tag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:/blogs/reflections?p=5Reflections2019-08-25T11:40:21-07:00Michelle Amadorfalsetag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/64214612020-08-31T16:27:53-07:002023-12-10T09:13:16-08:00Electronic Lover podcast/collaboration<p>Excited to have been a part of this unique recording project by Lisa Mezzacappa and Beth Lisick.</p>
<p><img src="https://lisamezzacappa.files.wordpress.com/2019/08/retro-computer-layout-2.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" /><br><br><a contents="Learn more about it and listen to the first episode here." data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://theelectroniclover.com/about/">Learn more about it and listen to the first episode here.</a> </p>Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/58695432019-08-25T11:40:21-07:002022-06-01T18:40:32-07:00Don't Forget You Were Here / Are Here<p>A friend texted me a link from Rap Atlas that were a haven for creativity in Oakland with the question about 4001 San Leandro St. "Was this the place you lived in Oakland?" To answer his question, it was not, but his question reminded me that I did live in Oakland for a few short months and it was a haven of creativity. I forgot that I was there for the creation of Doze Green's Deep Con album cover. I forgot I was the documentary filmmaker (of sorts) lugging my dad's heavy camera on my shoulder and capturing what I could. I'm not given credit for the footage to this film, but it is mine. (This was before still cam!)</p>
<p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0L_dR_vfBjM" width="560"></iframe> </p>
<p>What is it to forget you have been somewhere? To forget that you are? I forget I am here sometimes. I forget that I'm present.</p>
<p>That familiar amnesia crept in again this week as I prepared for Tuesday's show. The voices of not being good enough, "this old music!", "your piano skills?", "your tired voice?". These are all ways to forget you are present. You are here. Observing that shifted the practice week for me in a great way. I'm excited about the set of music I'll be sharing. Old, new, and everything in between, and there are some years in between. </p>
<p>Related to being present and the lack of general societal practice for being present from disconnection of human impact on the environment to tools we could all benefit from to help us be present in our lives:</p>
<p>Earlier this week I heard more than a few artists almost apologize for the music they wanted to share at this odd juncture in time, amid the Amazon fires. I'd argue that what we're experiencing - whether its a news anchor scoffing at the idea that ballet/or dance could hold the interest of a boy or climactic crimes of the century - is the very end result of decades of oppressing what makes us human and what it requires to be a human: the arts and the earth. What is dance if not listening to and respecting each other's bodies? What is music if not a reflection of who and what we are and our true capacity? What is art if not an opportunity to more deeply and directly connect to the world we live in? </p>
<p>This inspiring interview of Dr. Bennet Omalu (the doctor who overcame many obstacles to bring CTE and the dangers of football, especially for children, to light) from 2017 demonstrates the point in some capacity. When asked about how he felt about going up against the NFL he said: "It's about each and every one of us as a human being who has the freedom, liberty and free will to make decisions." <br><br>Somehow this hodge podge of things made me think again about what it means to be present. The perceived obstacle (the NFL, the critical voices) is not the actual obstacle, our ability to be present is.</p>Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/57224922019-04-16T22:48:16-07:002022-08-13T04:50:33-07:00Generations to Come Back to<p>I had the luxury of having my dad, <a contents="Augusto Amador" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.augustoamadormusic.com" target="_blank">Augusto Amador</a>, in town to visit. </p>
<p>I took the week off for his visit, and the week after, which is a changeup for me. I guess I've tended to keep working no matter what. I never really noticed it before, but I noticed it this year when I realized I forgot to take of a full week of vacation in 2018. How did that happen? It happened because I didn't notice I was working or that I needed a break. I hope my family didn't notice too much!</p>
<p>It was a great week. I love my father and the visit was filled with many moments between my son Harrison and my Dad, which I'm grateful to have been around to see. Here's one that will continue to make me smile:</p>
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<p style=" margin:8px 0 0 0; padding:0 4px;"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BwBLOLWh9cP/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_medium=loading" style=" color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;" target="_blank">Reason 5,678,452 that I’m glad I decided to take time off this week. Can’t replace this time together. It’s only here now! #grateful</a></p>
<p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;">A post shared by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/michellemamador/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_medium=loading" style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px;" target="_blank"> Michelle Amador</a> (@michellemamador) on <time datetime="2019-04-09T02:41:55+00:00" style=" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;">Apr 8, 2019 at 7:41pm PDT</time></p>
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<p>When I first started this vacation, I thought each day would be filled with practice but how could I miss all of the above? Instead, I kept Emily King's "Georgia:" in my head and knew I'd have time today to sit down with it. Hope you enjoy it! And make sure to check out her original recording (beautiful harmonies!).<br> </p>
<p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mFHjhTZ5ArM" width="560"></iframe></p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>If you're coming out to the show on </strong><strong>Sunday</strong><strong> April 21, it's a good plan to <a contents="reserve tickets in advance" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/michelle-amador-easter-dinner-show-tickets-58883016688" target="_blank">reserve tickets in advance</a>.</strong></p>
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<p> </p>Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/56921822019-03-25T00:17:28-07:002022-03-29T12:00:37-07:00Something Changed (btw if you have any of my charts)<p>When I originally drafted this post, it was a moment of complete letting go. Complete non-worry. Complete acceptance of the present tense. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>...but of course, I have a show coming, so all of the old ghosts creep in.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Something has changed though. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>I am trying to redirect thought in the moment, to move on to an actionable item rather than dwell on what could not or did not happen.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>In those moments, it's the perfect time to see a photo of yourself 15 years ago amid the pile of charts.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/57215/022c81c96b9d11fd582744434880f34d15498a13/original/img-1149.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_none" alt="" />There you are. The picture of you. Here you can see all of the wonderful things you had to offer at 28.</p>
