Andrew in Lilongwe, Malawi on St. Patrick's Day

My son, Andrew, posted this two weeks ago, the day after St. Patrick's Day. This is just a portion of his post. For those of you who don't know, he received a fulbright fellowship to pursue his project, Stories of Aids through music. I thought I'd try and recap, but I couldn't edit it without you missing the amazing images I had as I read it.......Photos were taken by his girlfriend, Kaitlin Houlditch-Fair. His blog is http://fulbright.mtvu.com/author/andrewmagill/

....The first school was a Catholic school of 350 young children. As soon as we walked in hundreds of children flooded in with chairs and in a frenzy assembled the haphazard rows, each one vying to put their chair closest to the stage. The Catholic parish priest, a charming Irish ex-pat of 40 years in Malawi explained to them in Chichewa what each instrument was and we all obliged him by giving little impromptu demos of what we played: accordion, bodhran (Irish frame drum), wooden flute, guitar, and fiddle. Two of the lads got up to dance the St. Patrick’s Day set dance and the kids were beside themselves. So naturally we invited them up to dance. For our last two sets I struggled to find space to bow as the stage began to fill with more and more little bodies flailing, kicking up dust, and screaming in their tiny sopranos. By the end we were literally all standing on our chairs wheezing on the dust being kicked up by hundreds of legs.

That afternoon we went to a school where we played for 400+ boys in their school yard. Again we did our little instrument demos. Again we gave them several sets of rousing good tunes. This time, some of the students got up and played us a song, a hip-hop rap about HIV/AIDS awareness and responsible sex. The age ranges here were from about 5 to 15 and the older boys were clearly kings of their school… dancing and singing this song about HIV as hundreds of smaller faces cheered them on. The boy strumming the guitar had literally never played a real guitar but played it with surprising facility. Evidently he had fashioned himself a two-string guitar out of scrap parts and fishing line at home and was giddy at the opportunity to hold a real guitar. By our last set of Irish tunes the boys had descended on us and we felt as if we were at the center of a mosh pit. Imagine 400 boys bursting with excitement all clamoring for a front row patch of grass to dance to the music we were playing. By the time we left the Irish contingent had achieved celebrity status. It was all I could do to hold on to my fiddle as the boys mobbed each one of us in delight......

I try to imagine the excitement, looking at the sea of smiles, and hear the roar of "Bring it on!" from these boys in the picture. There's so much music in these boys that have yet to be birthed in ways they have not dreamed possible... yet. Every child should be able to go crazy with the power of music and what it can stir deep within the spirit. I am delighted Andrew was able to share the moment with these beautiful boys...and I smile thinking of the many more moments he hopes to share with them, and others like them.

Being willing to sound bad

Brenda, a friend of mine, posted on Facebook awhile back, “that in order to be good at something, you have to first be willing to be bad at it for quite a while”…

About a week before I had stumbled onto this post, I’d already committed to playing the ukelele for 15 minutes a day. I wanted to eventually get to the point where I could say with complete authenticity, “Yes, I CAN play the ukelele!”

I was “showing up” everyday to play, and was just beginning to realize how far I needed to travel to get to that place of being able to play - not kind of play, but really play. And I realized that there’s a looooong way between those two places.

I began to feel a tad defeated because I’m a perfectionist, and that nagging voice began blabbering away in my head. I remembered when I tried to learn to play the guitar light years ago, at age 12, and my fingers were crying after just a few minutes of making chords. So I gave up. I had been playing the flute and piano for a couple of years, and those instruments didn’t inflict pain on me, only the desire to keep on playing and nailing the pieces of music I was working on. But the guitar? Mmm mmmm. There was a huge absence of desire to press on and accomplish the mastering. So I let the guitar go, and it was a bittersweet decision.

For so many of us who’ve put down an instrument during our childhood or teenage years, for whatever reason, we often end up regretting it.

So back to the ukelele and Brenda’s post…I’d put in my fifteen minutes of practice for the day, complete with oven timer, whose annoying beep-beep-beep also congratulates me that I have accomplished my little ukelele music goal for the day. Those familiar thoughts from the sixth grade again began to take over – My fingers are hurting. This is gonna take forever. FOREVER…..blah blah blah.

To get out of that negative self talk in my head, I sat down at the computer so I could conveniently escape those rants in my head for a bit and check out who is doing what on Facebook. I’m reading, scanning, skimming and then bam, I read Brenda’s post. I chant this to myself several times – “in order to be good at something, you have to first be willing to be bad at it for quite a while”… Wow. Her words stick like peanut butter on toast and I realize she's dead on right about this.

