The Girl and The Boy were little when i wrote and recorded this piece of music GIVE ME ROOTS, GIVE THEM WINGS. the title wording was deliberate; it was stunning to me how rooted having children made me feel and yet i knew that, even from the very start, just as i was giving them roots, i was also giving them wings. the toughest part. that letting go thing. The Girl told me today that i was high maintenance. me??? “what???” i said. she said, “have you ever MET you?” wow. straight to the gut. lol. she made me laugh. i guess as a momma i may want a littlemorelittlemorelittlemore time….
when The Girl was a baby, jenny gave me a cross-stitched picture with the words “give them roots, give them wings.” bittersweet words. how little i knew back then.
no matter any other job i have had or will have or any other work i have done or will do, i will always consider motherhood the most important. i cherish every moment of all of it, even the very hardest moments. The Girl and The Boy are out in the world, doing what makes them happy, close or far away.
they root me. yes. even as i continue to watch their wings lift higher and higher.
i could hear the saxophonist on the corner out the window; it’s not uncommon in nyc. at yamaha artist services to record the two solo piano hymn albums, i was caught up in the christmas carol he was playing, only a little concerned that it would bleed onto the recording. the amazing “it’s fine!” ken can handle anything.
my task was to get onto tape (so to speak) the material for both of the hymn albums: ALWAYS WITH US Volume 1 and ALWAYS WITH US Volume 2. it was easy for me to compile a list of the hymns to play; so many years of church music gives me an advantage that way. but on every album, even if it is music i haven’t written but am giving my own voice to (like the hymn albums or christmas albums or lullaby album) i always include one or two pieces that i have composed – a signature of sorts. for always with us volume one it was the title track. ALWAYS WITH US is a statement of my belief that we are never alone, we are always surrounded by infinite grace and love – God is always with us. like all the tracks on the hymn albums, this piece is solo piano.
part of that time in the city, i also recorded the album AS IT IS. i had a list of titles and in-between recording hymns, i would take out the list and simply play the word. but i’ve talked about that before. this album was a personal creative challenge and took on a life of its own.
back in chicago, in post-production work, ken wrote orchestration arrangements (he is brilliant) and brought in musicians to record on tracks for the AS IT IS album, starting with the solo piano recordings. these new tracks went beyond the solo piano versions – in texture, in diversity, ultimately, in emotion.
yesterday i wrote about process in david’s painting. the same -yet different- process exists in recording music. the coming-together of layers, with what is in a layer below sometimes hidden, a breath you can’t hear, but can feel. i am awed by what the whole becomes from the whole.
always with us exists in two forms. both are relevant to the album they are within. both speak a language. but both tell the same story – for those who listen – that we are never alone. God – or whatever you call this presence- is always with us. and if you listen, maybe with your mind’s eye, you might even hear the strains of a saxophonist on the corner in the city at night.
ALWAYS WITH US – on the album AS IT IS
ALWAYS WITH US – on the album ALWAYS WITH US VOLUME 1
as 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.
i used to spend a lot of time driving across the country to wholesale shows where i would represent my cds and sell to stores everywhere that stocked music. the world has changed since then and not only are there less boutique-type shops with original work (inexpensive copies have taken over), but there are few shops that actually sell physical cds. in this world of downloading (read: streaming, but don’t get me started on THAT subject) it is hard for a proprietor to invest in anything they aren’t sure will fly out the door.
when i drove east with a vanload of boxes and merchandise, i would pass a lake called meander lake. i looked forward to these signs and the view of this lovely lake through the trees. the word “meander” conjured up images of every time i had taken the time to do just that: meander. on a back road, on a trail in the mountains, in the woods in a state park, along the lake, through a magazine or book, or in my mind’s eye. i am a meanderer. i believe i come by it naturally; my sweet momma loved meandering…any day she would suggest a car drive or a bike hike to some distant spot, meandering on the way. she wasn’t afraid of getting lost; for her, meandering WAS the meaning in the time spent.
sitting at yamaha artist services in nyc i had a list of titles i had collected, words that had spoken to me or touched my heart. “meander” was on that list. with “record” on, i simply ‘played’ the word “meander.” the amazing “fine” ken orchestrated this piece back in chicago, bringing in musicians to add tracks.
sitting next to me right now, david just listened to it. the richness of that orchestration wrapped around me and i was back on I-76, jotting down on a scrap of paper the word “meander.”
every summer i break one of my two little baby toes. every single summer. last summer alone i logged tons of miles on my $2 old navy flipflops as a result. i even talked about it on this blog. what did i learn? in particular, what did i learn THIS time as opposed to all the other times? i learned to either 1. slow down a little 2. watch where i’m going a tad bit more 3. never go barefoot. the thing is, i’m pretty sure it will happen again. i’m still learning.
