fox News tells us every night and day
We think we are safe if truth be told
God will save the religious right
Leave all others out in the cold
Stupidity has the largest price to pay

When the bees are gone and the birds stop singing
When the oceans are dead, only trash on the beach
We sucked out the life the world had to give
Only corpses of the dead now beneath our reach
We struggle to breathe, no healthcare for all
No backyards to play in, fading stars in the sky
Teach the children about green grass
Dreams to all. Goodnight

Explain a Green World To a Child

There are times I feel I am running out of time and I have so much yet to do. I have medical issues that feels like time is chomping at the back of my heels. I've had more time than I was supposed to. So i try to fill every moment of my day with all the  things I do that make up who I am. At the end of my day I am never done. It is a process that is impossible to complete. There will never be a time where I feel I have finished. I can only do as much as I can and hope the effect will be positive for my family as it grows past the scope of having known me alive. Some people fear the unknown and try to stop time and change from happening. Year after year then stays the same except the people in their life age. Working decades upon decade at one job until it becomes who you are - and when that is gone and I ask ,"Who are you?" You don't know.  I know where I was and what I was doing every year of my life, although it is getting harder to pack up and go. I couldn't count all the places I have lived. Someone once asked me if I was afraid to move somewhere I had never been. I laughed and said I must have forgotten to put that on my list. Be afraid of living. Be afraid of taking chances. I love living. It is going by too fast but when you don't let other people's opinion about who you are affect how you live your life then you will have no regrets. Even if you never took out a mortgage on a house because you wanted be free to decide to change your path. Stability was never my goal. Freedom was. But I'm in a wheel chair now. My bones are fragile. I've broken too many. But as long as I have my piano then I will be free tell my story - write my legacy - with music.

You Will Never Have Time To Finish

In 1959 Candi and I went to kindergarden in the same class. We lived three blocks from each other. We graduated from highschool in the same class. There were other kids in that class that I graduated with. Families didn't move much like they do today. Candi went on to become a fabulous painter and still lives in the house she grew up in, while I can't count how many times I moved. I found out recently she isn't feeling good and is having a hard time. So I do what I do and I record music. Everyone should have their own music.

Candi Land

Warming up my fingers and co-ordinating my hands. No thought. No reason, just playing up and down the keyboard. Still very agile. No arthritis. At this point in my life I couldn't ask for more.

Tinkering On The Keys #1

There are (5) Tinkering in The Keys. Bear with me as I explain. When I sit on my stool to play my piano, at nearly a standing position, usually the first thing I do is warm up, like a dancer has to stretch and warm up before they dance. I play a series of exercises to coordinate my hands from one end of the keyboard to the other, playing in every key, major and relative minor. My fingers are nimble and can play fast but what is the point of doing that. It is not my style. To prove what? I'm not trying to impress anyone with great technic. What is the point of the music being created? The point is for you to hear the story I'm telling and making it your own. Improvising the music I make, which is different from those who read and memorize music. ANYONE can learn how to read music. Not everyone can create music. It is not about how fast I can play but how much emotion I can create inside, for myself, playing my piano from the inside out, not striking the keys on the outside to make sound. It is about the vibration on the tones. I play for me. I let you listen.

These 5 pieces were all created inside 30 minutes. No redos, no fixes. They are clearly my style of playing cultivated over 60 years, and I'm not done yet. I usually play for an hour or two non-stop but I cut my playing this time into five pieces because no one will listen non-stop for that long. Most of it is played with my eyes closed, listening, knowing my keyboard that well. Feeling for chords that say what I feel. I don't care if I make mistakes. It's all part of the music. I don't practice music over and over until it's perfect. Life isn't perfect.

I'm not uploading the music in order but they will later be put in a playlist. My music is best listened to in the dark, eyes closed and go to sleep. In the next music descriptions I will explain what I think about improvised music and the players who play it, and what is happening to music in today's generation.