<p>And yet, you couldn't see those things then.</p>
<p>Isn't that the same as now?</p>
<p>Isn't it eternally the same you shining through and so whatever shell is getting in the way, reducing your confidence, clouding your vision... isn't the you then, the you now and so...? Can you see beyond all of the flaws you so immediately notice about yourself now?<br> </p>
<p>- You're out of practice.</p>
<p>- You can't even find the charts of your own music; everything's a mess. Can you even write a chart to your own music?</p>
<p>- It's too late now. You had something worth sharing then, but you don't have something now. <br> </p>
<p>On and on and yawn and yawn.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Does this happen to you out there? <br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>Tonight I just practiced singing long tones when this happened. It changed it. A little. I'll feel better when more of the charts that only exist in my head are out of my head and on paper. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>Happy Sunday? *sigh* It really is a happy Sunday. Other things happened .Just had this temporary delay and hey, maybe this is the best song I could hear write now. This one I recorded the other week when practicing for the show:</p>
<p>C'est La Vie</p>
<p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/05sY4iRL3ok" width="560"></iframe></p>
<p>Michelle</p>
<p> </p>
<p>P.S. If you're a musician friend on this list and you happen to have any of my charts handy...please snap a photo and text them to me! I'm pretty sure in a haste of cleaning up, I threw out a pile of my own handwritten music. :/</p>Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/56758852019-03-10T23:57:01-07:002022-05-14T00:14:56-07:00It's Funny to Return to Yourself<p>It's funny to feel return to yourself after a hiatus. Where did you go anyway? What is returning to yourself? Is it letting go of a distraction?</p>
<p>The chance to share weekly all of the music I've recorded to date, somehow orients me in a way that never existed before. <br><br> I can see all the years of distraction in the form of real and imagined lack of self confidence in the work, in my voice, in my playing, in the inability to fit into a genre.</p>
<p>I'm glad there's some corner being turned. </p>
<p>The practice studio you see in the videos, our lodge, is pretty cold at night. Sometimes going in, it takes a awhile for my voice to warm up, and since I'm coming back to this after years of not really having the daily long tone exercises, I've had moments of wondering if my voice had degraded from the lack of practice. Like degraded permanently. I'm going to promise myself now that whenever that does happen, I won't go into mourning or something, but just observe it and even use it. But I'm also happy that a half hour of long tones in my warm kitchen before heading out to the lodge, definitely made me feel like the core is still there, and that there will be some exciting sounds coming out at the show on the 31st.<br><br>If you haven't set your calendar to it:</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/57215/7ce0b3587d46790cffb3c035e7e4f316fe84465f/original/michelleamadormarch31stonehouse.png/!!/b:W10=.png" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>The set will feature me singing and on Fender Rhodes, Tim Bulkley on drums, and John Wiitala on bass. (Note this show photo is from a Brooklyn show with Ben Campbell on bass. Ben is featured on the How to Love album and whom I played with for many years. He is great!)</p>
<p>Tonight in the lodge I worked out one of the first songs written in the residency at Red Poppy way back in the day. <br> </p>
<p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Yz-hSd80qNk" width="560"></iframe></p>
<p> </p>Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/56630112019-02-28T00:41:27-08:002023-12-10T09:06:56-08:00Downtown<p>Before I get into this post I'd like you to know that I forget my password to my website every time I login. It takes me a few tries. Eventually, I have to look it up in my saved passwords, and most recently I reset it. So now I just reset it every time despite thinking I will have selected a password that I will remember. I share this in the hope that it brings you some solace as you probably do the same. If you somehow don't always do this to yourself, please contact me to help me stop doing this. It's like minutes. Every. Time.</p>
<p>OK. So Downtown.</p>
<p>I sang "Downtown" for the opening of the San Jose City Hall in 2005. I've never really thought about that again until I wrote a song with lyrics that included the word downtown.I like walking downtown.Most people do I guess, if it's a good downtown, and even if it isn't. I think people will go to a downtown even if it isn't good, hoping it's good or looking for a glimmer of some new element indicating it's about to be good.</p>
<p>I think <a contents="this article" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/01/02/americas-forgotten-towns-can-they-be-saved-or-should-people-just-leave/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.08fa7bbe3111" target="_blank">this article</a> has some interesting points about it. One excerpt discussing struggling small towns says:</p>
<p>"You have to change the business model of the community . . . not just attract one assembly plant that creates 100 jobs,” he said. “You really need a concept of where the town is going.” He envisions a new economy in the Rust Belt that is focused on growing healthy foods — what he calls “high-tech agriculture” — and more environmental tourism. </p>
<p>In his new book, “Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited: Anti-Globalization in the Era of Trump,” Stiglitz argues that economists missed something important about these towns: They have social capital. Trust is what you might call the “magic fairy dust” that helps economies thrive. When people trust each other, they work better and harder and they tend to live happier lives, as Harvard professor Robert Putnam's research has shown. Overall, trust has eroded substantially in the United States in recent years as fewer and fewer people have a bond with their neighbors, let alone the government, businesses or civic institutions. But trust still exists in many of these smaller towns where people talk to and watch out for each other. That can be harnessed to transform the town for the 21st century, Stiglitz says.</p>
<p>This new song popped in thinking about downtown where I live, that magic fairy dust of every downtown I've ever loved, and the trust that lives in this moon town I somehow found magically and live in now.</p>
<p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/M91WnM40N-w" width="560"></iframe></p>
<p>Lyrics: </p>
<p>Walking downtown [Walking downtown],<br>Walking downtown [Walking downtown],<br>Feels...feels...</p>
<p>Walking downtown [Walking downtown], <br>Walking downtown [Walking downtown], <br>Feels nice.<br>Feels right.</p>
<p>That little piece of you, <br>That little piece of me,<br>That little piece of everybody.<br><br>What it takes to make a great community.</p>
<p>Downtown. Downtown.<br><br>Been a long time. [Been a long time]<br>Since I've been 'round. <br>But I'm not feelin' down.<br>I'm not feelin' down.<br><br>Took the long road,<br>Where the moon glow didn't look back,<br>What's better than that?<br>What's better than that.</p>
<p>That little piece of you, <br>That little piece of me, <br>That little piece of everybody.</p>
<p>What it takes to make a great community. </p>
