reverse threading

the path back is the path forward

Tag Archives: piano


by Leave a comment

time together. [k.s. friday]

time together song box

the air coming through the windows this morning felt cool.  almost chilly.  it has been a long while since the last time i could say that of a morning here.  we have had a very hot, very humid summer…not my favorite combination.  but today.  it was different.  and it made me feel immediately homesick.  that happens every fall for me.  maybe it’s a melancholy recognition of the passing of time, years zooming by.  maybe it’s the season-change-thing…we know grey days are lurking right around the corner.  either way, i feel homesick.

it’s a time when i miss long island the most, recall my growing-up years, pine for the autumn at millneck manor and long deserted-beach walks at crab meadow.  a time when my sweet momma and poppo are really present for me in their absence, if that makes sense.  i yearn to talk to them.  a time when The Girl and The Boy seem oh-so-grown-up now, steeped in their own adult-lives, having adventures and being a dynamic part of this world, far away, without the benefit of hearing ‘good night moon’ every night.  i know that every evening they roll their eyes at my goodnight texts to them, but i figure that someday they will understand.  homesick.

yesterday was my father-in-law’s 85th birthday.  we called columbus and sang ‘happy birthday’ to him.  my momma and daddy did that every year for me and i try to carry on the tradition with the people i love.  he laughed and told us he had gotten back from dinner at texas roadhouse and was listening to an old record.  he listens to old records a lot.  i suspect, because he is the man he is, that he gets homesick.  i can tell by his eyes that he would totally understand me if i told him how i felt.

so today, if you are spending time together with someone, memorize it.  if you are lucky enough to spend time with your momma or your daddy, please hug them.  if you are one of the fortunate parents who have their children nearby, hold on just a little tighter and look into their faces when you say goodnight.  relish it.

there is nothing like it.

time together.

 

download TIME TOGETHER track 3 from THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY on iTUNES or CDBaby or PURCHASE the ALBUM

read DAVID’S thoughts on this K.S. FRIDAY

K.S. FRIDAY – ON OUR WEBSITE

FALL50%OFFSALE copy

TIME TOGETHER from THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY ©️ 1997, 2000 kerri sherwood


by Leave a comment

freefallin’ in love. [k.s. friday]

freefallininlove songbox copy

you can’t help but listen to country music when you are in nashville. there’s something about the storytelling in country songs that i can really identify with.  i love telling a good story.  ok, i even love bad stories.  i’m sure there are a slew of people rolling their eyes around me most times i am talking.  when i was writing for this album and traveling back and forth to the studio in nashville, i decided i wanted one of the songs to be a little bit of a nod to that genre, of which i am a big fan.  i wrote this song on a single page of notebook paper on an airplane.  some songs just show up.  my favorite part is the happy ending. 🙂

download FREEFALLIN’ IN LOVE track 9 on AS SURE AS THE SUN on iTUNES or CDBaby or PURCHASE THE CD (or several hundred for your closest friends)

read DAVID’S thoughts about this K.S. FRIDAY (KERRI SHERWOOD FRIDAY)

K.S.FRIDAY – ON OUR SITE

if you'd like to see kerri sherwood.. copy

FREEFALLIN’ IN LOVE from AS SURE AS THE SUN ©️ 2002 kerri sherwood


by Leave a comment

the 21st century. [two artists tuesday]

WelcomeTo21stCentury copy

side B of the canvas

along with the portable record player we take out on the deck, we have the you-remember-the-case-with-the-handle box of 45’s.  with titles like sugar sugar and IOU and julie do you love me and….the side A of these records are the likely hits.  but if you turn it over and play side B you can often be surprised by a song you like even more than the touted “side A” song.

when david brought up this canvas to photograph the painting on the front side, i was reminded of what we had seen when 20 so generously gave d a slew of his dad’s canvases.  on the side B, his artist dad (richard “duke” kruse) had written, “welcome to the 21st century” on the back of the canvas he had so meticulously stretched.  we laughed when we first saw it, but it remains a mystery as to why he wrote it; we can only guess…maybe he was bemoaning the loss of something of the 20th century; maybe he was truly welcoming the next.  either way, we get it.  we are both 20th century artists.