Tinkering on The Keys #5

if is difficult to find something positive to say and tell the truth. It seems the concept of right and wrong don't matter as long as you can score points and win regardless if people get hurt. Certain politicians don't care about the life of a pregnant woman even if she is dying from health complications, even if the fetus wouldn't survive, either. They don't care about the baby should if be born because they don't care about the life, just the ability to control. And if doesn't matter that religion should not influence politics and the separation of church and state doesn't matter anymore. 

But I don't recognize this Christian religion anymore because of the hate filled rhetoric about people who aren't white and hetero who believe guns belong in teachers desks instead of creating safer classrooms with adequate gun laws to protect them. We slaughtered the people who lived here before us and enslaved people we kidnapped in Africa. Now a certain political party is rewriting history so children will grow up ignorant of the truth. And don't say gay out loud in school! This list this on and on. How do we ignore these things while telling ourselves we are the greatest country in the world. Many countries have suffered, past and present over white men's need for domination. We are all human. We have differences but being white does not give anyone the right of control over others. Pretending this doesn't exist doesn't make it better. Ignoring it doesn't change it. This is what it feels to die of a broken heart. The land of the free and home of the brave, from sea to shining sea is just a story we tell with no longer any truth in i. We have sucked the life out of this land. I'm glad I won't be here when the final breath exhales. 

Humanity's Sadness

Sometimes we go through hard times and we lose hope that we will get through it in one piece. Sometimes we lose a part of who we are that we thought defined us.  Anger sets in because we don't know if we have the strength to find it again. But without these mountains to climb it is impossible to get to the next place. Life changes. We don't realize we have the power to mold those changes. That power comes from within, not an imaginary outside source. We need to take responsibility for our life or we will never be happy. I have been down this road. It does not get easier. Life isn't supposed to be easy. You have to work for it with the wisdom you gained from the mistakes you made. Find the music that is still there. Take one day at a time. Nam Myoho Renge Kyo

Choose Life My Friend

So many people struggle with insomnia because of devices in bed. I am guilty myself. Most of my music was created to listen to in the dark when there is no other sound. Put in your earbuds so it goes right into your brain - and dream.

Insomnia

Music to sleep by. Turn out the lights. Put in your earbuds and close your eyes in the dark. Enjoy.

London Bridges

This is the second version of this piano improv. I asked Sophie, my 13 yr old student to add to the music a cello part the way she felt it. She has good instincts for someone so young. She has played several other pieces of music in the past 3 years that you can easily find gong down my list of tracks. she listened once to the original music and then added the cello.  I was pleased with what she played because she was able to feel where the music was going.

Insomnia (Collab With Sophie)Version 2

I'm in the middle. I'm not yet 9 years old, but I already knew I was going to teach music even though I had only started playing at age 7. I would bring my friends inside and give them lessons on how to play Chopsticks and later, Heart and Soul. The family in the photo doesn't exist anymore, and hasn't for a long time. My older sister isn't in it. Some of my family is still living but there is absolutely no communication. There is only animosity and disrespect directed at me. There is no love or caring. Sad isn't it? I gave up.

Growing up between 1954 and 1972, when I left home to go to school, I had no intention of moving back to my hometown.

I had a wonderful childhood. Children today don't experience the joy of being a child whose sole objective was being able to play outside with a dozen other neighborhood children. 

My parents were still kids when they got married right out of High school and had three babies in four years. My sisters did the same thing, never finding out who they were and what their talents were. Could I sell cars for 35 years? Never. We were just so different. There were many reasons that tore our family apart. My father turned to alcohol after his kids were grown, in his 40's and was dead at 54. My mother couldn't maintain the family business herself and lost everything she had worked for and had nothing to show for it. I haven't talked to my sisters in years. They are angry at me for reasons I don't understand and I gave up trying to figure it out. They don't talk to each other, either. I don't know what it's like to have a sister. Are they lonely, too? Is it pride that stands in the way?