<p>Downtown, where I can see your face,<br>Downtown, where I can find some space,<br>Downtown, where I can make or break,<br>Downtown, where there is no mistaking me.</p>
<p> </p>Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/56470552019-02-16T22:26:27-08:002024-02-26T06:51:21-08:00Yesterday - Lyrics Across Time<p>I've been practicing Yesterday by Paul McCartney and John Lennon.</p>
<p>It's interesting to think about what you believe was the initial intent of a song or performance, and then consider how it applies to much broader issues facing humanity. Consider for instance, the lyrics of Yesterday, through a metoo lens, or through an environmental lens. </p>
<p>It's also fun to look up various versions of a song covered by other well-known singers. Check out Tom Jones and Tammy Wynette.</p>
<p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xSVtm_gwvBY" width="560"></iframe></p>
<p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/alvv3wf-zTE" width="560"></iframe></p>
<p>My version's still a work in progress, taking different takes, and playing with phrasing.</p>
<p> </p>
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<p style=" margin:8px 0 0 0; padding:0 4px;"><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/Bt-PzJgh8WF/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_medium=loading" style=" color:#000; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px; text-decoration:none; word-wrap:break-word;" target="_blank">Practicing other people’s songs. Thinking about how lyrics mean different things over time. Like yesterday through a timesup lens even though I believe the original intention was a breakup song or song about greater longing for times past.</a></p>
<p style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px; margin-bottom:0; margin-top:8px; overflow:hidden; padding:8px 0 7px; text-align:center; text-overflow:ellipsis; white-space:nowrap;">A post shared by <a href="https://www.instagram.com/michellemamador/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_medium=loading" style=" color:#c9c8cd; font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; font-style:normal; font-weight:normal; line-height:17px;" target="_blank"> Michelle Amador</a> (@michellemamador) on <time datetime="2019-02-17T06:23:37+00:00" style=" font-family:Arial,sans-serif; font-size:14px; line-height:17px;">Feb 16, 2019 at 10:23pm PST</time></p>
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<p> </p>Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/56408842019-02-12T23:47:36-08:002023-12-10T09:24:09-08:00Resolve, Resolve.<p>We turn over and over.</p>
<p>We break apart. </p>
<p>We hang on determined not to break apart.</p>
<p>We stall the process.</p>
<p>We slowly unravel and resolve.</p>
<p><a contents="" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://youtu.be/wpLOmlcR6I8" target="_blank"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/57215/29dc54fec9c160237386bea54773f8a80e291a32/original/michelle.png/!!/b:W10=.png" class="size_l justify_left border_" /></a></p>
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<p>I've booked a monthly in Nevada City at The Stone House. Dates to be announced soon.</p>
<p>I also have a great friend’s wedding to prepare music for.</p>
<p>This means I have to say goodbye to the extra thoughts. No more hemming. There’s music to prepare. There’s my voice to get ready.</p>
<p>And here's a last older track to share "Stillness Within Movement" to share.</p>4:56Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/56315022019-02-06T21:03:20-08:002022-04-26T06:01:57-07:00Who Knows Where or When<p>After about a year of posting, I can't say I'm any clearer on how to release my album. I don't yet have clarity on how to create a video for the songs. I don't know how to effectively distribute a record, or even how to make sure it gets press or reviewed adequately. </p>
<p>Steps achieved:<br>- Tracks mastered, courtesy of Jon Cohrs, Bear Call Mastering<br>- Track cover artwork achieved, courtesy of Lisa Schatz</p>
<p>Areas of complete cluelessness:</p>
<p>- Videos for songs<br>- How to Best release/distribute the songs<br>- How to get them reviewed</p>
<p>All of these things hold me up. But as I consider how time is flattening. How the past and the future are somehow nearing in distance from each other, I realize the hangup, designed to be sure and smart and whatever other things I think, is just that, a hangup, a holdup, a stop in the creative flow. The reality is, and as this blog is titled: I Don't Know What I'm Doing Most of the The Time.</p>
<p>That's not to be down about it. More to acknowledge it and release it to the world. I don't know, and if you're someone who does, please drop me a line. Jesus take the wheel, as the saying goes.</p>
<p>Thinking about the illusion of a hangup, how you think you are holding back to more strategically achieve something but in fact only stand still, also made me think about the timeless Don Haas. I was lucky enough to study music from him. He had a beautiful arrangement of "Where or When". I don't perform his arrangement on this video, though his chart is sitting on the rhodes. Rather, I perform some new version that just came to me.</p>
<p>I will also include all of the nervous thoughts here. There are only a few hours in which I can get a song down. Other hours are filled so it's just a few hours that are available. A photo montage of all of the takes to get one take looks like numerous photos of me making mistakes in order to get it right. It's hours of mistakes really to produce something that only has a few mistakes. And I'm going to let my mistakes be visible. There they are, the raw, mistakes. </p>
<p>On the upside, things I like about this video are: the chords, the la la las, the break from the form, the exemption of a melodic line and lyric (do you know which one it is? and i'm not talking about how I didn't include the intro verses!), and the funny but fitting video effect provided by Youtube that matches this song.</p>
<p>Enjoy!</p>
<p><iframe class="justify_inline" data-video-type="youtube" data-video-id="O0B3ASx3UaY" data-video-thumb-url="https://img.youtube.com/vi/O0B3ASx3UaY/mqdefault.jpg" type="text/html" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/O0B3ASx3UaY?rel=0&wmode=transparent&enablejsapi=1" frameborder="0" height="180" width="320" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe></p>
<p>Finally, I'll leave you with a download of Montana, a song I love and hope you do too!</p>1:31Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/56098222019-01-23T21:33:14-08:002022-11-01T07:32:23-07:00You Must Let Go of Something<p>The recent blood moon was noted as a moment to reflect on the end of a 2-year astrological cycle.</p>
<p>Just before the eclipse, in the week before, I felt a deep depression. I couldn't identify a reason. It was just there.</p>
<p>As I considered the new year, and the eclipse, and as the moon shone like a spotlight through our window, I could feel a shift in myself in some way. In the middle of the night, I had the thought "Let yourself let go." which I'll apply to letting go of old ways, habits, or as my friend put it, "Let go of fear-based thinking."</p>
<p>And I was reminded of this song from November 2008.</p>
<p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z0-LabKePNE" width="560"></iframe></p>
<p>I only remembered the beginning of this son gbut had completely forgotten about the middle or even the chorus. I remember too, when I recorded it, not being sure of whether I liked the song or not, whether I felt it could really stand on its own. I think that's why I even added the "(draft)" part to the name when I loaded the video. </p>
