Mothers of Musicians

Muse Clues Bread Crumbs

2010-09-22T09:17:00.000-07:00

“Somebody said they saw me, swinging the world by the tail, bouncing over a white cloud, killing the blues.” Rowland Salley

I know, I know. It’s been way too long since I last blogged. When was it? March? Well….let me just say… since I persuaded the muse to visit, he hasn’t been back since. I’ve made it too hard for him to find me. I moved! I mean I packed it all up and by that I mean that my stuff is now sitting in three different storage units, one in Nashville and two in Oxford, Alabama.

You know, all of my furniture, and my domestic poetic views, packed in banana boxes and stacked up in three 10 X 10 storage units. My kitchen rooster collection, tea cups and teapots, antique stained glass windows, all of the cross stitch I did while I was pregnant and/or nursing (which, by the way, was a whole lot of fine art!) My children’s plaster of Paris hand imprints and huge Rubber Maid boxes of family pictures, baby blankets, Christmas ornaments and quilts. Bird feeders, wind chimes and ceramic garden art I got while in Mexico are packed in a large garbage can along with my shovel, hoe and pruning shears.

My one-of-a- kind antique Cinderella pumpkin carriage bed that makes me feel like a princess when I sleep beneath its crown… my shabby chic dresser and chest that are about 175 years old…my parent’s first couch – an Empire period settee from the 1840’s are all sitting beneath boxes of bath towels, dinner plates and Tupperware. All of the things that materially make me “Donna Byrd” are strewn miles and miles apart from each other. Oh, yeah…I forgot to mention my books, my best friends that actually kidnapped me and took me off to places I could only go in my dreams, are put away into twenty five boxes and are pouting in the back of a hot storage unit.

I miss me. It’s made me feel out of sorts. I’m not quite myself, but then again, who am I really? Especially when all my props are in storage somewhere?

I gave much of my furniture away to my children. I visit them and sit on my couches, but they put their own decorative pillows on them. I sleep on my favorite bed, under the best worn sheets in the world, but they put a new, chic comforter on it. It’s pretty, but not what I remember it to be like (kids, please don’t be mad that I’m saying this. It’s really beautiful and looks great with the antique rug you bought.) I look at my white piano, but it’s in the dining room, gorgeous against the blue wall. The antique English drawing table and chairs that my siblings and I got my parents for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary sit in the middle of the room and I’m glad it’s just “still in the family.” Much of my cross stitch adorns their walls. I was tired of it, but heck, it suits their house.

I visit my son John at his apartment too, and see my furniture, once again. His living room set. His bedroom set. All of my kitchen rugs, hall runners…. ALL OF ME!!!!!MY LIFE!!!!!

No wonder my muse can’t visit me. He can’t find me. I’m scattered like ashes across several states. Do people’s belongings truly make the person? Tell me it’s not so!

My belongings have been put away and I’ve been divided up, four ways! Bill and I spent time with our children in Nashville at their home. We “hung out” with the band and met all the cool people. We sat outside on their back patio, on the swings and lawn furniture we gave them, enjoying hibiscus and zinnias I planted last April and put in their safe keeping, while we escaped from the noise of band practice. We’ve been trendy, had great coffee at the Frothy Monkey and learned to eat organic foods at Burger Up and Chiptole, enjoying the company of the best kids on Earth.

We’ve also stayed weeks on end with my cousin Linda and her husband Richard (Bake.) They live on Topsail Island by the beach and they gave us the down stairs of their lovely home. We were able to walk on the nearly deserted beach any time we wanted and sit every night on their porch and watch the sunset over the intra coastal waterway. I swear there is a tree there at Stump Point that looks like it should be on the African savannah. At sunset, the sky would turn red behind the tree and I would start looking for elephants and giraffes. Then I would hear the sea gulls squawking and ocean waves making their beach “white noise” remembering where I was. When it turned dark (I mean really dark) we would go to the deck and lay on their patio lounges and let the stars come down within swatting distance. How long has it been since you’ve seen the Milky Way and watched meteor showers?

One night, Bill and Bake got to see a whole nest of sea turtles hatch on the beach. They were there on sea turtle duty making sure the babies made their way to the ocean. Bill got to hold a baby turtle in his hand. Oh, the life!!!

