SAC WEEK 2

So Week 2 brought me someone I consider a new friend, and created new opportunities. It is such a nice reminder to me that I am so grateful and lucky to be able to do what I love everyday of my life. Somedays I don't think much of it as it is so normal to me to wake up breathe music…teach music…talk about music…write music…record music…perform music….. but when I step back for a moment and look at this world I have created for myself I feel an abundance of gratitude. I read in this blog today ( https://shaunaspecht.wordpress.com/2015/02/24/sac-challenge-week-2-frustration-education/ ) today that writing was the easiest and hardest thing for them which reminded me of Love…in the most beautiful way.  Love can bring those amazing feelings of hope, trust, drive and at the same time has the power to make you hurt in what seems to be the most extreme ways. Love is what music comes from, Love is what inspires us all. To Love is to Live….and to Live is to Love and music is an expression of all of that in all of its beautiful forms.  For some reason I think of the love I have for my dog Brooks who passed away years ago…I had so much love for him, and the loss was an extreme sadness that I never would have felt if I never loved. I find a beauty in that sadness that life creates for us to love and to live and to have loss. Some kind of balance that I could never begin to explain……this is why we have songs to express all this crazy emotion we are given.

This week I had the lovely experience to cowrite with Lynn Tessari, a day before my birthday and she a total stranger brought me a card and gift. It was such a beautiful reminder to me of all the kindness there is in this world….sometimes the bitter realistic news of the world brings a distraction to that, why can't their be a complete happiness chanel of all the good people do in the world……..
Anyhow thats a whole other project for me….We had a lovely co write creating a pop song, which was inspired by our favourite minor chords with a hidden disney princess desire I have always had lol…..and came up with a song about a Gypsy Queen…Lynn had that saying when she came and I loved the idea…..so we roll with that and ended up writing about a girl who was on a journey to self love and stepping outside her fear of living outside her dreams…

https://soundcloud.com/crystalmcgrathmusic/this-is-me-demo-crystal-lynn2015

I also wrote a song today it came to me in an hour…and I created this demo….i have no idea where the inspiration came from I just started singing to a drum loop and then ended up creating this…..it is hard for me to post unfinished works…but I suppose that is all part of this challenge process so I will set the ego free and post away my works in progress!!!
https://soundcloud.com/crystalmcgrathmusic/million-times

Hope everyone has a wonderful week full of inspiration and Love!!!

-C!

SAC 6 SONGS IN 6 WEEKS…WEEK 1

SAC Challenge Week 1

So I have had an interesting week of songwriting. Some moments piecing together chord progressions seems impossible and other moments it comes easy as pie. Not sure where the saying easy as pie comes to as the last time I tried making a pie it didn’t feel easy lol…but anyways that’s besides the point. I always find songwriting to be an expression of the daily experiences in life. Some moments are easy others feel somewhat impossible but you just keep trying new things and eventually get it right.

I joined this songwriting challenge because I wanted to be challenged beyond my own expectations I put on myself.  I figured it would help open some doors and windows in my mind that may have been sitting closed for a while or perhaps never even been open yet! I find songwriting to unleash so much in me as a person, the emotions we hold on to the words we sometimes can not say and the dreams we envision outside our own realities seem to be endless while writing.  This week I had a neat experience writing a song outside myself about a Grandmother first meeting her grandchild and then passing away, the story was so sad that I created I found myself sitting in tears trying to get the words out as I played the music on piano.  It blew me away the emotion it provoked in me, this story wasn’t even real it was just something I created from an idea Darren had presented to me to write about. I love that about writing it can take you to a completely different world to create an experience someone somewhere can relate to.

Now to the point of the week! The Matt Dusk challenge! We were given a cd from a friend of an artist she saw in December, she bought us a signed copy as she thought we would love the music.  We ended up sitting in on top of our cd player and as we do in life got busy and forgot to listen to it. Well to my surprise the artist was Matt Dusk so as soon as I saw the image of his cd when looking him up from the challenge, I ran to listen to the cd that had been sitting around the living room for months. I couldn’t believe how long it took me to get to listening to the album, it actually brought out a feeling of frustration that sometimes life can get so full of to do lists and work and  distractions that I put aside a beautiful gift and didn’t take time to pop it in the player sooner.  I think somewhere there is a song in that feeling alone, procrastination and distractions and forgetting about the fine things in life that bring us peace. I have played around with a few ideas for the Matt Dusk challenge, my writing style is quite pop and pulling out a power ballad is one of my fortes so I’m leaning towards writing something in the style of John Legend/Lana Del Ray. I am really happy we have until the 6^th week to submit the song as the week got away on me and I want to put more effort and work into the challenge. This week has taught me to schedule the time to write, block it off just like I would block of a time slot to teach a music lesson.  I’m continuously working on time management and this is a great task to help me with organizing myself.

So here we go to the journey of week 2!

xo

-C!