<p>Here's to letting go to pieces of yourself that don't best serve you.</p>
<p>xo,</p>
<p>Michelle</p>
<p>P.S. We're getting close to the time for me to share a new track for you. For this writing project, I wanted to share a past recorded song each week. This download is Birthday, the third to last track. Looking forward to hearing what you think of all things old and new.</p>2:21Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/55963122019-01-15T00:16:14-08:002022-03-28T06:25:13-07:00Take My Hand Until You Know The Answer<p>I wanted to write this post last week, but I didn't want to overwhelm you with what's in my head. It's pretty negative in here. I've recently more consciously heard the barrage of negative feedback that I think has been an auto-pilot for possibly my whole life. I started to write out a simulation to the experience but it became too much to read. It is akin to immediately questioning or deriding myself for every decision, no matter how mundane, immediately before during and after the moment of any thing I am deciding for myself. </p>
<p>This is exhausting and makes me want to retreat further. To not post, to not practice, to curl up and disappear.</p>
<p>I am mostly able to look at these questions calmly, but I'm also not able to look at them calmly. I am mostly at the edge of constant disappointment in myself.</p>
<p>I couldn't figure out a cover tune to sing this week; I couldn't figure out how to feel like I could or should cover someone else's song. </p>
<p>I thought about this song that I wrote awhile ago, "One in a Million". It was designed to sing to myself when in doubt.</p>
<p>It will come as no surprise given my current state that I am not particularly happy with this version. Many bad habits that I hope to shed, some expressions I'd like to change, and even words that I would like to change or extend.</p>
<p>In short, this is a work in progress. </p>
<p><a contents="" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcjGyrMnZm8" target="_blank"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/57215/bea9b13228b3c4970e7e36ab5e8de55a2d721aa6/original/million.png/!!/b:W10=.png" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></a></p>
<p>I also thought of this song because a young friend of a friend, embarking for the first time in trying to realize her dreams, found herself so discouraged about the real world obstacles to achieving her dream. "I want to help these people realize their dream," she said through tears, "but I also just want to be realizing my own dream." All I could think was how there's probably not a human out there who doesn't know how that feels. For that moment, I thought of how easy it is to forget we are lucky. When we are distressed, we don't think of all there is to be grateful for, we despair. We don't remember sometimes even how to be filled with gratitude and trust. </p>
<p>Also sharing "Things" from a past album, free to download.</p>
<p> </p>2:54Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/55856772019-01-07T21:20:32-08:002022-05-19T00:15:35-07:00Happy New Year - Stills<p>It's about this time that the newness of new year wears off. It's still "Happy New Year" for anyone you haven't talked to since the year changed over, but it's definitely now the new year with less of the joyous pause for the moment and more of the gravitational "get into it" motion starting in.</p>
<p>I don't have much to say beyond that for this week, so I'll just post an oldie. Stills.</p>
<p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/g_SMlA6Dl0o" width="560"></iframe></p>
<p>And, a download from a past album. </p>3:47Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/55638612018-12-21T00:33:29-08:002023-12-10T08:53:24-08:00Nancy Sinatra - Sugar Town<p>I first heard "Sugar Town" by Lee Hazlewood on a <a contents="Better Call Saul" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.amc.com/shows/better-call-saul" target="_blank">Better Call Saul</a>'s Season 3 opening episode. Of course, it existed well before that. Nancy Sinatra recorded it in 1966. The album cover features her in a pink bikini. There are interesting elements noted about <a contents="the writer and the time" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugar_Town" target="_blank">the writer and the time</a>s</p>
<p>I've had a week of thinking about songs that I used to hear in the Good Will. Songs that play when you are shopping at 2nd hand shops or back then, the grocery store. </p>
<p>Easy listening (pardon the rain in the background):</p>
<p><a contents="" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeroPNTF62k" target="_blank"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/57215/1c582687d6e21bab37bab87d92534b8e4918c173/original/sugar-town.jpg/!!/undefined/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_none" alt="" /></a></p>
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<p>In other news, the masters to my new album are complete.</p>
<p>Now to put together my plan...twirls mustache.</p>
<p> </p>4:03Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/55487982018-12-11T00:29:24-08:002022-05-22T05:01:34-07:00That's Entertainment<p>I was reminded of this song by <a contents="Karine Denike" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.karinadenike.com/" target="_blank">Karine Denike</a> in something she posted. Maybe it was <a contents="The Jam's video" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-H0uIH5HHQ&feature=youtu.be">The Jam's video</a>?</p>
<p>That's Entertainment. I remember this song too from decades ago. For all of knowing it somewhere in my bones, I definitely hadn't thought consciously about the lyrics and the lyrics seemed to fit the theme of the day.</p>
<p>Today I was at the California Arts Council's grantee workshops to support the Nevada County Arts Council and heard/saw a performance by Bernard Brown's dance company which incorporated an amazing recording of Amiri Baraka doing a live reading. (I have to get the title of that audio recording and will post it here once I find it out. It is an incredible poem and performance of that poem!)</p>
<p>I felt like there were some same plane thoughts in the <a contents="lyrics" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/jam/thatsentertainment.html" target="_blank">lyrics</a> from "That's Entertainment" as Baraka's piece. </p>
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<p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wATwLAAOqjY" width="560"></iframe></p>5:01Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/55366962018-12-02T23:58:43-08:002023-12-10T09:20:31-08:00Work In Progress: These Days<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/57215/23bea4a1753dd825712bff5a91bbe0ff6c1467a7/original/r-2443457-1284490839-jpeg.jpg/!!/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_none" alt="" /></p>
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<p>I first heard the vocalilst <a contents="Nico " data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nico" target="_blank">Nico</a> when watching <a contents="The Royal Tenenbaums" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Royal_Tenenbaums" target="_blank">The Royal Tenenbaums</a>. I remember her low, dry, somewhat out of tune, yet clear tones in "These Days" by Jackson Browne.</p>
<p>She's in between tones a lot, and late on notes in a great way. </p>
<p>I'm still trying to figure out how to cover this on rhodes. In my practicing, the rhodes seemed to overly simplify the chords. I couldn't find the right arpeggiation for what I was hoping to create. This weekend, I enlisted my friend Emmett Schkloven to practice through it. </p>