We also got to stay with lovely friends at their home in Oxford, Alabama. Our baby, Cody still lives in Oxford and we got to see him as much as his busy high school schedule would allow. We thought that would be everyday, but really? It wasn’t. He had his schedule too. But, we stayed in a lovely home and this time we got the basement! What a lovely place! Truly! We could spread out, watch TV until we fell asleep and use the top notch computers in their office. We felt so busy and alive with the technology. Bill even started writing a blog. Ideas were birthed! Dreams born. Quite a productive place. We also enjoyed a beautiful vista of Mt. Cheaha, watched sunsets over a picturesque barn and observed our friend’s horses in a beautiful, rolling, meadow from a distance. I’m a bit afraid of horses, but hay! (ha) I thought they were animal royalty. Even the rooster and hens were fascinating. What a gorgeous place and wonderful people.

Lastly, we stayed with my parents in my childhood home in Tarboro, North Carolina. Memories were at every turn. When I would look down my street, I would see my twelve year old self and my best friend, Janet, riding our bikes up and down the street, laughing at our girlish secrets. I would see the neighbors’ new houses, but really “see” the forts we built on their lots before a single foundation was layed. As children, we were warriors. We played “war” before we knew what war was.

Bill and I slept in my old bedroom. Kind of strange, as it always is….sleeping in your childhood home with your lover.

But…I have to say. It is also the place we were married. We had a garden wedding. I literally mean, a “garden” wedding. There was a beautiful garden that my grandfather maintained on my parent’s property. Corn, beans, tomatoes, okra, all bordered by beautiful flowers to draw honeybees. There were several dogwood trees beyond the garden and in the middle of two of them, Bill and I were married. I visit that exact spot every time I go “home.”

I walked out to the place where Bill and I took our vows. I stood between the dogwood trees and looked about me. To my direct left, there was stacked firewood for the winter. To my right was a grape vine with fruit almost sweet enough to pick. Dead ahead, there was an apple tree, loaded down with the weight of its fruit. To the left there was a fig tree, and yeah, plenty of fruit for the picking.

I took it all in. There was a lot of fruit and wood for warmth in the winter. But behind me, where we stood before the minister to take our vows, was my dad’s sailboat.

Now, I know that sounds odd. But there it was, in its sailboat “glory” tucked into itself, but yet a sailboat. Strong, wooden, a bit old fashioned, but beautifully crafted, right behind me. I laughed out loud.

I realized our life had been so fruitful. Everywhere I looked, there was fruit. There was the firewood there for cold and bitter times and best of all….there was a sail boat, always at the ready to sail us away to our next chapter. Our next adventure.

With all of this said, we hope to close on a house Friday in Nashville. It will be twenty five minutes away from most of our children and it’s lovely. If the deal falls through and we don’t get it, I’ll be relieved and if all goes according to plan…. I’ll be relieved. I know it sounds crazy for people to feel like this who are in our 50’s. But hey….dreams have been born and the sail boat is behind us, waiting to take us to our next destination. God has a plan that is always unfolding. I’ll keep you informed on what happens!

And Muse...wherever you are? I’m still waiting for you. I’ve given you clues like bread crumbs to lead you to me. All of my poetic views have not been stored away in a box somewhere. I have made new ones and collected them like friends over the summer. But if you get desperate in your search for me, just look up. I was spotted by someone, bouncing over a white cloud.

When the Muse needs a Muse

2010-03-17T20:53:00.000-07:00

“Thus with child to speak, and helpless in my throes, biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite: ‘Fool!’ said my muse to me, look in thy heart and write.” Sir Philip Sidney, (English statesman, 1554-1586)

OK. So what happens when the muse needs a muse? Believe me. It is not amusing! My computer and I have come to an agreement: If I don’t give it any words, it will not write anything down for me. There is a standoff. I stand across the room from my computer and my computer stays turned off, silently accusing me of negligence and being a wannabe blog writer.

So, today, I confess to you, my reader, that I am drier than an instant potato flake, as shriveled and as hard as the orange I found this morning hiding in the back of the vegetable bin in my refrigerator, as uninteresting as last week’s TV Guide and as uninspiring as this rainy day in March…I have nothing to give, nothing to say. I need help….I need inspiration….I need my muse to rescue me from myself!

In desperation, I’ll lure him to my table, to sit and talk with me. I’ll set the atmosphere like I would a well-dressed dining table for tea, hoping he will see that I went to “all that trouble” and stay awhile.

