Monday, August 27, 2007

Critiques from Kids

You have no idea how handy it is having an 8-year-old on hand.

I played a new song for my daughter -- a song called "Dinosaur on the Dance Floor" -- an involved kind of opus that has real potential, but wasn't working for me, and I couldn't figure out why.

So I asked her to give it a listen.

"I keep waiting for it to get faster, like I want to dance to it," she said.

So, I said to her, it's like you have almost an anxious feeling in your belly? Like: when is it going to start to pick up?

That's it exactly! she said.

AAAHH! Voila!

Handy little loving little critic.

Love love love her.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Gig at the YMCA


Children enjoying themselves is probably one of the finest things to participate in there can be.

When I tell people what I do: give poetry and writing workshops for children, sometimes they give me that weird smile -- that "really, but you're so talented, why don't you work for grownups?" smile.

It gets worse when I tell them I give concerts for children. Especially when they hear my music.

"But you're so GOOD," they say. "This is like, real music. Why don't you play for adults?"

Well, I try to explain, we all have our niche. Mine's kids. Sometimes that satisfies them. Sometimes they simply walk away, shaking their heads, thinking I'm somehow "wasting" my talent.

Hardly.

Ever hear a five-year-old call for an encore? There's absolutely nothing like it. I don't mean it from the perspective of an ego-thing, either. I just mean watching the pure delight in their faces.

The venues I play and work in are small enough where I can see their faces still, where I can roll out my jet-black Ibanez electric guitar, and see their eyes widen: a rock star!

To be able to bring that kind of uncynical, unmitigated pleasure to ANYONE -- kid or adult -- well, I just feel like the luckiest person in the world.

-elizabeth