as a painter, david uses actual brushes to apply actual paint to actual canvas, a process that doesn’t necessarily need explanation, but, in the 21st century art world, isn’t necessarily always the trend.  with computer design and sketchpads -aka graphics tablets- the feel of bristles can become foreign to a contemporary artist.  what about the smell of the paint?  the light from the window on the canvas?  the spatter of acrylic matte medium on your clothes? the wooden brush handle in your hand?

as a composer, i use paper and pencils and erasers and a piano.  i have a couple of keyboards that have traveled all over with me, but the piano that takes up an entire room in our house is my tool of choice.  it is stunning how much time it took me to write a full score way back in college compared to the ease of scoring on the computer.  if i made a mistake on the score, i had to -with my pencil and then calligraphy pen- redo the whole page.  then i had to write out all the parts individually.  the 21st century has advanced the ability to have a computer generate all the individual parts off one score that is online.  pretty amazing and time-saving stuff.  not to mention the “playing” factor.  the computer program will “play” the part you write; you don’t have to.  but what about all the pencil eraser dust that falls on the keys of the piano?  what about the scraps of paper spread out all over the top?  what about the feel of the action below your hands, the response, the whooshing sound of the pedal?

acoustic vs plugged-in, analog vs digital.  kind of old-fashioned.  that’s probably why i like to sit in one of the rocking chairs in david’s studio and just watch.  and why he will come into my studio and just listen.  we don’t need a lot of fancy stuff.  he just wants to hang his paintings and i just want to sit at a piano on a stage with a single mic.  pretty 20th century.

read DAVID’S thoughts on this TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY

EarthINteruppted7 copy

the new side A:  earth interrupted VII (36″x48″)

TWO ARTISTS TUESDAY – ON OUR SITE

welcome to the 21st century/earth interrupted vii ©️ 2018 david robinson & kerri sherwood

 

 


by 2 Comments

peace. as it is. [k.s. friday]

peace song box

i distinctly remember recording this.  i was at yamaha artist services in nyc and it was winter.  the word “peace” was on a list of words i wanted to use as titles for pieces.  “peace” is a big word for me….i’ve talked about how there are peace signs and the word peace all over our home and it was no different when i wrote this.  the trouble with writing and using a big word is that you feel an imperative to make it count.  there is a kind of heavy emphasis on this choice to use THIS word as a title – that you write well enough to support such a big word, that you do it justice, that it FEELS what the word feels like.  it’s super-charged with self-induced pressure.

but the moments i spent composing this were extraordinarily special and i was wrapped in a cloak of peacefulness and love.  it is not a complex piece of music; it has a repeating theme and, like a song with lyrics, returns to that theme again and again.  like statement-question-answer-lift-statement-question-answer-lift structure.

“it’s fine” ken, in his infinite wisdom, orchestrated this so my heart weeps with gratitude each time i listen.  cello lines and strings and french horn pull the simple melody out of the place of simplicity and reach, for me, a depth of being.

every artist has compositions that are their favorites, the ones that really express who they are. maybe it’s because i can so distinctly remember initially recording this.  maybe it’s because i remember being back in the studio in chicago with ken as he tracked the other instrumentation.  maybe it’s because it’s THAT word, the piece with THAT title.    regardless of the reason, THIS is one of mine.

download PEACE track 5 on AS IT IS on iTunes or on CDBaby

read DAVID’S thoughts on this KS FRIDAY

K.S. FRIDAY (KERRI SHERWOOD FRIDAY) – ON OUR SITE

PEACE from AS IT IS ©️ 2004 kerri sherwood


by Leave a comment

ks friday

jacketrightnowjpeg copy 2as much as i like black and white, NOTHING is really quite black and white.

we walked the tax stuffff into the accountant’s office this morning.  it’s been over 20 years that i have been keeping precise records for the company that is my recording label: sisu music productions inc.  this company (like me, like any of us) has seen its ebbs and flows through the years.  some of it was due to economy, some due to personal reasons, some due to technology and the internet changing every professional musician’s life, some due to the matter-of-fact financial challenges on any independent recording artist.

while i was compiling all the information this year, i had many conversations with d about how i was feeling.  at one point, he turned to me and said, “this is like reading your calendar at the end of the year, isn’t it?”  mmm.  yes.  a cruise through the year in my life as an artist with albums, an artist who has spent time on the radio, on stages, on wholesale show floors.  some years that ramble-through is exciting; some years that ramble-through is disappointing.  there is always back-story behind the activity, the sales, the decisions.  it’s not black and white.

i stand here in march, 23 years after the release of my first album, touching the very very black of my piano and the very very white of the scrap paper i use so often to write on, and look out ahead of me.  i wonder where – in this arena of my life, this heading, this column – i am going.  the view from here is foggy and unclear.  do i have albums to make?  stages to play on?  my end-game is different now – it has to be; i am 23 years older than i was back then – at the beginning.  i can only wonder if the music that is still a part of me, still inside me, never yet hitting anyone’s ears as a finished recording, will find its way, will find relevance, will lead me into the next.  it’s not black and white.