First of all, I have to get dressed for our little tea party. I put on my good jeans, pull on my boots and splash a little color on my face. Because I can think more clearly when I can see, I put on my contact lenses. I don’t want to miss anything he might want to show me. I brush my hair and dab a bit of perfume behind my ears. I don’t want him to see me slumming around the house!

Satisfied that I won’t scare him off, I make my way to the living room and select the music that always seems to draw him like a moth to a candle. My muse loves Celtic music and it is St. Patrick’s Day. The luck of the Irish must be with me and I put on the Gaelic tunes. I can almost swear that I hear the wind chimes tinkling as he stirs the air by the kitchen window.

I get out my tea cups and remember a Leonard Cohen song that always inspires me. It’s called “Suzanne” and it’s about a young woman who was a muse for dozens of Beat-Poets during the early 60’s in Montreal. She lived in a little wooden cabin and had a poetic view of the river. Cohen would come and see her in the evenings and they would sit at her table. She would light a candle that she had named Anastasia, and then pour them each a cup of Constant Comment Tea. They would sit for a few minutes in silence, drinking their tea, and then they would begin to talk for hours. Cohen probably milked her for all the artistic inspiration she could give. He became the poet laureate of Canada.

“Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river

You can hear the boats go by;

You can spend the night beside her

And you know that she’s half crazy

But that’s why you want to be there

And she feeds you tea and oranges

That come all the way from China

And just when you mean to tell her

That you have no love to give her

Then she gets you on her wavelength

And she lets the river answer

That you’ve always been her lover.”

I smile to myself. I realize that Suzanne did set the atmosphere, and like her, I light a candle and take it to the dining room table. I must attract light with light to get my muse to bite. The law of attraction? I put my computer down on the dining room table, my cup of tea and oranges in hand. I sip slowly and look at my poetic view.

I am surrounded by some of my favorite things. My big wooden book cases, envied by some, flank one side of my room. My teapots and lovely cups are displayed in the oak secretary that sits directly in front of me. I look at my angels of bounty that smile at me from the buffet and my cross stitched “welcome” bell pull by the door that leads into the kitchen. I bask in the golden light of my candle and table lamps, waiting for my inspiration to arrive.

I sit at my table, with my eyes shut. Peace begins to seep into my mind as I pray for the light to cover me and shed it secrets like an ancient tomb that’s just been discovered. I feel my muse slip into the chair across from me, waiting for me to pour his cup of tea.

I pour it slowly, not wanting to startle him. I am so relieved that he came! It’s been so long since I’ve seen him. And we have so much to talk about. I stare at him openly, my eyes taking in the miracle of him, the brightness of him. And all of a sudden, I feel the ice begin to melt in my heart. He brings his own flame and adds it to the glow I have created for him. I just sit there warmed by his presence and the tea we share. The melting ice creates a flow and I realize I am finally connected to the river.

The current is ever so slight, but it flows out of my eyes, down my cheeks, into my heart. I am on his wavelength. He “lets the river answer that I’ve always been his lover.”

I don’t doubt my muse. It’s just that when I can’t see him, I feel uninspired and insecure. It’s been the longest and coldest winter of my adult life, physically and creatively. But I trust him. He always comes when I set the atmosphere. I just haven’t had the presence of mind to do so.

Later in “Suzanne,” Cohen writes:

“And you want to travel with her and you want to travel blind

And you know that you can trust her

For she’s touched your perfect body with her mind.”

Now I know that I am nowhere near perfect, but I am perfect in the fact that I was perfectly made to discover mysteries of the earth and understand them with a creative bent. As long as I keep setting the atmosphere by invoking the light, playing inspiring music, making tea and sitting at a blank computer screen at my beautifully set dining room table, my muse will come. And I trust him enough to close my eyes, take his hand and travel blindly by his side. I do love his mind!

The Muse Dances with the Stars

2010-01-10T15:03:00.000-08:00

“When I started out, I didn’t have any desire to be an actress or learn how to act. I just wanted to be famous.” Katherine Hepburn

Hello MOMS (Mothers of Musicians.) Do any of you have children that were born with stars in their eyes? All of my children have either deep blue or light hazel eyes. But if you looked deep into them…really deep…you would see stars. Little stars that dance with teasing promises of fame and fortune. Stars that came from the gene pool of their dad, Bill.