i haven’t fallen off my bike in quite some time (and hope not to cause these days it will hurt much more than it used to) but i can relate in countless ways to our chicken marsala monday in the melange this week. i can distinctly remember taking off the training wheels and teaching the children to ride their two-wheelers, running down the sidewalk next to them. for that matter, i can totally -and (yougetthis) viscerally- remember teaching them how to drive.
we’ve been watching the olympics. athletes of inordinate ability who had to start somewhere – and, for sure, who fell in the process. not afraid of failing, but keeping on keeping on. being an ace anything is far off. do any of us ever really get there?
as an adult (ugh, i guess 58 qualifies me if for no other reason than sheer number) there are a lot of things i still want to learn. a few years ago i wanted to throw pots. i spent more than i bargained on for clay and lessons and studio time and more clay and ended up with the most wonderful tea light holder. (ok, i also threw a cereal-size-bowl and a few other assorted incredibly-shrinking-bowls as i struggled to center them and not have the clay collapse on the wheel.) let’s just say i was not gifted at this. but it did (and still does) make me laugh. and i know that i will someday try it again and i will add to my assortment of teenytinyclayobjects in which i can store paperclips.
when we see my amazing son and his boyfriend, we seem to be developing this tradition of bowling together. now, even though i live in wisconsin – and it is practically a law to be a good bowler here – i am pretty bad at bowling. every now and then i do something (like pick up a spare or get a strike) and am shocked, but most of the time i am aghast at how the ball creates splits in the pins and i find myself leaning while watching it careen (generous term) down the alley. the thing i must say, though, is that each time i do a little better. and the reallybadscores will, if i dedicate any time at all to practice, perhaps improve. mostly, i laugh. and i wish i could bring that to ANY thing i am learning – be it a new sport, an artform, a study of some philosophy or political issue, or – a big one – relationship. we fall. we get up, brush ourselves off, ask for grace and try again.
even though there are so many venues of crashing, the recording studio is a prime place to watch yourself fall down. you’ve written music, lyrics. you’ve practiced and practiced – there’s muscle memory in each measure. you’re ready, water and coffee by your side. (for me, not so much water once in the studio as it ….toomuchinformationalert…makes throat noises i can’t avoid.) and then you start. there’s so much riding on the line. and some days? some days you can’t get through a track. something is amiss; something is wrong. the first track of my first album was recorded in a studio in evanston. ken, my producer, was a stranger to me and i drove down with a posse of friends. i felt a little nervous, but mostly felt confident i was prepared. hours later, i had recorded the solo piano track for galena (the album released from the heart) and ken gave me a cassette tape (how funny is that?!) to listen to. i put it in the cassette deck of my old chrysler blue minivan and turned it on. and was appalled. rigid playing met my ears. it sounded nothing like me or my playing, or my piece of music, for that matter. all that confidence translated to a coldness, an unemotional-ness instead of a good track. i called ken (who i barely knew then, but now the same brilliant producer who has produced 14 of my 15 albums) and he suggested that, “maybe you should just write the music and have someone else play it on the recording FOR you.” what???!!! uhhh, i didn’t even know what to answer that would sound in the least bit polite.
and so i painfully listened to the recording again and sat back down at home on my bench. and i realized i needed to be ready -at any moment- to fall. THAT is what would make the piece sound like me and sound like, well, music. the rawness, the every-moment-ness, the vulnerability to mistakes and moving beyond them. that is what would make it shine as a learning. preparation is wise, flexibility is a must, a sense of humor is required, confidence is irrelevant, perseverance is utmost.
i just updated my “about” page on this blogsite. i wrote the words “15 albums and a bunch of singles and i’m still wondering what i’m doing in this industry.” truer words were never spoken. our current world, in all its fantastic technology, has changed everything for recording artists everywhere. music is not hard to create. sales are. i have ranted many a time (and even on this blogsite) about this very thing – vastly minimized earnings with the challenge of streaming and burning and grabbing. but i am a musician. and, if you are an artist of any sort, you know that you are what you are and that’s the story.
our studio melange (paintings, music, cartoons, books, children’s books, plays) introduces friday as ks kerri sherwood friday…an opportunity to say a few words about a song or piece of music, maybe acquaint you with an album or a track you haven’t yet heard. something that might resonate with you. something i recorded in a rainy auditorium 23 years ago (a few people will understand that…carol and the-amazingly-“fine”-ken included.) something i flew to nashville to record. something i recorded after twenty-three hours in the studio. something i recorded at yamaha artist services in nyc. something i recorded five days before my wedding. or maybe something new.