<p>Vocally, there are things I want to adopt from Nico's rendition without mimicking. It's great to try a song that's too hard to get; that will take awhile to get.</p>
<p>There were great discoveries in trying to practice this song and more to be discovered as I figure out how to make it my own. It's still very much in progress.</p>
<p>I hope you find some moments to enjoy.</p>
<p>And, I hope you find time during the holidays to gather with friends and family and sing through a song or two.</p>
<p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DSWyj3ap4No" width="560"></iframe></p>
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<p>And, as with every post this year, I'm giving away free tracks each week with each post. Download "Some Folks" and enjoy!</p>3:42Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/55209382018-11-20T00:06:25-08:002023-12-10T09:17:31-08:00Live from the Lodge: Cover "Only One"<p>I'm posting a new series on Youtube called Live from the Lodge where I will cover songs. First up is a cover of Grey Reverend's "Only One".</p>
<p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/llxp_q_AxKE" width="560"></iframe></p>
<p>Grey's version is extraordinary You can <a contents="listen and buy his whole album here" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/a-heros-lie-bonus-track-version/662891779" target="_blank">listen and buy his whole album here</a>. I also just spotted that one of his other songs "Watch Me" was on the This Is Us show which makes me happy.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>I've skipped a few weeks of writing on this blog due to the Camp Fire. This insane fire did not affect me directly but did give my in-laws a 12-day scare. Miraculously, they were spared in this inferno. So many people are displaced, gone or suffering greatly from this horrible event. My heart to the many people who are suffering now.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>I did have some random unassembled thoughts this week. Here they are for your consideration:</p>
<ul> <li>Parallel sad observations about capitalism - that it often, especially for someone whose social or professional status relies on continued support of elite status, can mean that a person is willing to leverage anything - bend the truth, imply false information - in order to maintain that status. Observation number two from a friend: why does capitalism mean you have to be an a-hole? And of course, as I write this I realize you can be all of htese things in any economic model.</li> <li>Stupid for me, smart for you - There's something strange about why it's really easy to be smart for someone else. Why is it easy to be stupid for myself and smart for someone else? </li> <li>These Clothes Are for Who? - Working off-site and connecting with people mainly by video makes getting dressed for work a new unique experience. . I mean, when I first moved here, it was a unique challenge of just discovering who I am in a setting where my shoes will always have a light red clay dust to them. I do go to a separate office, than my home, which typically busts a person out of their regular garb, but many of the clothes that made sense in an administrative City office, feel more like a costume than they used to. Ceremonial robes?</li>
</ul>
<p>On that note, it seems timely that the next song up in the back catalog is "Shoes". </p>4:08Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/55011932018-11-05T22:56:39-08:002022-04-21T04:44:11-07:00Focus on When - Who are we across time?<p>Who are we across time? </p>
<p>If there was a way to simply display an animation of a fireball going from left to right across the screen right now, then that would be my post for this week.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>My husband has been tuning in the Louis Cole’s new album "<a contents="Time" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://louiscole.lnk.to/time" target="_blank">Time</a>" and as I (reluctantly!) went on my jog this morning I accidentally hit on Cole's "<a contents="Big Green Suitcase" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GBs31307wc" target="_blank">Big Green Suitcase</a>" and debut album from 2010. It was great! Great to hear a roughness to his sound, great to hear a dramatic mood change on one track, great to hear a kind of isolation not present on his 2018 album. </p>
<p>Were we all isolated back then? I hear this isolation in my own work from around then. And if I think about it, I think everyone I know was feeling some kind of isolation in their work around then? Why were we all alone?</p>
<p>In Cole 2010 vs 2018, there's an excited, connected shift. 2018 is present in his 2010, and 2010 is present in his 2018. This phenomenon is one of my favorite things.This is a place I love to live. This is a fireball slowly traveling from left to right and taking up most of the page. This is the experience many times for anyone who follows an artist for more than 5 years or so. Right? It's wonderful. It's connected. It's timeless and yet somehow one idea was the predecessor of the other. How can that be when they are both timeless? It's the best!</p>
<p>For Cole, listen to his lyrics. These are not ordinary lyrics. They are silly and serious. They are strange and wonderful. As I listened to his 2010 tracks, and rounded Suzanne Fiol Way on my jog, I traveled across time and envisioned a dialogue of no specific place or time. A timeless dialogue between artists who recognized they had been alone in 2010, but were not actually alone. </p>
<p>Who else is here who was alone in 2010? Who else is talking now? Who else is up and sees that where we are as artists now - post-disillusionment, post-material dream, post-music-business failed economic structure, post-middle men peddling art for greater gain than the artist receives, post-taste-makers?, post-idols.... who else recognizes a collective new power in artistic dialogue? How deep does this conversation go if artists who have been examining the invisible, connect to collectively examine what can only be felt but rarely seen? I mean, sure, that's what art always is, but I hope I'm talking about something different here. A recognition of themes, themes addressed alone and then connected to broadly.</p>
<p>I remember 2010 as a time of feeling stumped by the question of how. How anything. How would I repay my student loans? How would I ever be a musician? But focusing on how has always been a trap for me. Focusing on when works for me to move forward. When assumes how will be figured out. How, for me, asks how not...a good skill in a crisis (i guess?) when you are trying to find a path of least risk? </p>
<p>Art, of course, takes the most risk. It's no place for how.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>Back to the question at the start of this post: who are we across time?</p>
<p>We are when.</p>
<p>Our whole lives.</p>1:27Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/54934972018-10-30T23:59:14-07:002022-05-12T03:58:54-07:00Dive into the grey - Half-baked Part 1<p>Or purple as it were.</p>
<p>In our divided American society, and without fake compromise, how do I dive into the grey?</p>
<p>How do I help reveal that reality is not binary?</p>
<p>How do I facilitate conversations with people I know and care about, with whom I can no longer discuss some of the most important issues of our time, because they have aligned with extremity?</p>
<p>The only way I know, is to jump into the grey.</p>
<p>When I talk about grey, I'm talking about the grey areas of life, where the answer requires careful consideration, where blanket policy does not work and where you, the thinker, have to think it out. </p>