Now don’t get me wrong. If you knew me in my younger days, you would have seen a star fleck or two in my eyes. I played the piano, knew a little guitar and loved acting. I had dreams of being on a stage in a distant city somewhere. But Bill’s family had a history of stars that broke through the dream realm and saw some true action. My stars were from recessive genes and Bill’s came from a dominant super gene pool.

Bill’s grandmother must have had irises that were shaped like stars. As a girl of sixteen, she ran away from the safety of her parent’s home in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, to be a singer and dancer on Broadway. She actually did it. She lived the dream only to die before she was twenty years old. His grandfather, her husband, outlived her and lived out his own dream. He was a soloist for a syndicated radio show that ran from coast to coast. Even after he lost his singing voice to laryngitis his musical career didn’t end. He was a song writer, big band musical score arranger and piano bar player in New York. He made a living from his talent until the day he died. Believe me, MOMS, the genes (or stars,) play an important role in the future generations. Have you looked deeply into your child’s eyes lately?

I can’t remember the exact time that my children told me that they were going to be famous. They never really said, “I want to be famous.” It was always that positive, matter of fact statement: “Mom, I’m GOING to be famous one day.” What does a mother say to that?

In order not to crush their fragile egos or deflate their spirits, I would always tip toe around the issue. “You are going to be famous? Well, of course you are famous to your Momma. You will ALWAYS be famous to me.” And with that, I would give them a hug to seal my agreement with their statement and show them that I loved them regardless of whether they became famous or not. I thought that maybe they needed to feel significant.

A year or so went by. I was a witness to hundreds of “shows” put on by the Byrd children, cousins and a few neighborhood rug rats. The kids would beg us to let them stay up a little bit longer so that we could witness the best show they had ever done. Much of it was silly, childhood nonsense, played out on a living room floor and couch. But to them, it was the real thing. They were in their own school of the arts, imitating their parents and the things they saw and heard on TV and the radio. At the end of each production, they would always say, “I told you Mom. We’re going to be famous one day.” I started wondering if they knew something that I did not.

At the time, we lived in Orlando, Florida, forty-five minutes from the Space Coast. Sometimes at sundown, when the sky would go dark, we would all go out in the back yard and lay down on the big trampoline. There, we would gaze up into the heavens and look at the constellations. It was like our dream bed. I would wear my mom’s costume, shorts and a tee shirt. They would wear their super hero pajamas and capes, ballerina tutus and tiaras. On that bed, all dreams were possible.

On special occasions, we could watch the shuttle launches from Cape Canaveral. Even though they were almost an hour away, we could see them from our back yard. They were like miracles, fiery fingers of man sent to touch the hem of God’s heaven. Witnessing these events inspired all of us. If astronauts could ascend into heaven, surely we could attain anything we hoped for. It was like dream fuel and the stars of the sky reflected on the dark pools of my children’s eyes

I’ll never forget the day that Natalie and Stacey were eating a snack in the kitchen. Both of them had on their “dream” costumes, tights and tutus. They were eating strawberry ice cream and it was dripping down their chins onto the sparkly studded stars that spread across their little chests like tiny constellations. “Mom, look at me in the eye,” Natalie said, her command interrupting my mommy business. I went to the table, sat down, grabbed her hand and looked straight into her eyes. Her eyes were dark blue, like an early summer’s evening, when the light hasn’t quite left the Western horizon and there in the corner, I saw a bright evening star, rising to challenge me. “Mom, you don’t believe us do you?” “Believe what?” I innocently asked. “That we are going to be famous!” she sang back to me.

I looked at her and Stacey, and realized that maybe they were privy to something I didn’t know. Maybe they did know something about their future that God hadn’t let me in on. They were talking about THEIR life. Who was I to disagree with them or tell them that I saw them in other occupations that were normal and more, “down to earth.” Maybe they WERE supposed to be famous one day. I didn’t know. Yet, they talked with such conviction that I decided to agree with them, not just to their faces, to make them happy, but in my heart. I thought that if I came into agreement with their destiny as they saw it, then maybe their dreams could become true. “I have decided that I do believe you. You are all going to become famous.”

That is when I became an enabler of dreams. When I came into agreement with their dreams, the muse in me was loosed. John got piano lessons, Natalie, acting lessons, Stacey and Isaaca, dance lessons, Jeremy a set of drums and Cody, the baby, just got to play a little bit longer.

I was truly “dancing with the stars.” Look into your children’s eyes and see what is shining back at you. If you see twinkles winking up at you, don’t ignore them. You just may need to invest in a trampoline and do some star gazing.