Creating music is my way of understanding what I feel. It is like my diary. From a young child I tried tried to play what I could hear inside, but I couldn't, and there wasn't anyone who could teach me that because they couldn't play their own music. It took a long time to understand and I'm not yet quite there, learning how to play the piano from the inside out. It has changed the way I teach. Anyone can learn to read music but only a few can actually hear their own music. I've written a lot of music for people as gifts and music for my own family, especially the newest babies. Number 5 great grandbaby is due in a few months. Hopefully it is something they will keep to always connect me to them.

I can't change what my sisters think of me. I believe it is regretful but it is their choice, not mine. If my parents could have looked ahead and saw how we ended how sad they would have been. When I uploaded this music to SC last night I sat there, overwhelmed and cried. It is one thing to lose your family to death; quite another to lose them when while they still live.

Broken Family

Another collab with my student Sophie. I am playing piano and she added cello and birds. It's great to be able to do recordings with her, so she can hear what she is playing. It is wonderful encouragement when she can read comments people have left for her on other music. For me, hearing her music grow sometimes I can't tell if she is playing or if it is me. We have been working on expression. Anyone can learn how to read music and play the right notes at the right time with their hands, but learning how to feel music with your body is different. So many adults took piano lessons when they were young and stopped playing and don't have the confidence anymore . If they had a way to hear themselves now maybe they would be encouraged to play again, otherwise it is a complete loss. Today most public schools have shut down creative studies. Children aren't exposed to music like they used to, not since George Bush changed education and made it all about testing testing testing and teachers couldn't teach the way they had been used to. Now its getting much worse. Children need to learn to be creative. It gives me great pleasure to teach them (and adults too!) 

Here Come The Birds!

So much of humanity is lost to drug addiction. Most who come in contact with it turn their faces away. It's ugly. Why don't these people quit? Don't they want to? But if it was that easy don't you think they would? Don't you think they know they are dying? Withdraw is harder than dying. Some drugs you can quit, but do you think the craving just goes away? Once an addict,  always an addict.  We have to try to find better things to get addicted to that are good for us. 

There is a new drug in town and it's horrible.  People are getting addicted not knowing it is being mixed into what they are already using.  It's called TRANQ. There is no such thing as heroin anymore. You can no longer buy it on the street. Heroin you can detox from and you have a chance of staying sober.  But the addiction is still there. Then Fentanyl was mixed in.  It was cheaper to make and there was more profit to be made for the dealers. It is 50-100x stronger than heroin but you went into withdraw faster and had to inject more often. The craving was more intense. Many tens of thousands of people OD'd. Do you think they deserved it? It was their own fault because they are the ones who tried drugs in the first place? Maybe you tried cigarettes or alcohol? Do you still drink or smoke - ever? Can't quit? People drink to get a buzz. It's the same,  looking for an altered state of reality. 

The lucky ones who OD'd when it was only opiates were saved with Narcan and it pulled them out. But many people can't make it through detox. There aren't enough resources or rehabs. Then Tranq was added - a horse tranquilizer. The addicts didn't know. It isn't an opiate.  Narcan won't help them. The addiction is brutal.

In areas of cities across America, blocks are covered with people who are lying on the sidewalks or standing bent over at the waist. They have decaying sores all over their bodies. They wake up in horrendous withdraw. OD's have been doubling every year from the previous year. This year will be much ppworse.  These people are still human beings with family who love them. Not enough is being done. There is no media attention, while Tranq is reaching across America looking for its next victim. 

I have not heard one word by ANY politician openly addressing what is happening. They would rather harp on illegal immigrants bringing drugs across the border,  but immigrants are not doing THIS. The problem is much bigger than the border.  Is there no help, or does everyone think these people deserve it? Did you know many are only in their teens and come from good families in average rural towns?

I wrote this music for them.  My heart hurts. No matter what part of society you live in,  rich,  poor, middle class, educated with degrees, business owners,  teachers or even someone given pain meds for surgery but the pain didn't go away. No one is safe.  Put the word "tranq" into YouTube and watch. . . then find a way to help. Please.