so – in keeping with valentine’s day (and every day) – not to be all geeky-mushy and everything, when IS the last time you slow danced? this song, SLOW DANCE, when it was released as a single from the album AS SURE AS THE SUN climbed a secondary adult contemporary radio chart up to #13.
for a recording artist, there is nothing like hearing your song on the radio. except for maybe slow dancing with the love of your life. yup. no comparison.
slow dance. the song. it seems to speak to people. and THAT is my work. what more can i ask for?
the girl jumped out of a plane last week. i look at the sky and think about being 10,000 feet up and stepping out…..
skydiving was on my bucket list at her age. that and hang-gliding, a hugely-70’s thing. growing up on long island, i was hanging out with people who surfed and camped in the dunes, fished in the middle of the night and scuba-dove into wrecks off the beach. and so it didn’t surprise me when she wrote to me that she had ‘just jumped out of a plane’. i celebrate her adventuring spirit.
the boy bought a grill this week. when did he grow up enough to own his own grill? his adventures are all about his spirit – with an ever-growing circle of friends who support him and let him be in his own skin. i celebrate his adventuring spirit.
wasn’t it yesterday when the boy and i walked hand in hand to the girl’s school to pick her up from kindergarten? wasn’t it yesterday when he ran around the field and picked dandelions, dirt flying, and reached up to me with them in his fist, saying “woses for momma”? wasn’t it yesterday when she carried over big piles of books for me to “wead, momma, wead”? wasn’t it yesterday i rocked them to sleep at night after the perfunctory ‘good night moon’ reading?
so many adventures. it has all flown by. i talked to linda yesterday and she laughed when i said, “we realize we actually don’t know anything. time just flies by and we know nothing.” she is gentle and wise and an amazing adventurer, taking on new stages of life with grace and generosity.
every single one of these moments weaves into my heart – yup, that thready heart of mine. i hold them close to me and give thanks for adventures that are big, adventures that are small. adventures that have taught me patience, adventures that challenge me. i try not to have fear or hold on too tight, but…well, i’m human.
hesistantly, because moms just sometimes seem out of the running when it comes to children thinking about people adventuring, i wrote to my daughter that i had always wanted to skydive at her age. she wrote back, “you can still do it.”
i stood on crab meadow beach, looked across the sound, and dropped to my knees to touch the sand on that very familiar place. i can’t count how many times i sat on that very beach…the wind has taken drifted waves of sand and moved them around, the waves and rain and erosion have changed the shape of the inlet, but i recognize it. deep inside me, i can feel it – from long ago. and still.
crab meadow is not the most beautiful beach by beach standards. (i know – i talked about it a lot in my june 20, 2015 blog called ‘the gorgeous disorderliness that is life.’) it is rocky and pebbly and not vast and you can see the stacks from there when you look left, but i will always consider it my most important beach. so much time spent there. winter, spring, summer, fall. it is one of the places i call home.
and just a few weeks ago i found my way there. to my crab meadow beach.
my husband understood my need to sit and ponder and meander through my thoughts and memories. he was both appropriately quiet and conversational. he engaged in my memories, my musings and my relationship with that tide, and held me as i felt wistful. so much growing happened for me on that beach, since that beach. in that place. home.
i was always the kind of kid who got homesick. being thready does that to a person. i still get homesick. homesick for places, people, times gone by. my roots mean so much to me: climbing the fence to the beach pre-dawn, my dog missi in the well of my vw bug, sitting with notebooks in my tree….i can still hear the clanking of masts in northport harbor…. i remember childhood playdates with dianne, bike hikes and drives and countless overnights with susan, bobdylanjohndenver arguments with marc, joe-z lecturing me on driving too slow on waterside avenue…i can still feel the damp wind on my face fishing with crunch in the middle of the night, in the middle of the sound….i can still see my sweet momma and poppo, in our house, my brother skateboarding with me and strumming his guitar, my sister playing leonard cohen and doing my hair…a zillion thoughts….home…
my daughter stands on the top of a huge mountain and feels home. my son, in the midst of his big busy city, feels home. i look west and i look south – toward them – and know that part of what makes home for me is now climbing a mountain or riding the ‘L’ train.
and so i stood on that beach and thought about life since…decades after the days i had spent huge slices of time there.
i felt like i had come there to pick up something i left behind, to reclaim something. but now i wonder if actually i needed to be there to leave something there…to leave that which i no longer needed. i have yet to figure out the sudden burst of tears that came with my feet in that sand.
i just know that crab meadow, once again, came through for me. it will always be home. no matter how many other places or people i call home, i will always be able to find my way home. there.