My children are much older now and are still in pursuit of their musical career dream. No, they are not yet famous, but still believe that they are going to “make it” in a world where very few do. Maturity brings a more balanced viewpoint. Jeremy told me not long ago that, like Ray Charles, “I never wanted to be famous. I only wanted to be great.” I realize that you don’t have to be famous to be great. Greatness comes from within.

Until next time…Teach your children and Fly them to the Moon!

The Muse Gets Out of Its Cage

2009-12-19T09:56:00.000-08:00

“Just as Jesus created wine from water, we humans are capable of transmuting emotion into music.” Carlos Santana

Hi, Mothers of Musicians (MOMS.) I love that quote.

There was a time when quoting Carlos Santana in a spiritual context would have been sacrosanct at best. Maybe just plain heretical. But times (and people) change, don’t they? Thank God!

My last blog left you with a promise to share how Bill and I put “limitations” on music in our household. Indulge me a moment and let me go back in time…say…thirty-one years.

I think I told you previously that Bill and I were products of 1960’s and 1970’s style music. Our generation worshipped at the altar of rock and roll and our lifestyles were representative of that culture. By 1978 I had become weary of that way of living, for to live it at all was to live it wholeheartedly, and after several years of “life in the fast lane,” I began to look back to the God of my youth and seek real freedom. This disenchantment lead me to Jesus Christ, His Holy Spirit, and a new value system emerged in me. I let most of my old relationships go and I forsook those things that I had taken on as my “identity.” I became a new creature in Christ. I got “saved.”

I’ll never forget. I came home from college and brought all of my belongings with me. I “spiritually” cleaned house. I ripped up all of my posters and pictures that pertained to my old “idols.” I took all of my albums out of their covers and broke them in half, one by one, putting them in the trashcan, wishing that I could burn them, but my mom told me that all of that vinyl would just melt and burn, stink and make a huge mess. So I sent the broken mess, which I thought represented my life, to the dump.

Now, I’m sure that you are saying, “Wait a minute, that’s too radical!” Maybe it was, maybe not, but at the time, I was just drawing a line between my old self and my new “Christ-like” self. It was all I knew how to do. I stopped listening to the radio, basically stopped going to the movies. I mainly tried to keep my mind based on what was “true, noble, right, pure, lovely and admirable. If there was anything excellent or praiseworthy to notice, I would consider that and think on it.”

That was a paradigm shift for my life. Everything, including my perception of things changed. I only listened to Christian music and for some reason, I felt comfortable with that. I found a quote by Hal A. Lingerman which explains it. “Just as certain selections of music will nourish the physical body and your emotional layer, so other musical works will bring greater health to your mind.” I believe that for years I had nourished my soul and physical body by identifying with the musical culture of the 1960’s and 1970’s.

By unplugging from that power source, I plugged into a different outlet, Christian music, and began to clean my mind and feed my spirit man.

I remember one morning as I was getting ready for work, I was watching the national news and Jane Pauley was announcing that John Lennon had been shot and killed the night before. I was stunned. His death awakened in me a tie to my past. As I took Bill to work that morning, I tried to find out more about his death on the radio. Each station was playing John Lennon songs. I left a station on and listened, still shocked by the news. Bill looked at me and said, “Why are you seeking the dead among the living? His death is sad, but shouldn’t concern us like it used to would have. We’re not really in that world anymore.”

I know that sounds harsh, but at the time, that is how we lived and what we thought. I totally missed all of the music of the 1980’s and early 1990’s. During that time I was having babies, nursing them, having more babies, establishing a home, home schooling and being the best mom I could be. I swore to myself, God and all of my friends that I would never let my kids listen to any kind of rock music on the radio.

As my older kids began to hit the teen and pre-teen years, something drastic happened. One day, while out on a shopping trip, I heard Natalie and Stacey sing along with a song that was playing over a store music system. It was a radio song and they knew every word. Rap was just coming out and I heard John rapping every word, spitting it out machine gun style. I was amazed. How did they know the words when they weren’t supposed to be listening to the radio? I asked them and they told me that the CD player I had gotten them for Christmas had a radio on it and at night, when they thought that Bill and I were asleep or not listening to what was going on upstairs, they would quietly play it.

I was distressed! My plan wasn’t working. How were my children going to be separate from “the world” and its evil nature? I thought I was failing them.