Shadows Of Humanity

When I sat at my piano today - or rather leaned on a stool because my piano is at standing level - to warm up my fingers because at 69 every part of you has to be warmed up if you want it to work, I hit the record button.  This music is what I played.  This entire piece of music including the other tracks was recorded in less than 20 minutes.  I laid the piano track, then the flute and strings.  Nothing was mixed or changed.  I uploaded it exactly as it was played.  

My husband, after all these years, rarely has anything to say about my music although he plays on the couch to take a nap and listens for hours. It
It is not unusual for me to play or work on a piece of music for 3-5 hours. Today he walked into the room and said he really liked what I just played and that it sounded like music at the end of a melancholic movie. 

Being able to improvisations music and tell a story about what you are feeling is such a wonderful thing.  I usually have a purpose for why I'm creating a piece, but today I had no reason.  No story to tell.  What came out has a reason of its own.  All I could was just listen.  There are a few mistakes, as usually, but that shows you it was spontaneous.  So I decided to upload it. 

This past month I've been working on piece of music that has taken longer - because I'm writing it and also hand drawing the score.  It is one thing to be able to play the piano, but that doesn't mean you know enough theory to draw the score and not use a computer to do it for you. 

So I hope you like my warm up today.  I can't plan when to be creative.  It doesn't work like that.  I can only take advantage of it when it happens. 

For No Reason At All

Song for Johanna was written by Franz Gordan. Sophie is a student of mine, age 14, who I have been teaching for 4.5 years. There is a playlist with her name that has various pieces she has played or worked on with me since she was 9.

Learning to play the piano is more than learning to play the right note at the right time. A beginner doesn't have enough control over their hands to be able to affect how the note is played - how the keys are touched, and the sound blended. Can the emotion be felt? The player has to know the language of music so well that they don't have to think about the notes being played, and can separate themselves to  listen to the music they are playing. 

Unfortunately, most piano teachers can't teach this because they can't get beyond teaching songs in piano method books - They can only teach what they were taught. I have heard many parents tell me they took lessons when they were young, and when I ask if they are still playing, the answer is almost always, "No". They forgot whatever they had memorized so long ago and they never learned how to create music, so it is all moot. It is like learning another language. You can memorize a phrase but you don't understand how the words in the phrase work together. You can't have a conversation in that language let alone show emotion. Music is a conversation.

I have been teaching for more than 50 years and have had hundreds of students. Most don't last long enough to get to the point I am with Sophie - and hopefully I will have a few more years with her before she goes out in the world. But what she is learning she won't forget. Memorizing music is a small portion of what we do. There is so much more to learning how to play music on any instrument than learning how to play what someone else wrote. 

Listen to her playlist and hear her growth. Song for Johanna is the beginning of her next phase of learning. Her lessons are 2-3 hours. She couldn't learn enough in one hour to play with this much maturity. She is such a joy to teach.

Song forJohanna by Sophie

I am in increasing pain every day because my spine is a mess. Playing the piano is one of the most painful things I do. It sucks the oxygen out of the room. I don't let it beat me. The day before I recorded this I had steroid shots in my mid back, hoping it would give me a little relief. That day I had no pain. I sat at the piano for 5 hours working on music because it was such a joy. It lasted for a day and a half.  It was supposed to be weeks. anyone with chronic pain for years knows what this is like. I can only lay back on pillows for so many hours each day. I am not complaining. It is what it is. Arthritis in my hands would be worse and I have none of that. But this day - this one day was wonderful. I had asked the doctor for one day. That is what I got. W.e have to fight for the things we love.Music gives me the energy to keep going,  Who knows what these hands will produce. I don't have to be the best. I need only be the best I can be.