<p>I may have written this before, but I think one of the most UNhelfpul things I have experienced in our society is how "black and white" "right and wrong" "good vs. evil" continually is replayed ad-literal-nauseum. This is completely unhelpful in navigating every day grey.</p>
<p>Here's a light example of the grey I'm talking about. Truth vs. lies. Easy to tell the difference isn't it? Between the truth and a lie? The common morality tale of lying is that it's obvious, the liar gets just desserts and learns a lesson by way of repercussions from the outside world. </p>
<p>I personally find this kind of tale at best covers the MOST BASIC information about the reality of lying.</p>
<p>What I would find more helpful, is a full picture. What are all of the reasons that make a person lie? What is the pressure that a person may feel to lie? What are the different kind of lies? What does it feel like when you are the recipient of a lie and how does that differ from the truth (so you can more easily spot it next time).</p>
<p>For example, for many years, I thought a manipulative person would be very easy to spot. Their lies would be so extravagant. They would be their own ":tell" or perhaps they might be a "fast talker" an older term that described someone who was really trying to push you and wouldn't let you get a word in edgewise.</p>
<p>But a truly manipulative person can do just that, portray what's false as truth, so easily, that it is as believable as the truth. The only notable difference is either a feeling of confusion, that there is some kind of disconnect between what you are hearing and what you are feeling in your stomach, or a feeling of divulgence, that they are aware that they are telling you something you greedily want to hear. Confusion or your own awareness of your own sense of greed or anger is the signifier, and the differential between someone telling the actual truth and someone appearing (and doing an immaculate job of appearing) to tell the truth. </p>
<p>Discussion of these micro-tonality seems vital to our evolution and yet missing in public discourse. Public discourse feels limited to crude basics.</p>
<p>Let's dive deeper! There is clearly an unwillingness in our society as a whole to accept that sexuality is not binary. And the root cause of the division seems to fall in 3 categories: religious belief based in perception of scripture, lack of real exposure and connection to humans, and fear. I had the good fortune of studying Latin for four years of high school under now Pastor Lisa Strauss of Buda UMC in Buda, TX, who has studied ancient scripture and now leads what is a self-described "purple" (i.e. not red or blue) church in Texas. I asked Lisa for specific examples of Bible scripture, and she directed me to <a contents="this article" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-23/same-sex-marriage-what-bible-has-to-say-robyn-whitaker/8831826" target="_blank">this article</a>, from which I pulled this text:</p>
<p>"Genesis 19 and Leviticus </p>
<p>The story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19 is well known. This is where the terms "sodomite" and "sodomy" originate, and it has long been associated with biblical condemnation of male homosexual sex. It is, however, actually about gang-rape. In this story, the men of Sodom seek to rape two visitors (who are actually angels). Their host, Lot, defends them and offers them protection in his house, but offers his virgin daughters to be raped in their place. It is a deeply problematic and complex story that warrants an article of its own, but what is clear is that sexual violence and rape is harshly condemned, and so God destroys the town with sulphur and fire. Despite the linguistic history of the word "sodomite", Genesis 19 has nothing to say about homosexuality or mutually consenting adults of the same gender expressing their desire and love. </p>
<p>Two of the laws of Leviticus (18:22 and 20:13) seem more pertinent. They call a man lying with another man instead of his wife an "abomination". We should note first that the imagined scenario is a married man committing adultery with another male. It is not describing what we would understand to be a sexual orientation. We might also note the inherent sexism here: women apparently don't have the same desire or their sexuality is deemed too insignificant to be worthy of comment. </p>
<p>Again, we need some context. Yes, this verse clearly condemns adulterous homosexual sex in calling it an "abomination" (to'ebah), but here are all the other things also called an "abomination" in the Bible: </p>
<p>Egyptians eating with Hebrews; <br>having an image of another god in your house; <br>sacrificing your child to the god Molech; <br>having sex with your wife when she is menstruating; <br>taking your wife's sister as a second wife; and <br>eating pork. </p>
<p>Banned likewise is wearing mixed-fabric clothing, interbreeding animals of different species, tattoos, mocking the blind by putting obstacles in their way, and trimming your beard. </p>
<p>As you can see, there is quite an assortment of ancient laws, some of which seem to make good sense (such as no child sacrifice) and others of which the majority of Christians no longer keep (such as eating pork and wearing a wool-silk blend)."</p>
<p>To my call for more awareness of the full picture --- Why isn't this analysis more broadly known? Why do we only hear spatters of lines that support exclusion and fear?<br><br>In addition to more information, it seems like the only way to combat irrational fear of other people is to build connections to actual people who are different than the fearful person. But how do you get people who don't believe in equal rights to read the ten years of love, care and strife of <a contents="Team Shimm" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://simonlev.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Team Shimm</a>y to understand how limited rights play out in real lives? Could a person possibly read the chronicle of this family and not recognize there are two loving parents supporting a sick (and wonderful!) child? From one of their early posts:</p>
<p>"I asked for 2 weeks off the day he [their newborn son] went into the ICU as we tried to determine if he would live or die. When it became clear he was hanging on but really sick and still unstable, I asked to work part time for about a week. At the end of that week, I met with my boss to discuss options, including dropping to part time for a few months and/or working remotely for a day or two a week. No dice. Not only no dice, but I was told that if I dropped to part time, there was no guarantee that I could have my job back...During that conversation, my boss ACTUALLY said to me, "I think coming back to work full time would be great for you. A few good wins under your belt at work will really help your spirits". My newborn was in the ICU with a life threatening disease and I was being advised to lean in at work. By the director of a women's health center focused on supporting new mothers and their newborns. I almost laughed in her face. </p>
<p>Shortly after that meeting my boss set up a meeting with HR. I was really looking forward to the meeting, naively assuming that it was called so that we could talk about possible options to help me support my family AND continue to do good work for them. Thank god I had lawyered up by that point because it was a nightmare. </p>