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.
bmi, one of the major music royalty companies, sent me a statement and a check which i opened today. happy to be a bmi artist, i was grateful to receive the check; i read it first, a natural human reaction. then i pulled up the statement.
my original music had 319,954 plays in the first quarter of 2015. that is: between radio, tv, internet, music program companies, my music has been spun over 319,000 times. in one quarter of a year. now…that sounds like a lot, doesn’t it. one of my big questions these days about my music is – is it relevant? well, apparently, it must be. and so this is reassuring.
now, you would think that would equate to a decent royalty check, the ability for an independent artist to make a living. this is what i made per spin (an average…i am a bit of a math geek)….are you ready? i made a whopping $00.00079 per play. that isn’t even NEAR a PENNY. so let’s see. that means that the total of 319,954 plays has NOT netted me enough to:
1. buy a decent basket of groceries
2. even pay half of my private health insurance premium
3. pay for my dog to have 3 months of heartworm preventative medication and flea and tick preventative medication
4. pay my one-month cell phone bill
5. contribute to half of the mortgage payment
6. pay the minimum payment on my master card bill
7. pay the amount of my monthly parent plus loans for my son’s college fees
8. pay an hour of an entertainment attorney’s time
etc etc etc
it would just cover the electric/gas bill.
it would pay for life insurance.
it would cover a month of car insurance.
it would cover the cat food.
it would cover the water bill.
but. it will not cover any combination of these bills. and, as i pointed out above, there are many it won’t cover at all.
and that brings me to value.
what is the value of music? and, if it is relevant, why is so little value placed on it? how many places have you been, events have you attended (weddings, funerals, dance parties…what would those be without music?), commercials you watched on tv, movies that inspired you, moved you, disturbed you – how would those be without a soundtrack? how many moments have you cherished that would have changed dramatically withOUT the music in that space of time? what does it do to your heart? and how can we place so little value on that?
there were a reported (mind you, this is what is reported, not what is the real total) 19,974 plays on the internet of my original music. this netted me (wait for it) a grand total of $3.61. yes, you read that right. $3.61. i could not even treat you and me to a starbucks for that. i couldn’t even get a happy meal for that. and yet, 19,974 people/entities listened to the music i conceived, wrote, recorded, paid for a recording engineer, mastering engineer, piano technician, miscellaneous equipment, yamaha had a piano delivered to the studio, purchased upc codes and copyrights, had a graphic designer design a cd format, ordered and paid for replicated cds and print art (jackets, tray cards), paid ups to ship boxes upon boxes to the office, paid for marketing materials, paid employees to market and distribute, drove thousands of miles and carried hundreds of pounds of boxes of cds to play concerts, perform at wholesale, retail shows and stores and do radio and tv interviews, uploaded over 200 tracks from 15 albums to itunes, and see that pieces have found their way onto the internet in ways i can’t put my finger on…..i needn’t go on….i’m sure you get the point…. in the days of physical cds and brick and mortar buildings, and even in the days of just itunes downloads that paid artists, there was a chance at treating you to BOTH a happy meal AND a starbucks. but now…..
and so. the music. it’s relevant. and it has value. but who is missing out in this equation??
a few weekends ago i performed for an important event. as with all work, it took preparation and commitment, practice and heart to make sure that my performance supported the event. after it was over, many people commented on how touched they were by this music. one gentleman asked me, “when you aren’t playing music, what do you really do?” really???
i am 56. there is a lot of music left in me to write, record, perform. how do i justify continuing to make this music when each piece that reaches the ears of another living soul pays me less than a penny? do i hope for sheer luck? for an overnight itunes download sensation? or a youtube that goes viral, heaping advertisers at my doorstep?
these are potent questions. what are the answers?
how can i (afford to) live and keep making music? how can i (afford to) live and not keep making music?
i could hear the saxophonist on the corner out the window; it’s not uncommon in nyc. at 
it was easy for me to compile a list of the hymns to play; so many years of church music gives me an advantage that way. but on every album, even if it is music i haven’t written but am giving my own voice to (like the 
surrounded by infinite grace and love – God is always with us. like all the tracks on the hymn albums, this piece is solo piano.
the girl jumped out of a plane last week. i look at the sky and think about being 10,000 feet up and stepping out…..
i stood on crab meadow beach, looked across the sound, and dropped to my knees to touch the sand on that very familiar place. i can’t count how many times i sat on that very beach…the wind has taken drifted waves of sand and moved them around, the waves and rain and erosion have changed the shape of the inlet, but i recognize it. deep inside me, i can feel it – from long ago. and still.