No Pain

first recording since surgery on my arm. Painful because of nerve damage moving my wrist around playing arpeggios and making individual fingers play, especially the 4th finger and across my hand

There Will Be Life Again

Playing Through Pain

Music for a chapter in the upcoming book "Inside The Forbidden Outside", about the years inside prison, most in solitary confinement and how he learns to cop with life and come out whole. I'm recording music for every chapter and also making music videos found at Youtube on the channel - Sonni Quick Piano Improv

Inside The Forbidden Outside

How Do I Find My Way?

Artwork by Moya Quick, my 10 yr old, budding artist, granddaughter.  This music, for the book I am writing, Inside The Forbidden Outside represents the appearance of a visitor in Jamie's solitary prison cell at times he needs the company. Visits take place inside dreams, when one of them is asleep. Is it real? is what he learns real? Can anyone in a neighboring cell hear them talking? Is he losing his mind? 

You can read chapters at http://mynameisjamie.net.  Don't forget to subscribe to ITFO News for updates. (and buy a T-shirt or totebag :-) Mailing lists are SO important when you publish. I hope to have the second draft done and the music recorded by the end of the year. Go to my YouTube channel: Sonni Quick Piano Improv to see the music videos that have been made so far for the music. If there is any way I can support what you are doing please let me know.

Crazy Dreams And Sleepless Nights

In the book I am writing - Inside The Forbidden Outside - Jamie cannot leave his solitary cell to visit with anyone so part of what happens takes place inside lucid dreams. Dreaming allows conversations to happen that originally took place in letters that were written during the month and year of the chapters. 

You can read some of chapters at http;//mynameisjamie.net. 

The years of confinement take a toll. The letters are the only way to not let the lack of human contact destroy his psyche. The chapters go into the psychological state he was in as well as the inhumane treatment he received that no one on the outside can really understand unless you experienced it. It is why most of the music that is written for the book is emotional and melancholic.

There will be 2 books.  2006 - 2016 and 2016 until he is released, and the process of reentry and dealing with the outside world how it stands today with the ill treatment of ex-felons and the racist attitudes that seem to be increasing and more violent every year.

On another note - I need to raise money for a good story editor to work with and line editor, as well as the cost of publishing. I don't have that kind of money. I have a disability check.

I opened up two online stores. Right now i am increasing the inventory as i find good suppliers. It has been quite a learning process. RIght now I have;

Musical instruments -  mostly guitars and a few electric violins, 
Household items  - rugs, Tiffany style lamps and windows and other items
Fragrances 

What I am asking is for people who like my music and who understand what my music is for - to go take a look. I need feedback.  I prefer you go to the store on Facebook. search: Watch and Whirl  
 
If you "like" the page and share it with your own social media it affects how many timelines Facebook will share my posts with for free. I'm just getting started so any help is appreciated. The store will grow faster because there will be more sales.  Of course if you purchased something I'd put you on my Christmas card list!

But honestly, I know sales will increase as I list more and more items. so many people do a bulk of their shopping online, myself included.

The other store location is http;//watchandwhirl.ecwid.com.  

It has the exact same items. I am also developing eBay, then Shopify and Amazon. I have to make money. Otherwise,I won't be able to publish my book so it looks professional. I also need to clean up my music tracks because it is the soundtrack for the book and I don't want anyone to wrinkle up their nose anywhere. There are mistakes that need to come out and I don't have the equipment or the knowledge to do that.

I share a lot of music from others on my music facebook page. 
http;//facebook.com/sonniquicksmusic.  If there is anything I can share for you don't hesitate to ask. For all of us here, networking is how our fan base grows. You can go to http;//sonniquick.net which is my website and subscribe to my mailing list. If you have one, or a newsletter send me a msg.

On that note I will say good nite, go to sleep  .  .  . and dream a little.

Inside the Fobidden Outside

Dreams of Dreaming (impt info below)

Sometimes we take lonely walks in our minds as we try to understand what we did that made our life go down different paths. Most of my music borders on the melancholy feelings we have bottled up. For me, my music helps me make sense of those feelings. Almost all of my music represents something I am writing, most often the book I am working on, "Inside The Forbidden Outside", inside the journey of the psychological effects of solitary confinement. We are often subject to that whether inside a prison or not.

