I recently published a piece about the importance of recognizing and honoring individuals whose ideas have inspired your own work in order to ensure they receive acknowledgment for their hard work and innovation. I wrote mainly from the creative and academic perspective, but this concept certainly extends to all realms of innovation and discovery. Since…
Category: folk music
I’ll meet you there
This past week, I visited the Petit-Château on Monday for poetry and music and Friday for a special songwriting workshop for Women’s Week. Monday began with sunshine and ended with grey sky, but the music we created warmed my spirit tremendously. At the start of the Monday session, there were just a few folks in…
North of the border
It is the final day of April, and I am sitting in a third floor room typing away as the rain falls in a cold, wet blanket outside my window. These past two weeks, I have traveled under the auspice of Story-to-Song to two very different locations, cities, and climes in Canada. Last week, I…
What now?
The Sandbox may be over, but my work as a startup entrepreneur is just beginning. The past three months feel like a surreal, frenetic blur. They were very real and quite invaluable. I took an abstract idea and found a way to turn it into a viable business with tangible products. I even worked with…
Against All Odds
Tonight is the final awards ceremony for the Merrimack Valley Sandbox Winter Accelerator Program. It has been a challenging and very rewarding three months. Yet, I think I speak for everyone in my class when I write that this evening’s final ceremonies will be bittersweet for all of us. A couple of weeks ago, a…
Talk to everyone because you just never know
There are many people who have walked in and out of my life and had a formative affect on the person I am today, how I engage with the world around me, and the values I try to embrace and infuse into the work I do, particularly with regard to sustainability and songwriting. I wonder…
Perfect Pitch
Last night was the much anticipated, anxiety inducing Mid-Pitch for the Merrimack Valley Sandbox Winter Accelerator Program. I spent the better part of the day and week before reflecting and revising my pitch outline. A challenge with selling songwriting products is finding ways to describe something that can be rather abstract and difficult to explain…
Singing the songs of the people.
I grew up in a small town in eastern Massachusetts on the south shore. Throughout my childhood and into college, music was my identity. I played and performed classical piano; I was first chair for the clarinet in the school band; I listened to any and all music I could find. I started plucking around…
Art takes work
I am fairly certain I have told you before that patience is not a virtue that comes easily for me. I want results, and I want them quickly. In this modern world of social networking, I am thankful to receive a nearly immediate outpouring of love and support from friends, family, and Story-to-Song fans each…
Everyone has a story
Everyone has a story. Yes, that means you, too. This past Friday evening, I performed some original songs and led a songwriting demonstration in downtown Lowell at an artist maker’s space called Lowell Makes. It was part of a skill share through a local time bank called the Merrimack Valley Time Exchange (MVTE). One skill…
Guiding Song 