I was visiting my family up in North Carolina and happened to have dinner with my old high school friend and college buddy, Janet. Janet and I had been best friends for years and had struggled with the same issues of the 1970’s. Like me, she too had become a Christian.

Janet’s dad had always been in a bluegrass band. He played the bass and the piano by ear. Janet loved music as much, if not more than I did and she too had young children. I asked her if she were going to let her children listen to music on the radio. I believe at that time Hanson, 98 Degrees and Back Street Boys were dominating the radio scene. Was she going to let her children listen to them or strictly listen to Christian music? Without missing a beat, she looked at me and said, “Donna, music is music, whether it’s Christian or not. You know me, I love all of it.” And with that simple answer, my moratorium on rock music was lifted.

We did decide that if the kids were going to listen to rock music, they would have to be indoctrinated with some Rock and Roll history and not just accept “teeny bopper” style music as the only music on the face of the planet. Now I know, in retrospect that sounds snobby, but our household had been in a self-imposed musical drought for almost twenty years. We felt that teaching our children the background of the different bands was important. We wanted them to know that most of the musicians from that era had shaken off their bad habits or had died early from their over indulgences. What great life lessons for the kids to learn!

The first CD we bought John that wasn’t “Christian” was Peter Frampton’s “Frampton Comes Alive.” We wanted him to hear one of the greatest guitar solos in history. A few weeks later, (was this 1997?) we all sat as a family around our TV and watched a PBS special concert of “The Dance Tour” which was Fleetwood Mac performing their greatest hits and a few new songs. The concert held their attention just as Disney movies had in the past. A magical door to a cage had been opened, and the muse that had been silenced for so many years, came out, tickled our ears and created a desire that sent us all on a musical adventure that is still being played out to this day.

Well, it’s time to stop writing and get some things done around here for Christmas. Bill, Cody and I are heading up to Nashville next week to spend some time with our all of our children. I think that I will talk with them and get some of their impressions about the next part of our story. Stephen Nachmanovitch says that “The most potent muse of all is our inner child.” Christmas seems to always stir that inner child in all of us. I can’t wait to see where the muse takes us. Until then, Merry Christmas!

Warrior Poets Flirt with the Muse

2009-12-07T16:21:00.001-08:00

“Music speaks what cannot be expressed, soothes the mind and gives it rest, heals the heart and makes it whole, flows from heaven to the soul.” Anonymous (I wish I could find the writer of this bit of truth.)

Hello, MOMS (Mothers of Musicians) I hope that your Thanksgiving holiday was all that you dreamed it would be. I must say that I had a magical Thanksgiving and that it exceeded my expectations.

Bill and I, along with our youngest son, Cody, went to Nashville, Tennessee, to spend my favorite holiday with the rest of our children, a few of their boy friends (who are musicians too) and their parents, my brother Scot, his wife Kelly, and their three children. There were twenty of us all piled into the small house that The Bridges (our kid’s band) rents and lives in. We rented extra tables and chairs, cleared out the band room and feasted like old pilgrim friends. It was wonderful!

All of the MOMS made their family’s traditional Thanksgiving dishes and together we ate and celebrated our reasons to be grateful. The highlight of the day was when we gathered in a huge circle around the room, lifted our glasses and made toasts to family ties, new friends and to the adventures of the future. We even toasted Madonna and her song, “Music Brings the People Together.” Later, after dessert, Kelly, my new friends Elaine and Vickie, and I sat at the table and talked for hours about our children and music. Inwardly, I marveled that we did not choose this gathering. It was music’s choice all along. It sought us out, brought us together and jotted us down as chords of black notes on white paper and the more the talked; the more we filled the page. Each small cluster of folks in the room, lent a layer of harmony, and before you knew it, music had written a beautiful background sound tract that played all afternoon. It was such a song of joy. We kept wondering “Why is this day going so well? We’re with people we don’t know that well, and yet, it doesn’t matter! It’s magical!” It was a day that God had blessed.

Oh well, enough of that. Most of you were not there and it’s not fair to go on about something that everybody didn’t experience. I do hope, though, that in your future gatherings, always listen for the background music that is written by those in attendance. It is fascinating!

All right, let’s shift gears now. I did promise you that I would tell you about how we started the musical learning experience for our children; but once again, some of my story is wrapped up in it too.