<p>The HR rep started the meeting by saying, "I didn't think it was legal for you to use the Family Medical Leave Act for the time you've already taken off [when Simon got sick] because you were just providing emotional support [to Laura] but I did some research and it turns out that it's okay". I was so in a state of shock from everything that was happening that my lawyer had to point out the insane homophobia in that statement (ie, Laura is the real parent, you are just some person helping her out in the hospital, instead of me being a full parent there to be with my son while he was critically ill). It only went down from there and ended up with me being presented with document saying I was on probation, despite my stellar performance review 6 months prior."</p>
<p>How can we make caring people more visible so that people can stop being afraid of difference?</p>
<p>And when it comes to what seems to be the third factor, fear? I think that's one people can only look in the mirror to solve. How is it possible not to ask yourself what you are afraid of and why? How is it possible to be so afraid of another human being?</p>
<p>Of course I know, how I've been afraid of people before, points 1 2 and 3 helped me out of that mindframe. Information and actual connection to people<em> is </em>transformative. </p>
<p>OK. It's midnight. I have to admit, I almost scrapped this post. It seems unfinished, partial, underdone, but there it is. Half-baked.</p>
<p> </p>3:41Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/54816672018-10-22T22:29:59-07:002018-10-23T11:41:24-07:00Where do we go when we die?<p>Where do we want to go? </p>
<p>I was talking to a friend who's father passed on. Her advice, which I've heard said before is to ”Please, please. Leave a plan.” </p>
<p>I sure hope nothing happens to me anytime soon. (I hope to sing my song ”83” well past the time that I'm that age.) However, in the spirit of not leaving the burden on my loved ones, I'll share this: </p>
<p>Cremate or bury me but only do either in a place you can visit. If you are burying me, please only use a pine box. Don't scatter me in the sea or the wind, but you can set me free in a river as long as its from one spot. If you like the idea of a tree, then please plant a tree to mark my spot, and I’ll dream of welcoming you to sit under my branches, to feel loved, to have time to reflect on life by only looking out on to a field or listening to the wind. I don't need a gravestone, unless you feel like it makes sense and is too weird to not mark the spot in some other rock manner. Better yet, just find a big rock that you love, and place it there. Then you can rest your coffee on the rock while you lean back on the tree me. As far as a service, please thank God for my life and yours. If you want to have some music played, OK, just pick a song you love and maybe something I've never heard. Mostly tell your favorite memories and look each other in the eyes and say ”I love you.” As for my possessions, if I go before my family, then those go to my husband and son. Friends and family are invited to our home in the first few days or weeks after I'm gone to find me in some small keepsake or piece of clothing; I'll want to be close to you too, and it will make me smile to know what you pick. As far as invitees, all are welcome. </p>
<p>It's funny. Writing that was really a lovely experience and I'm pretty sure people avoid it out of fear of thinking about mortality. </p>
<p>For all of the dying in our lives, how much do we know about where we go? Centuries of experience - stories from people you know and love - inexplicable encounters - are all kind of hidden. For the most part, it seems like the only public story is: you die and you go to heaven (or hell). </p>
<p>I don't believe in hell. I mean I believe you can live a hellish life, but I don't believe in a permanent negative place of punishment. </p>
<p>I believe there's some kind of sphere, like an atmosphere outside of current life and that there are layers outward after that. This was my notion for a long time but I don't know why. I recently reached out to some friends to ask what they have referred to, what texts have they read to gain a more complex understanding of life after death. Some recommendations were the Tibetan Book of the Dead and Kundalini. </p>
<p>I'm reminded of one ritual in Jewish faith that may be in other faiths too, of sitting Shiva. I still know very little about it and look forward to learning more. From quickly looking at Wikipedia I see it's part of seven stages of mourning. That seems wise. And what a relief for those mourning to have some clear process to travel through together. </p>
<p>https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiva_(Judaism) </p>
<p>I was recently reminded that we all carry our ancestors with us, spiritually. Some people express this with an altar to pay homage to the lives that came before us. It's interesting to think about, and for me, pretty grounding.</p>
<p>What do you know about life after death? To be clear, I don't need you to prove it. Your word about your experience is enough. And if you don't want to post it on a blog, send me a message.</p>
<p>What have you practiced as a part of your faith in understanding and working through loss? What is or your practice of well being and self care? </p>
<p>I hope the taboo topic of today’s post doesn't leave you somber! And, if you are reading this and have recently lost someone, I hope this post provides you with comfort and peace. In the words of a friend ”You are not alone.” </p>
<p>Much love til next week, </p>
<p>Michelle</p>3:24Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/54694402018-10-14T13:01:57-07:002022-05-27T23:36:27-07:00New Power<p>On the screen is a larger than life size closeup of Harvey Weinstein’s face, and right alongside it is a huge picture of a #MeToo really. That's how <a contents="Jeremy Heimans" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Heimans" target="_blank">Jeremy Heimans</a> opened his talk at the conference I attended for work this week. </p>
<p>He explained that old power - vertical, concentrated, opaque, in the hands of a few, defined by currency ”jelously guarded”, based on competition - is now in tension with new power - lateral, not always with a clearly defined leader, a current and not a currency, defined more by collaboration than competicure. Old power was the reason why Weinstein could get away with what he did for so many years. New power was the reason he was able to be stopped. </p>
<p>New power vs old power is a tension I've definitely felt. It stifles me. It's why I haven’t written posts in a few weeks I suppose as all of us grappled with the ugliness of these two powers facing each other, again. </p>
<p>The conference I attended had 3,000 people there; the product that hosts the conference is making approximately $3,000,000 from the conference. It's a product for nonprofits. </p>
<p>Heimens is careful not to judge old power as worse than new power, but it's hard not to feel like old power is negative. He cites that a surgery is a great example of old power that you wouldn't want, say, crowdsourced. But certainly the healthcare system as a whole is old power that is being rughtfully challenged by new power. Heimens offers models of successful ”castles”, businesses that operate with old power but are successful at engaging broadly. Apple is the prime example. Magical products designed in secret and handed down to the masses. (The product at this conference is a castle. It is a good product, but just like Apple, its expensive.) </p>
<p>There are a rich number of examples where he outlines how everything from ISIS to Apple to Airbnb to Occupy utilize new power for good or evil. </p>
