Issue #55 Bucking The System And Getting Creative
There are three kinds of people reading this today.
One group is thinking: “Blasphemy! You can’t put ketchup on a hot dog!”
(Many of these people live in Chicago and are patently annoying about lots of RULES for all things associated with a hot dog. They don’t just think it’s wrong to put ketchup on a “Chicago” dog,” they think it’s a cardinal sin to put ketchup on ANY hot dog.)
Another kind is saying: “I do what I want. I can put pineapple and salsa on a hot dog if I feel like it.”
The third batch is thinking: “What are you even talking about?”
Where I grew up, not only did we put ketchup on our hot dogs – with wild abandon – most of us could not imagine a hot dog without it. Even more astonishing, when we put mustard on our frankfurters, ketchup was sometimes already there. Yes, it was not unusual to eat a hot dog topped with, gasp, BOTH CONDIMENTS AT THE SAME TIME!
(Personally I’m a “no mustard” girl. Sue me.)
I know that I first heard the rule of “no ketchup” when I moved to Chicago.
What I don’t remember is the first time I heard of it having spread beyond the confines of the windy city.
Now it seems to be all over the internet as some sort of iron clad rule. If you google ketchup on a hot dog you are going to get a lot of furious debate, and actual mouth frothing fanaticism, on the subject.
To which I say…
Lighten up.
Eat what you like.
Tapping In…
My first original music happened on a gig.
Before the gig, I was not a composer.
After the gig, I was.
Let me back up a bit.
Most of you know me as a writer/cartoonist. But my main job is as a professional musician. (Specifically, a professional harpist.)
One summer I was working at a music camp and, out of the blue, a local harpist asked if I could “cover” for her playing at a nearby restaurant.
Good news – I didn’t need to bring my own harp and could use hers. (Well that was pretty important since I was working miles away from anywhere and they frown on you doing things like bringing your harp into the woodland cabin.)
Bad news – it was a 4 hour gig and I had about 35 minutes of memorized music in my fingers.
Good news – I would be outside in the “bar” area where diners were waiting for their table to be ready. This meant there would be a lot of turnover and I might just get away with repeating my tiny playlist.
Bad news – I was a stupendously bad sight reader so, even though I could bring more pieces printed on sheet music, that was going to turn out not to be much help.
Everything was fine while I was performing stuff I knew well. But very quickly I had to shift to the stack of unfamiliar sheet music.
Disaster.
After twenty measures or so of the first unfamiliar piece I was, most definitely, lost.
(First rule of playing background music – never break continuity. If any of the diners do a double take, and swivel their head around to look at you wondering “what the hell was that?” you are never going to be allowed to play in this venue again.)
Lost or not, I could not stop.
So I started making stuff up.
And had to keep making stuff up for at least four minutes. (A piece of music that is only forty five seconds long is noticeably inadequate to even the most casual listener.)
This was the beginning of an evening of making up a LOT of music to fill the time until I could get the heck out of there and make a better plan for the following night. (Yes, she needed me to cover for five more nights.)
Improvising was a terrifying experience because it was completely outside the realm of my understanding. I had never had a clue how a person could just “make up” music that had never been heard or thought of before.
After that pivotal evening, I entered the world of accessing the deep creative part of my brain (and fingers) and I’ve never looked back.
While working on a new composition this morning, I realized my process for writing a new piece turns out to be suspiciously like my process for writing a new poem. I have snippets of ideas scattered all over the place waiting to be built into longer workable material.
With poetry/comics, the material tends to be on my phone, my laptop, my iPad, the backs of envelopes and in a variety of notebooks.
With music, the paper part does not work for me so all my ideas are recorded and saved on “apps”. (Today I discovered that maybe I am using too many different apps because there are bits of music scattered across four devices and nine different recording apps and I rarely know where the one I want to work with today might be.)
Anyway, this is all leading up to the fact that I am most likely about to make a life-changing purchase of a new keyboard arranger that will not only allow me to store my ideas in a central location but also be a better performing tool for my one-woman show. (This show is a combination of both my writing and my playing and I’m always looking to change up my playlist with new compositions.)
I face this purchase with trepidation because modern keyboard arrangers have so many bells and whistles that a person can spend a solid year learning how to navigate them. (And still probably only scratch the surface.)
In the meantime, the move to Substack means that I can now embed audio clips and video clips and once in a while I am going to share my music. It might be off one of my albums or something new I’m working on.
Which means you all can share your feedback which I greatly value as I “workshop” my way through the process of choosing music for my show.
Here is a version of that first sight reading disaster turned improv. It also happens to be one of the tracks on my album “Round And Round”. The first 8 measures were on the page. Everything after that is out of my head….
Note: when I sent myself a test email I could not get the audio to play. It might only work properly on the Substack website - please be patient as I learn about all this stuff!
Copyright© 2024 Anne Morse Hambrock All rights reserved.
Substack
To all of you who followed me from my old newsletter host to Substack, and the new readers who have signed up since I made the move - THANK YOU!
And another big THANK YOU to anyone who has recommended me on their Substack!
I am grateful to every single one of you!
One of my favorite things about being here is that my readers will now be able to engage with me, and with each other, much more easily by hitting “like” or leaving comments.
Getting reader feedback is one of my favorite parts of doing a newsletter so I’m looking forward to how the new platform will improve that relationship.
Next Book - Sneak Peek And Pre-orders
The pre-orders for my next book are rolling in - thank you so much!
Just to be clear - this is just an opportunity for you to get on the list and help me figure out how many books to order from the printer.
I don’t need any money from you - just an indication that you are going to want a copy (or a few copies).
To get on the list, either drop a comment below or message me at anne@anneandgod.com
Peony Foliage
I find it so interesting that the first shoots of both of these clumps of peonies were dark red.
Then they morphed into a bunch with reddish leaves and a bunch with green leaves.
Eventually both bunches will turn green and produce differently colored peonies. Stay tuned to see which ones are the pink flowers and which are the yellow…
More From The Garden
This is an “impossible-to-get-rid-of-yard-eating” weed.
It’s called Purple Bellflower.
(There is a debate whether to call it a flower or a weed - I am firmly in the “weed” camp.)
You may have seen its blossoms in an arrangement from a florist.
Which is the best place for it.
The garden and the lawn, not so much.
I once called a gardening expert asking for advice to get rid of it.
Silence.
Followed by a sigh.
And the news that I should just learn to live with it because it wasn’t going anywhere no matter what steps I might take to persuade it to not be part of my yard anymore.
Keep The Messages Coming!
A big “thank you” to all of you who have messaged me commented or hit “like” after reading my poems and commentary!
I appreciate the feedback and knowing how often I have struck a chord with your lives.
Archives
Remember, you can always hit the “archives” tab to see more or catch up on posts you may have missed.
I could hear the harp music once I clicked on the substack website. LOVED IT!
Please, more harp music! My granddaughter is a harpist-in-training, in her 2nd year at the University of North Texas. The UNT HarpBeats is their group of student harpists, 11 strong this year,, and their concerts are so enjoyable.
It's actually encouraging to hear a pro say she is a bad sight reader. In my days of trying to be a pianist, I couldn't sight read much at all, and it ended up discouraging me totally.