The year was 1998 and our oldest child, John, turned sixteen. Because all of our older children had had piano lessons and seemed to be interested in music, we got him a Yamaha guitar and a guitar chord wall poster that had every chord known to man on it. We thought he was born to play the guitar because he had strong hands with long fingers; hands that were made to play bar chords. The guitar sat in his room for a few months and finally, his sisters showed an interest in it and asked if they could learn how to play it.

During this time we had been playing the sound tracks for “Braveheart” and “The Titanic.” The songs had such a Celtic sound to them and I was drawn instantly and played them constantly. I was stirred by the quote in the beginning of the movie, “In the year of our Lord, 1314, patriots of Scotland starving and outnumbered, charged the fields of Bannockburn. They fought like warrior poets. They fought like Scotsmen. And won their freedom.”

Now I can’t say what it was about that quote that grabbed me so, maybe the “warrior poets” part, but combined with the movie sound tract, that duo was not just flirting with me but seduced me by the second date. I know now what it was (the Spirit of the Ancient of Days,) but at that time I only knew that when I heard the music and imagined myself a warrior poet, I was transformed into creativity’s lover, ready to create and write my own stream of words that flowed above my head every time the music began to play. I felt that I was tapping into something ageless and brilliant and to make it appear before me, all I had to do was play that type of music and the gate would open.

We had bought a CD at Wal-Mart, a Sound Scapes style CD that was all Irish music. There was one song that I would play over and over; Ashokan Farewell. It moved me to tears almost every time I heard it. It was one of the background songs in the PBS Special, The Civil War. As they played the song, they read letters that soldiers had written to loved ones back home and they would show actual pictures taken during the Civil War. To me, I thought that the soldiers sounded like warrior poets, their letters beautifully written but describing a hell they were living in. I would listen to that tract over and over, not realizing that the Spirit of the Ancient of Days was at my beck and call during that time. I just knew that a tremendous energy that inspired creativity was there, and for months, rested on our house.

I have since looked up “Ashokan Farwell.” Jay Ungar wrote it in 1982. It was not written during the Civil War and until that PBS Special, had nothing to do with the war. Mr. Ungar wrote it because he was involved with some summer workshops and was so sad to see them end and say goodbye to his friends that he wanted to find a Scottish lament to express his sorrow. He couldn’t find one and decided to write his own. I heard tangible sorrow in every note of that song. There was, however, one note that was played in the song that I actually thought the composer put in there to weep for him. I would feel grief spill out and over the notes as the violin played the forlorn song.

I walked into the girls room one day, during the time they were begging to learn how to play the guitar, and asked them to listen to the “Ashokan Farwell.” “All right, so if you want to learn how to play music, then tell me if you hear a note in this song that cries.” I played the song separately to Natalie first and then Stacey. Both of them heard the note the first time and pointed it out. “OK, that’s what I think too,” I said. “I just wanted to know if you would recognize the emotion there.” I just wanted to know if they were sensitive to music emotion. “OK, then, let’s get the guitar in John’s room and try a few things.

I began to play and sing a simple folk song, “Five Hundred Miles.” I then explained what melody and harmony were and asked them to sing a harmony note if they heard one. Rather embarrassed, Natalie softly sang a harmony line. She understood it. Stacey followed by singing harmony to my melody. I started switching it up. Natalie, you sing melody and Stacey you sing harmony. They got it.

The next lesson was how to hold a guitar and how to play simple chords. I taught them how to place their fingers and strum with different rhythms. I taught them everything I knew in a period of about three days. In about two weeks, they had totally by-passed me and were playing things I had only dreamed of playing. They followed the wall poster chart and they could play every chord. I was amazed.

The Spirit of the Ancient of Days rested upon our home for months. The kids learned the guitar with amazing speed and started singing songs with harmonies. Jeremy took an avid interest in the drums and we bought him his first drum kit, a 1963 Ludwig set. It was beautiful and let me just say, the boy learned to play!

Somehow we had tapped into creative purpose and it ran like a river through our home. Next blog, I’ll tell you about how Bill and I, as parents, put limitations on the music the children listened to and tell you how “well” that went over. Until then, “teach your children.”

The Muse in Me

2009-11-11T12:02:00.000-08:00

“If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less, but to dream more, to dream all the time." Marcel Proust

Hello MOMS (Mothers of Musicians). In my last blog, I promised that I would tell you about the young musicians in my family. But for me to tell their story, I must also include mine, because our tale is as tangled as tree roots in a dense forest.