IT’S NOT BLACK & WHITE from the album RIGHT NOW track 4 – on iTUNES

IT’S NOT BLACK & WHITE from the album RIGHT NOW on CDBaby

PURCHASE THE PHYSICAL CD – RIGHT NOW

KS FRIDAY (KERRI SHERWOOD FRIDAY)

 

it's not b:w framed art copy

 

it's not black and white LEGGINGS copy 2

 

it's not b:w square pillow copy

read DAVID’S thoughts on IT’S NOT BLACK & WHITE

IT’S NOT BLACK & WHITE from the album RIGHT NOW ©️ 2010 kerri sherwood


by Leave a comment

dr thursday #1

EmbracedNow

held in grace:  embraced now – mixed media  48″ x 36″

this.  this feeling.  this painting.

it took my breath away when he painted it.  it takes my breath away now.

sharing studio space with my artist husband has many benefits.  we can interrupt each other with questions or comments or what-the-heck-is-thats or sometimes tears.  i am a great interrupter.  i am from long island; interrupting is an art form there. ask crunch or sue or marc AU.

two rocking chairs in the studio means we can mutually sip coffee (or wine) together while pondering what’s next.  or brainstorm.  or discuss current politics (ugh).  or argue.  or concoct new ideas.  my C5 is upstairs in a different studio, away from paint and acrylic and gesso and scissors and my sewing-machine-induced-scraps and power tools and a sound system that is sometimes cranked up.  a melange.  welcome to DR davidrobinson thursday.

i won’t forget the day i walked downstairs and saw this painting in progress.  the raw emotion is striking and -at once- comforting.

as you head into the weekend and, maybe, your celebration of valentine’s day, i wish for you – in whatever is your own cherished relationship – this feeling. loved. encircled. embraced.  held in grace indeed.

HELD IN GRACE: EMBRACED NOW – the painting

HELD IN GRACE: EMBRACED NOW – reproductions

DR thursday

www.kerrianddavid.com/the-melange

held in grace: embraced now ©️ 2017 david robinson


by Leave a comment

twenty years later

my sister sent me this. i don't know who to credit, but it's brilliant.

my sister sent me this. i don’t know who to credit, but it’s brilliant.

a year ago yesterday i wrote about an anniversary….it was 19 years since i released my first album. well, that makes this year’s yesterday 20 years since the release concert for that first album! i looked at someone last night and said, “two decades!” which makes it sound like forever ago. in some ways, it is.

fifteen albums and several singles after that first release i sit here at my piano and get lost in thought. thoughts of what next? thoughts of direction – looking back and looking forward. thoughts of relevance. (yes, i have used that before in writing. but it’s so…relevant.)

at 56 i am a different composer, a different performer, a different dreamer than at 36. it doesn’t seem as important to fill any concert venue in order to have impact, in order to resonate with someone in his/her life. i wonder where the next two decades will take me. sheesh, where will the next one decade take me?

i face different challenges now than i did at 36. i’m not writing in interrupted bursts at the piano, in-between toddlers’ requests or needs. i have more uninterrupted time to sit and compose, to write lyrics. hmm…i find that i’m actually better when being interrupted.

my songs are different too. lyrics at 36 were designed for airplay – 3.5 minutes or less. more than that was the kiss of radio-death. lyrics at 56 aren’t designed. in fact, i’m wondering who will listen. how many other pianoplayingsingersongwritercomposers are out there?