Recording music for it and making music videos has made this a time consuming project as it goes through edits.

You can read some of the chapters at http;//mynameisjamie.net

**Image by Stephan Keller at pixabay.com

Walking The Halls of My Mind

an ambient track of music to listen as you go to sleep as you gently go through the emotions of the day, floating on a raft as the twists and turns of the water gently lull you into your dreams. There are 5 tracks, each only one laid in succession without listening to the one before it, letting the sound guide where the next notes fall. It took 30 minutes to record this and when i was done - then I listened back to what I played.

Drawing to a Close

River Music

This is part 2 of River Music. I didn't start wanting to do that but it is the way it turned out. There is actually one track ( of 5) that is the same in both. Do you know which one it is? I haven't played them back to back yet to hear how one flows into the other.  It will be interesting for me to listen to it.

I'm having a rough time with my health and music is the only thing that helps me make sense of myself. What you hear is exactly how I feel. I have been fighting for ten years to make it to the next one. I fill every minute with pieces of myself to leave behind. Everyone faces their mortality sooner or later. I'm going to leave "pieces of me" to open for a long time. uh oh - I see a music title there. lol

River Music Pt 2

Dream music. Being able to sit at my piano and just play anything I am feeling is one of the best parts of being me. Never knowing what is going to come out is intoxicating. "I want to make music about rain," is all I need. It doesn't have to be the best there is, it just has to be real. It gives meaning to being alive. If I wasn't here this music wouldn't exist. I wouldn't exist, and now I will always be here to anyone who comes after me.

We Needed The Rain

It has been a long hard year for everyone and emotions have been high. From despair over loss, to fear of not being able to repair our lives and anger because not enough was done to lessen the possibility of paying this price because too many haven't wanted to believe it was happening.  This will be a year that will never be forgotten and the repercussions have only begun to be felt. We will never be the same again no matter how much we pretend we won't have to create a new normal. The year 2019 was the last year of 'Good old Days' which is my next piece of music.

A Year of Sadness

A Heavy Price to Pay

It has been a hard year with not a lot to smile about - stressful fear that all will not end in a positive way. But now the fear is going away and there is hope once again. But so many are not here to share that.  There is much sadness in many people's lives. Where will be one year from now? Will we have a new appreciation for the life we had - the one we took for granted? A year ago we had no idea what we were going to go through. So we can smile now.  Not a big smile yet, because we haven't reached the light at the end of the tunnel. We smile a melancholy smile built on hope for our future

A Melancholy Smile

My music pieces are all piano improvisations expressing emotions. It is music telling stories without the words. When I feel the desire to express my emotions I sit at the piano and press the record button. I prefer playing in minor flat keys. They feel and sound different to me. I don't think about what I'm going to play. I don't plan a chord sequence. I just play and record straight through until it's done. I then lay 1 - 4 tracks on top of each other mentally mixing the sounds to each other. I don't know how to mix sounds electronically or fix mistakes. It's all done by ear, sometimes in the dark, my favorite way to play. 

I think I'd like to do some collabs this year of 2023. My earIy years I sang and played piano or fronted bands while playing keyboard, but the last ten years of playing my music is all improv. I would like to branch out and work with other musicians. If anyone is interested msg me. I no longer sing. I've been composing and performing most of my life.  I started playing the piano when I was 7 and began teaching when  I was 18. I began playing in piano bars at 20.
I'm currently 68. The great thing about creating music is it gets better the longer you play and you have more to write about. 

This is what I leave of me to my generations to come who wonder where their desire to make music comes from. My mother also played. I learned recently that my grandmother and great grandmother were both accomplished pianists when they were young. My great grandmother sang and danced in minstrel shows in the early 1900's. They had to stop and become housewives. No one told me. I found a diary.  Now I have great-grandchildren. They will know who I am through my music. When I am gone my music will still be here. What a wonderful thought!

Sonni Quick

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