I’ve been mulling this over many times in the last couple weeks and for me, the biggest challenge is the willing part. I have to be willing to sound bad, go slow, make a zillion mistakes, make the chord changes sloppily and badly. I have to be willing to sound badly. I have to be willing to accept that I sound badly. By being willing to be great at sounding bad, I can be a teeny bit better in another week. And in the week after that. And when my contra dance band, Fly By Night, gets together a month from now for its first rehearsal with me playing my ukelele on some Old Time tunes, I might just have a helluva great time.

And no doubt, I will not only be proud of myself for having been so good at willing to sound bad, that eventually, I will be able to see there is definitely the possibility to sound good. Maybe even pretty good! Now THAT fuels me on right now to pick up my very cute, little ukelele. For fifteen minutes. Just for today.

Thank you, Brenda.

My birthday wish for Erin

I’m fascinated by kids who play instruments and whose parents never did. I’m fascinated that my mother and father who never played a record in our house, or took us to see live music, except for a symphony once (and that’s a story for another day) birthed someone whose life revolves around it so much. …and whose life has been a wreck when music wasn’t a central theme.

I always knew I’d play music. My brother never had that thought. He thought he’d try the cornet in middle school and he stuck it out for a couple of years. But it didn’t speak to him the way music spoke to me.

Both he and his wife, by their own admission, would not describe themselves as musical. And yet they have these kids who love to play music. Lizzie, age 15 and my namesake, plays the flute and loves it – the flute itself, the practicing, going to lessons, playing in the band at school. She LOVES it. And she loves her teacher which is an amazing gift in itself.

Emily, age 12, plays the saxophone and is extremely skilled at it, but doesn’t pick it up at home to practice. She plays in the band at school and because she’s so talented, can get away with it. It doesn’t speak to her. She’s been hankering to play the guitar and I’ve been encouraging her Dad and my sister in law, Jen, to put one in her hands. Once they do, I have no doubt she’ll be practicing all the time because she’ll be excited to. And motivated. And no doubt, she’ll excel at it. All her musicality will just transfer onto the guitar, like a duck to water. She’ll just need to adjust to a different pond.

Christopher, is just ten and is learning to play the clarinet. The elementary school band needed a bass clarinet so asked him if he’d rise to the challenge, and he said yes. Not only is he enjoying it, but it’s BIG. He likes that.

Erin, the youngest, is eight, and sees all these different instruments coming in and out of the house. She hears them honking and tooting on a regular basis. I wonder if she thinks, “I like that. I don’t like that. I’d like to play that. I’d hate to play that…” As she’s about to turn nine this week, I’ve been wondering what instrument will call out to her. Perhaps the saxophone that her sister, Emily, doesn’t want to play anymore, or something different. Something that separates her from the rest of the bunch.

I hope she knows that she’s musical already. I hope that when it’s time for her to be old enough to be in the school band, she’ll know clearly which instrument she wants to play, and doesn’t. That’s just as important, if not more so……. Who would want to play the trombone when it’s the harp that speaking to you? Who wants to play in the band when it’s a cello that is really appealing? Who wants to play anything melodic when it’s the drum line, and pounding out the beats on all kinds of loud, round things, that makes your heart race?

And maybe there won’t be an instrument that calls her name. Time will tell. I just hope for her that she knows the music is inside her. Now. When she’s older. When she’s 30 and 55 and 70. Always.

Happy Birthday, Erin!

The Animal Boogie is now animated!!!

CHECK THIS OUT, PARENTS!!!!!

I've "read" this story in the Our Time Classes

and now you can watch it right here!!!

This is a great book for your little one, for a gift, for the holidays, available from the fabulous online bookstore, Barefoot Books.

The Animal Boogie is our bestselling title and it's now on sale for a short time!

Hardcover with Music CD $14.99 (regularly $16.99)
Paperback with Music CD $8.99 (regularly $9.99)

*OFFER VALID UNTIL 31 MARCH 2010.

Out Here on the Sea

Out here on the sea

Out here on the sea

We're looking and looking out here on the sea.

That's one of the songs we've been singing in the Imagine That class for 3 weeks now. At the last Tuesday class, the kiddos brought their homemade binoculars so we could see all the pretend sights in our little boats out on the sea. Jeweled dolphins, a monster, a whale, a buoy bell, a flying princess....We saw it all! And we sang about it too. These kids are so dang cute, I just can hardly stand it sometimes. :)

Ukelele: Get ready, set, go!