The characters in my story are as follows: Me - Donna Byrd, my husband - Bill Byrd; our children, John, oldest son, age 27, Natalie, oldest daughter, age 25, Stacey, middle daughter, age 23, Jeremy, middle son, age 21, Isaaca, youngest daughter, age 19, Cody, youngest of all, 17 and my niece, Brittany, age 25. With the exception of John and Cody, all the above mentioned children are in a band called "The Bridges". John eats, breathes and sleeps music and Cody loves and appreciates it. However, a few years ago he asked me if it would be OK if he didn't become a musician. Think he was feeling any pressure?

My husband Bill and I are educated people that came of age in a post-hippie era. I remember that one of my regrets was that I wasn't quite old enough to go to Woodstock (I was twelve) and too young to have friends who actually died in Vietnam. We grew up on the back side of the Jesus Movement and reaped the benefits of civil rights without having to participate in a lunch counter sit-in or know someone who knew someone who was killed in a church bombing. I didn't particularly care about women's rights, because around my family, women had plenty of rights. We never had a “cause” because we were born just a little too late in mid-twentieth century history to claim one for ourselves. All we had was the residue of the passion: the music.

Now, I'm not one to go around adopting causes for myself, but the music that became voice for the 1960's and 70's culture became my soundtrack too. I vicariously lived through that emotional time through the signature music of the day. It was odd, but a certain type of "feeling" came over me while I listened to it. I’m not sure, but it felt like stored up passion waiting to be released: creativity?

What is a creative feeling? It is important to recognize "one" because one day, you may need to sort through your children's emotions or feelings and help them understand patterns of creativity in their lives. I could listen to certain songs and get an overwhelming desire to go and create a lyric, a poem or story. My outlet for this was manifest in what I chose for my college major. At first, I was a drama major, then later an English major with a writing concentration, all venues for creativity.

For years, this creative "feeling" has chased me. I may be sitting on my front porch, seeing the way the cloud shadows and sun bounce around on Coldwater Mountain and hear the opening line for an essay or book. I can be listening to a Celtic tune and all of a sudden, sense the presence of a creative muse in the room with me. It’s like I’m shaking hands in an agreement with something as ancient as God Himself. A few years ago, I felt this at church. The musicians and singers on stage were singing a song that reminded me of an old Celtic hymn. Immediately, that feeling of touching something elusive and at the same time, ageless, gripped me. I asked God what that feeling was. I told him I had experienced it since I was a little girl. I suppose all you have to do is ask, because He told me it was the Spirit of the Ancient of Days, the spirit of God that created the earth. Talk about creativity! If we can plug into that type of creativity, we become muses ourselves.

This is where my story meets my children’s. I decided to become a muse for them. I wanted to get them in touch with the creativity of the Ancient of Days. I wanted to teach them to be in awe of that creative “feeling” and to give themselves over to it when it obviously wanted to show out. I felt that if they understood that their passion for expression was as much God’s as their own, it would manifest itself beautifully.

I’ll tell you how we started the learning process next time I blog. I’ll try to blog more often. Bill says if you don’t blog regularly, you’re a BS blogger. Lord knows I don’t want to be that. Please respond and send me some of your stories about how you inspired your children in their talents. The stories don’t have to be all wonderful. I’m sure some of them are sad and tell of great sacrifices. I hope to compile them into a book about being dream enablers for our children. Please, please respond! Until next time…

Mothers of Musicians

2009-10-12T13:02:00.000-07:00

Hi. My name is Donna Byrd and I'm a mother of musicians. I am not ashamed to admit that I am an enabler of dreams and creativity. I took Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's advice and "taught my children well, feeding them on my dreams" and finding out later that they would, indeed, end up feeding me on theirs. I now realize that this is a blissfully co-dependent relationship, each party generating creativity and inspiration to the other one. I don't think that I need counseling for creative co-dependency and enablement. I just want the encouragement of knowing that there are people "out there" just like me.

You see, I know how mothers of musicians think. Did I buy the best key board, drum set or guitar that I could afford? Will their instrument make their talent shine? Should I get them a better music teacher? Have I already sacrificed enough for their potential music career? Is anybody else but me noticing how talented they really are? Is it just me, or are they destined for fame?

Mothers of Musician (MOMS) I know that you're out there! I want to hear from you. What are your success stories, not so successful stories, sacrifices or just, feelings? Let's unite and encourage one another. In my next blog, I'll give you a little more history on my young musicians. Until then, "Teach Your Children".