i was listening to pop radio while driving the other day and was floored at all the lyrics i would never have written. the lyrics “i’m all about that bass, ’bout that bass, no treble” would never occur to me. so i’m guessing (newsflash!) i’m not cut out for this pop radio thing any more. that’s a no-duh, you’re thinking. and yet, i know that people are still listening. i get feedback (jay’s word:) from people who generously take the time to sit down and jot a note to me about how something i have written touches them. this is huge. this is what makes writers keep writing, composers keep composing…the idea that something they have to say resonates with someone else. although the muse forces us all to continue regardless.

so….where am i going? i’m thinking about recording a new vocal album that is ukulele-based. not because i am a good ukulele player, but because i am not a good ukulele player. it will force me to really think about the lyrics, the melody, the stuff of emotion. i won’t be able to rely on those familiar and beloved 88 keys. it would make me change; it would make me grow. both are good.

i’d like to find a way for all the music that i’ve already recorded to be accessed more…in a fiscally rewarding way. the 319,954 downloads in the first quarter (see post from September 22) didn’t actually help me make a living. and that same thing happens each quarter that goes by. i’d like to think that everything that has been invested in all those albums – all those pieces of music – all that heart – might be able to help me pay my bills. $0.00079 royalty per download isn’t really the way to get there. and all the radio promoters and marketers i’ve paid in the past didn’t need the income from my music to pay their electric bill. they needed the income i paid them. big difference. but genuine iTunes downloads or licensing for movie scores or some wildly lucky viral hit would help.

in the meanwhile, i have to decide to decide. that it doesn’t matter, ahead of time, to know who will listen or what will happen. that if music is to be written, it just must be written. i have no real control over the rest.

twenty years later i think i get it.

www.kerrisherwood.com

itunes: kerri sherwood


by 4 Comments

welcome, barney!

barney is in our backyard. he is holding clay pots with our herb garden and some beautiful white impatiens. there are a fewphoto candles in glass jars. and he is perfect.

i’m not sure i ever thought that someday i would have a piano in my backyard. barney is a very old upright. about a hundred years old, he is tired and worn from long years, decades even, spent in a basement boiler room, but i can see the life in him as the sun hits him. never ever would i have imagined the idea of wild geranium growing up around a piano tucked into a bed of day lilies, just a few feet away from our little pond. never would i have imagined the idea of water getting on a piano, without dashing to wipe it off. it rained yesterday and i had to fight the urge to run outside and wrap my arms around him. barney’s new life is to feel loved and not ignored, appreciated and smiled at and not relegated to a dark, piano-inappropriate place. he was slated for the scrap dealer.

photo-1each morning since his arrival i have gone outside and thanked him for all his good work in the world. i am grateful to have a spot for him to rest. he looks proud. and he truly looks happy.

i really am an acoustic girl. my big yamaha grand has a studio of its own. my growing-up-spinet has a spot in our basement (not an easy place to move it to in this old house.) barney has a place in the backyard.

and all have big places in my heart.

photo-2

www.kerrisherwood.com
itunes: kerri sherwood


by Leave a comment

it just is.

photo the play is over and we move on…and i will be moving back to my piano. but before i do that, i have to think some more about this experience. standing on the stage as an actor in front of two sold-out audiences was…pretty amazing. it took me time to process entering this opportunity and it’s taking me time to process moving into Next.

one of the things david said to me the day of the first performance was something like this: it’s important to not look at the audience as the audience ‘out there’…instead stand here – on the apron of the stage- and invite them in, embrace them. i suddenly recognized this as not so much different than what i do in any of my concerts. i feel as if i am inviting people into my living room (or my home studio)…well, actually, my life…each time i play a concert. and there i was, on the stage as an actor, inviting them in….

i was nervous backstage waiting. i always have eager anticipation in the green room; i spend time pacing and praying and being quiet and internal. i will sip coffee and run through my program in my head. and i fuss with my hair. photo-1this was much the same. i paced. i prayed. i was quiet and internal and i sipped coffee while running lines in memory. and yes, i fussed with my hair.

i didn’t want to be thinking, thinking, thinking as i stepped into these performances. i knew that would detract from the moment. i found, like in concert, i just needed to be present. if i am performing a piece of music, it is to my detriment if i start to think too much. the preparation is done at that point…it is time to deliver, to share it…yes to invite them in. thinking, at that point, makes it plastic, measured, contrived. and raises the chance of getting lost. just being in it is what makes it fluid, what makes it permeable, what helps it to resonate with someone outside yourself.