This is Andrew teaching Hannah chords on the ukelele a few years ago. He is a gifted musician and a fabulous teacher. I think this picture is when the seed was planted that playing a ukelele would be something new and fun to learn for myself!

For a couple of years, all I've done is talk about wanting to learn how to play this little stringed thing. And I've talked about how cool it'd be for me, an Irish wooden flute player, to be able to play an instrument and chew gum at the same time. Seriously! And to be able to smile and laugh, while playing, when the fiddlers in my all-women contradance band crack a funny joke during a tune at a dance. And to be able to play on some Old Time tunes when the fiddlers "get down with the tune, "Old Joe", for example, rather than just sit there, looking around most of the time, maybe shaking the egg or a playing the tambourine for a time or two through the tune, and then back to sitting. And looking again. I wanna be playing with 'em!

So last Saturday, I finally picked up the cute thing and went online and looked at a dozen youtube ukelele videos. I asked Jim to help me with some of the chords.

And that's my new thing for the spring, to learn (finally!) to play the ukelele. My goal is 15 minutes a day. Period. No excuses. It's only 15 minutes. Discipline and showing up no matter what is hard. Some days really hard. And, it's the only way I know to make it happen. It's the only way I've ever made progress on anything. On the hard days I remind myself that once I take the instrument in my hands, I'm on easy street. The challenge is in the time involved that it takes me to let go of everything I think I need to do, and turn to the instrument. This is usually about 30 seconds. I just have to push forward and listen to the voice that says, "C'mon on now", instead of the other voice that wants to resist. When I resist that voice, I can move into where I knew I wanted to be all along.

I am so excited. I know that 2010 is gonna be the year I turn into a "uke" player, instead of just talkin' and talkin' about being one. Yee hah, gonna walk the talk instead of just talkin' it.

Is there an instrument you've been wanting to play for awhile? Forever? I invite you to step forward, through that door, too. Respond to that voice that calls you and see another part of yourself you always knew was there, waiting outside that door, but you hadn't invited in yet.

Concert Highlight of the Year is about to happen!

I've been blessed to attend many amazing concerts featuring some of the best musicians, in their field, over the years- through the Swannanoa Gathering summer events, through the Diana Wortham Celtic Series and other concerts held in this beautiful theatre, through dozens of concerts held here in town at the Grey Eagle, White Horse in Black Mountain, outside concerts, etc. And there are many that stand out in my mind.

I've also heard a lot of CDs from many different genres. We have zillions of CDs here in the Magill house. Well, close to a zillion... and while I love so many different kinds of music, the Celtic and Singer/Songwriter genres are my faves. There are many, many fabulous musicians out there. I'm going to post my faves another day.......

If you were to ask me who are my top five musicians, I'd be hard pressed to pick just five. If you were to ask me what are my top five CDs, ooh, that'd be hard, too. But ask me to just pick someone amazing, original, extraordinary and awe-inspiring, and that'd be easy - Danny Ellis would be in that top five.

I first heard his CD, "800 Voices", when my friend, Annie Lalley gave a CD to my husband and me, and said, "You HAVE to go home and listen to this. As soon as possible. And you have to promise me that once you put it in the CD player, you won't move off the couch until you've heard it from beginning to end." Hmmmm, okaaaaaay I thought. So we did. I don't often give myself the gift of just listening to music and doing nothing else - listening with purpose, without distractions, without doing something else while the music is playing in the background, without giving it my undivided attention. Too often the music becomes the background event instead of the main event.

I still remember this experience of listening to Danny's CD and how I felt, during the listening experience, and after the listening experience. It's difficult to describe it. At best, I can say it's one of the five best CDs I've ever heard in my entire life. It is a masterpiece.

I've seen Danny's show before, two years ago. To SEE him perform these amazing songs (works of art) while listening simultaneously, and being surrounded by the music, was a concert experience unmatched by any other. I am counting the days to see and hear him share his gift, his heart, his musicality.

Should you choose to spend Wednesday night, March 17, at Diana Wortham Theatre, it'll be an experience you won't forget. Chances are you'll go back to this night in your mind, to the music, and what you felt, over and over and over.

When's the last time you heard live music? When's the last time you heard someone whose music could make you weep, laugh, fill you up? Come give yourself the gift of this evening with Danny. Get his CD. Come listen and have a moment.

It's the moments that fill me up. How about you?

http://www.dannyellismusic.com/