Today, April 22, 2021, it snowed. It came down early this morning in big nickle-sized flakes, around the daffodils and other Spring flowers.  It was one last hurrah for Winter as it breathed it's last, long after we thought it was gone. It melted soon after, for me a sigh of relief. This Winter was a long one in many ways.  At least, being able to create music, used to spending long hours with myself, I think I weathered it easier than those whose lives had been spent mostly outside their home and they had little else to do but watch movies as the year dragged on. I had music to express my emotions.  I believe I was very fortunate. This was a hard year that caused much damage to what we thought was our way of life as we ignored what we didn't want to face. So much anger has surfaced as we struggle to find a firm footing again. Will we like who we have become? We shall see.  We shall see . . .

After The Last Snow Falls

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

What is the most important thing in your life that should you lose it, it would change everything for you and leave your life undone. I am recovering from another bad fall 8 weeks ago and recently got a cast removed from my left arm and healing from surgery on my left leg. As of yet I can't walk. I have severe osteoporosis so a hug will break a rib. A fall will break anything that impacts with anything. Trying to get on the x-ray table broke a rib. There are several pieces of music on my list that were played while healing from breaks and dealing with pain. This piece was played mostly with my right hand with my forefinger on my left hand playing a few bass notes. I am afraid. I don't need to walk to trip and fall.  I just need to stand up and fall over.  I am at a crossroads. Walk or play my piano and create music.

Most Important Thing

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

This piece was written for a woman I know. We all have mountains to climb to overcome the effects of mistakes we made that have consequences. Often, no matter how much we try we can't overcome them because we don't have the necessary tools to enable that change. I know that. One of the hardest things to overcome is drug addiction. Just wanting to overcome it is not enough, or addicts everywhere would be able to get clean. If we don't have the right people in our lives, nothing changes, either, because they are unable to teach you what you need to know. Loving someone isn't enough and being loved by someone isn't enough, either, because until you are able to understand the law of cause and effect you won't understand why you ended up in this place. It is the same in any situation you can't overcome. Is this her turning point? I don't know. She doesn't understand yet why it happened. I will help her if she lets me. She can be angry, it is okay. I have been there. I am still there. But after 35 years of study I understand why I am here. But the fact is - I AM still here. She has to make a choice. Am I being too hard saying she will probably fail if she doesn't find a different way of seeing things? Do I sound arrogant saying I can help her if she lets me? No, just experienced. It is a long and painful road digging into your pwn psyche. We make excuses for ourselves. It isn't our fault, we say. But it is our fault and you can't overcome it alone. By helping her I make the cause that will have the effect of helping me,too. Call me when you are ready.

Turning Point

Sonni on piano and Sophie on two accompanying tracks.Sophie is a student of mine. There are several other pieces of music in my tracks list that she either wrote and played herself or she added tracks to something I recorded. We  have spent the last 2-3 years working on her ability to play improv. Hearing where the music is going and sensing how to play with it. I am very proud of her progress. She is developing a sensitive, emotional touch to her music to bring out the feeling. She is currently 12 years old

Everything Will Be Alright

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

My family keeps growing. Great-grandbaby #4 just arrived, a boy. The hard part is everyone is separated. No one lives close to each other or close to me. I understand now how my parents felt. I was the only child who didn't live close to them and zapping photos online was not happening yet so they only saw grandchildren at some holidays or if I bought a roll of film and took enough photos to use up a roll, sent it off to be developed and sent them through snail mail. Not an easy thing to do when I was on the road a lot playing music. I miss not being able to see my family. The cost of traveling and medical issues keeps me pretty much homebound for the time being. so I write music for them. Maybe one day it will mean something to them

New Baby Lullaby

This is Mia. She tragically died Monday night when a truck with 4 men out partying intentionally ran her down, circled around and ran her over again as my son and his girlfriend watched. They were out of town and stopped to get gas and Mia jumped out of the truck after being cooped up for two days. My son was heartbroken. It was painful to hear his grief. 

Mia was 11. When she was a tiny pup he found her by the side of the road in NM. Far away from a town someone must have dumped her there. She was almost dead from lack of food and water. My son immediately took her to a vet and hadn't planned on keeping her but the vet convinced him, after he saved her, to take her home. His children were ecstatic and his daughter Moya named her Mia. So I did what I usually do and poured my emotions into music. 

Pets are often like family members and losing them can be very difficult. I told my son she had 11 years she would not have had, just like myself. I first saw her about 15 months after my liver transplant. I am grateful for these years and I am sure, so was Mia. Think of the years she had, not the years she lost. Rest in Peace, Mia.

Rest in Peace

Beautiful melodies to end your day - close your eyes, relax and think about what is important to you and then go to sleep.

This is me on the left age 2 with my older sister age 3 beside me. My younger sister would have been 5 months old.  August 1956. We had a wonderful childhood. Great memories.

Old Memories

This piece is part of the soundtrack being written for the upcoming book "Inside The Forbidden Outside", a man's experience going the school to prison pipeline. Now 35 and less than 5 years until he is released. The book is written based on shared letters.

Inside The Forbidden Outside

Is it Rain or Tears

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

How Do I Find My Way?

This music was recorded for a chapter in my upcoming book "Inside The Forbidden Outside", the years in Jamie Cummings life that he is currently spending in a Texas prison. You can find out about who he is and read some of the beginning chapters at http://mynameisjamie.net. You can also subscribe to ITFO News to learn how the project is coming along and other news about our current criminal justice system. You can see the music videos that have been made so far with music also here, at my YouTube Channel - Sonni Quick Piano Improv

Keeper Of My Thoughts

This music is being made into my next music video as a present for my daughter who turned 38 on May 20th - pictures of her throughout her life.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl

Music for a chapter in my book with the same title. "Inside The Forbidden Outside.  There is also poetry/lyrics.  This music is piano/strings/flute.  You can find some of the chapters at http://mynameisjamie.net if you want to know the story behind the music.