and so i stepped out onto the stage, in a role that i am not well-versed in…the role of actor…and i quietly became the characters in the play. i could feel them. this play has a seven-minute long silent section near the end. i had the distinct honor of holding those moments as the audience watched me re-pack a hundred-year-old trunk- a trunk filled with momentos of a ten year old boy who had died from typhoid fever and in which his momma packed all of his belongings and plastered it into the wall of a house on a ranch in california. it was with slow deliberation, weeping, that i re-packed this trunk, in silence, while the audience joined me in these emotional moments. not so unlike telling stories on stage or playing or singing something that resonates with the audience that joins me on the bench.

hmm. i think i am finding a theme here. it’s not so unlike….

and yet, the moment that the stage manager said to me, “i was so wrapped up in what you were doing that i almost missed light cues…” i felt that i was doing good work. and, even more important, when he told me that i had “brought intention” i realized, for sure, that it was exactly the same. no piece of music is without intention. no action on stage is without intention. no breath is without intention.   it is to live. to honor. to share. it’s not trying to be convincing. it just IS.

photo


by Leave a comment

no piano here

musings from a few days ago…

and so here i am…inside the theatre, watching the setup….but this time it isn’t for a concert…it is for a play – ‘the lost boy’ – opening its world premiere performance in california. (oh, did i mention it is sunny and warm here?)

i was just sitting outside (did i mention it is sunny and warm here?) hand-sewing one of the costume fragments for this play. david is inside with some techs painting the platform. i am running lines in my head. it’s not unlike running my music in my head, and yet it’s totally not like running my music in my head. when you are the composer, you have a bit of a free-rein option (eh…who am i kidding? you have a lot of free-rein.) when you aren’t the playwright, you…umm…don’t.

this process has been…interesting for me. this play is an interpretive storytelling…a story of legacy with poignant moments as well as comedic moments. now, as a performing artist i am used to telling stories from the stage…it is part of every concert i perform, every keynote i speak. but the last time i actually acted (in the truest definition of that word)? well, that would be high school – i performed ‘the effect of gamma rays on man-in-the-moon marigolds’….i can’t even remember one line from that. prior to that? well, you need to skip a stone backwards to when i danced with (the infamous) kenny brook in ‘the sound of music’ in sixth grade. not exactly moments of brilliant acting, but please also refer to my exquisitely-portrayed sister bertha – in the same play – for invaluable experience (ok…that might be an exaggeration.) but it certainly counts that kenny was pretty darn cute and i got to dance with him.

the set is simple. the set is profound.

the set is simple.
the set is profound.

i have spent many, many hours on the stage…as a performer…as a storyteller…as a solo artist…playing, singing, speaking. this project? this is outside of my box. there isn’t a piano here. no mics. no amber fresnels beaming down on me. i feel like i should offer up a disclaimer to the audience…something like, “by the way…this isn’t what i normally doooo. in real life i……” but no. and so now i am challenged with that very thing that i talk about….stepping outside our own comfort zone and trying on new shoes (speaking of which, i get to wear these great minnetonka mocassins for this production!)   stepping outside and making a mess. i get to work at something i am not good at….kind of like playing my cello, only a bit more public. and like we all tend to do, i immediately expect a lot of myself; so i must fight the urge to diminish my potential – what i think i’m capable or not capable of – to resist the learning. how many people around me each week are learning something new (in ukulele band? in the choir i direct? in workshops i lead?)

and so, my empathy button is ‘on’ and i see inside me the way we all try to default to the things we know, when the learning is actually outside of those things. especially the learning about ourselves. i, quite truthfully, find that i need to extend to myself some forgiveness for not knowing, and yes, forgiveness for resisting, forgiveness for feeling vulnerable, and grace in that forgiveness to just try. maybe i’m not sooo bad at this. maybe it’s actually fun. maybe i can actually learn something new…just like everyone else…and maybe, just maybe, i can embrace it. even with no piano here. at the very least, i can realize that, just like everyone else, i find comfort in the familiar. and in stepping into New?…well, i just need to take a breath and move full-speed ahead into that path. no regret, no judgement, no fear. just sisu. it’s all good. (did i mention it is sunny and warm here?)

did i mention it's sunny and warm here? :)

did i mention it’s sunny and warm here? 🙂

and the curtain’s up.

kerri’s music is available on iTunes

www.kerrisherwood.com

www.bearay.com