Protected Places

Segregated away from anything human, being alone for years is very difficult to live through and come out sane. This is year 13 for Jamie in prison. His sentence is 17 years, but he get paroled? It's a waiting game. His story is being written, called "Inside the Forbidden Outside". I just sent him the first half of the second draft to approve. Hopefully when it is published it will help people understand. The music you find here, as well as the music videos at YouTube go with chapters in the book with the same titles. You can find some of those chapters at http://mynameisjamie.net

Who's Taking Care of My Broken Heart

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

This is the piano track only of a piece I uploaded about a month or so ago. I was feeling rather melancholy that day knowing i was headed into another medical crisis to overcome, feeling very tired because it has been 20 years off overcoming one thing after another all from the same cause. But have my music and my writing to occupy the space in my brain and I can usually push the tiredness away and keep going. I  have too much that is yet incomplete. It is amazing what the brain can produce - the will to live and determination at the top that sees everything through. But the desire to help others is the main thing that gives my life value - to affect lives in a positive way. Thank you all for the encouragement you have given.  This is a wonderful bunch of people here at SoundCloud. Thank you all.

I have a gofundme page that is helping me finish what I started. My income has been greatly affected. If you can help me do this I am indebted to you. If you can share it that would be a big help, too.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/surviving-after-quotinside-the-forbidden-outsidequot&rcid=r01-156488790266-f43c29070dfb45a9&pc=ot_co_campmgmt_w

I Have Nothing Left To Give - Piano only

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

Passionate improv that grabs me by the heart. Listening with my eyes closed it put my chin on my chest. The only way to listen - to really hear it - is with your eyes closed so you can feel where the music takes you. 

Changing time signatures. This music had to be played. I had no idea where it was going. I let it go where it wanted. I don't have the ability or knowledge to change occasional notes that shouldn't be there. I would have to play a completely different track - and it would be completely different, with a bad note in a different place. That is the nature of improv. I play what I am feeling and don't try to control it. What comes out is what comes out. I enjoyed playing this. Isn't that what music is about? I play melodies that fit inside melodies.  I have to mix the sound in my head as I feel the emotions. 

I don't think about what I'm playing as I play.  If I listen back a couple days later I don't even remember playing it. It amazes me every time.  Where does it come from? It took my entire life to develop the freedom to be able to play like this.  I'm not out to impress anyone. If you enjoyed listening, I can smile. My job is done.

Heart Wide Open

All piano improv layering one track over another as I listen for the spaces. No mixing = just listening to the sound.

Everything I've been through in my to life has given me the inspiration to create many pieces, some barely held together by my intense desire to create value with every minute of my day, not wasting time. As with any craft it takes years of practice, discipline and a desire to continually improve how you are able to deliver that music. Never satisfied. Always knowing you could do it better if your head was in a slightly different space. Looking back at earlier music and seeing the progress made. All of this music leaves little pieces of me, as breadcrumbs, for anyone in my future who wants to know who I was and wants to understand why I played the music I did. Why improv? I "composed" music for decades, carefully constructing what I wanted to play. I hand drew piano scores - a lost art by most musicians today because a computer can spit it out. 


Pieces Of Me

This photograph is my great-grandmother, born in 1890. she lived in our home my entire childhood up to age 14 in 1968 when she died of a bad heart. I have spent so many hours staring at her baby pictures while imagining her life. She became a stunning woman and gradually became the Nana I knew. We go through so many physical changes in our lives but we feel like we are the same person inside. She lost three babies, each at age six months to SIDS - Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.  Such heartache she went through. She loved each of them for six months and woke up one morning to their unexplained death. I never knew until I was grown. Eventually, most people became only a name on the back of a photograph. Since everything now is digital we are losing even that to pass on. I have my great grandmother's original baby pictures. My family today is unaware of these photographs. At one time I tried to create interest in family but I failed.  So it is up to me to remember. She was such a beautiful baby. My love to you Edith May Brown Ferden. I dedicate this music to you.

Lost Photographs

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

Breathing now is a conscious thought. It is something we did without thinking, and even if we knew we were sick we rarely thought about the damage we might do to someone else. People went to work and sent their kids to school not thinking of the consequences. I am a transplant survivor and my immune system is suppressed. I have had a supply of masks for 10 years. A cold could be lethal. I can't see a dentist without a massive dose of antibiotics before I go. The vaccine will not be 95% effective for me. A mask is part of my life now when around people. Now the whole world is learning how precious a simple breath is, and also how lethal it can be. We have taken it for granted and many who treated it like a joke are gone, as well as those who were given no choice. We will never forget. Today I stood outside my house in the cold and took a deep breath and filled my lungs. I'm looking forward to Spring when I can breathe in the smell of the flowers. I will never ever take that for granted again. Just breathe.

Just Breathe

My music is 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've been composing and performing most of my life.  At this point in my own history I started playing the piano 60 years ago and teaching and playing in piano bars for 48 of them, starting in college. The music I play now is beyond what my capabilities were back then. But my ability to teach surpasses most teachers who can only teach what they were taught.

I was ten when I decided I would teach  piano.  My desire is to tell my stories - the music that comes out with no planning or crafting. I play what I feel, close my eyes and my hands play those thoughts.

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. 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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