<p>I'm only halfway through <a contents="this&nbsp;book" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.amazon.com/New-Power-Works-Hyperconnected-World/dp/0385541112/ref=nodl_" target="_blank">this book</a>, and I recommend it for a fresh perspective. I also appreciate that Heimens is, himself, a disrupter. He has and continues to use new power for good. He's not the only author of the book. Henry Timms (creator of GivingTuesday) co-wrote the book. </p>
<p>---- </p>
<p>Conversation: </p>
<p>3.5 year old: ”Owls are nocturnal, right?” </p>
<p>43 year olI: ”Correct.” </p>
<p>3.5 year old: ”That means they sleep during the day. Are cats nocturnal?” </p>
<p>43 year old: ”Yes, mostly, I think. Well, sort of. I'm not sure.* You know what is nocturnal? Bats!” </p>
<p>3.5 year old: ”Fruit bats? ... Do kitty kats eat watermelon?” </p>
<p>43 year old: ”No.” </p>
<p>3.5 year old: ”What about Fruit Cats!” </p>
<p>YES! </p>
<p>* cats are actually crepuscular, having both daytime and nighttime activities. </p>
<p>---- </p>
<p>Where will we be when I'm 83 and he's 43?</p>3:46Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/54454082018-09-26T22:10:23-07:002021-09-05T18:22:25-07:00Lillie Ruth<p>We're watching a documentary on Quincy Jones.</p>
<p>Snapshots of Obama honoring Quincy Jones.</p>
<p>Quincy talking about a nervous breakdown and really a breakdown of his entire personal life; he was on empty; he was running. He then took time to reassess his priorities and then move forward. </p>
<p>The scenes from the opening of the <a contents="National Museum of African American History and Culture" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://nmaahc.si.edu/" target="_blank">National Museum of African American History and Culture</a>. The landing page for their site reads "A People's Journey, A Nation’s History".</p>
<p>Back on the documentary, Ray Charles sings "America, A-merica..." also one of the best I've heard.</p>
<p>A stark contrast of the political reality we are in which warps time. Now seems like forever, but now is just now, just under a year!</p>
<p>Also just under a year is how long we've been in Grass Valley, and that is a decision that has reinforced itself DAILY. It is the smell of actual foliage in the air. It is the air itself. It is space, and grass, and community. It's not without it's challenges. It's still hard to juggle child care. There are still things being figured out.</p>
<p>- </p>
<p>The mixes of the new tracks are officially done. Eli recommends Miles Boisen or John Cohrs. Both seem great. Going to John Cohrs page I see he just finished a <a contents="Tony Conrad archive project" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://musicandthemindofthe.world/">Tony Conrad archive project</a>. I'm sad to remember that Tony Conrad passed away. I was lucky to meet him through Issue Project Room. I don't know how I ever ended up at Issue Project Room, or anywhere really. I've somehow been exposed to a lot of incredible art throughout.</p>
<p>I remember Suzanne Fiol. I am reminded of her every other day. Suzanne Way is on my jogging path. A friend in the woods.</p>
<p>Lillie Ruth was written during those years.</p>
<p> </p>4:28Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/54346292018-09-18T23:09:25-07:002022-04-23T00:02:55-07:00You Me And Everyone We Know<p>This week, in thinking about you, you here with me, reading this, I thought about a collage of episodes. </p>
<p>It's the racist cartoon of Serena combined with the Kavanaugh accusation, ovrerlayed with a pitcure of Anita Hill.</p>
<p>It's the overt and yet somehow less overt because it is absorbed and accepted into our daily being of regular ignorances: race, age, sex. </p>
<p>Rinse and repeat.</p>
<p>It's you, me, and every woman I know medicating with alcohol, coffee, marijuana, or more. And to be clear, this is NOT a judgment. It's an observation about how it's not just a solo internal experience. I'm also not necessarily talking about extremities.When I say medicating, I mean lifting the mood in any way without the internal effort. So that's one cup of coffee, one drink, etc. It's that me, you, and everyone we know can't actually <em>not</em> do it. Go ahead, try. It's harder than you want to think to not have any of these little things.</p>
<p>On the upside, it's almost November. And what I mean by that is that we're almost to that point we've been waiting for, where it's time to show up. More than ever before women are running for office. Will they win? You tell me.</p>
<p>Voting is one way of showing up, and it's not the only way. People are showing up all over the place, and it's important. To show up.</p>
<p>Oddly enough, though, showing up is still my problem.</p>
<p>Thankfully, I literally ran into my friend Larry this week in Brooklyn. By ran in, I mean I was running to exercise and ran into him. He seems good and it made me happy to see him. I have to send him my newer tracks. He asked me about labels. I don't even know what that means. guess I'll find out through him. I told him how I realized I've spent alot of energy to create music and no energy to promote it. I shared with him how I ignored the emails from Karel. How I wanted to disappear before I read them. He understood. It's a different energy. somehow. to promote vs. create.</p>
<p>I can share an update about the tracks: Eli sent the mixes and they sound great, so now it's about mastering. Next step.</p>
<p>And of course mastering and videos are more money, more money than I have to create the things I'm envisioning. It's great fuel for continuous retreating. Think limited! Ugh.</p>
<p>Five or so years ago I attended a seminar in NYC where they revealed that on average artists go about $10,000 into debt to support their work. That sounds about right. And I don't know what else to say except we have to do it; we have to make it. We can't stop.</p>
<p>I'm also reminded of this quote from Richard Branson "If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later!”</p>
<p>In contrast, right now, there is a Frontline episode on right now about Harvey Weinstein documenting just how long it has taken to address the ugly truth.</p>
<p>Be visible?</p>2:51Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/54252222018-09-11T23:16:48-07:002018-09-12T10:31:15-07:00Little Door Lets It In<p><i>I want to forget myself. </i></p>
<p><i>I want to forget the moment I thought I had to do x, y, or z instead of getting straight to it. </i></p>
<p><i>You know what I mean. </i></p>
<p><i>Out of the this and that and too much contemplation and straight into action and more consecutive action. </i></p>
<p><i>Isn't it funny that way? </i></p>
<p><i>Motion propels motion. </i></p>
<p><i>So MOVE! </i></p>
<p><i>NOW! </i></p>
<p><i>one tiny little bit is enough. </i></p>
<p><i>Til you remember: </i></p>
<p><i>You are movement. That’s all there is for you. </i></p>4:11Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/54143832018-09-04T09:01:07-07:002022-06-01T18:16:58-07:00Birthday<p>It's mine today! Here's a song I wrote in 2010. </p>
<p><iframe allowfullscreen="true" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="420" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FMichelleMarieAmador%2Fvideos%2F10150267220735122%2F&show_text=0&width=560" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" width="560"></iframe></p>
<p>I walked this and a few more songs this old and older last weekend with Tim Bulkley on drums and Scott Prawalski on bass from <a contents="Bear Flag Trio" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e5urnLclR4" target="_blank">Bear Flag Trio</a>. It was an exciting first rehearsal after what's been a pretty long break for me. It also feels nice to approach songs like this after so many years in between. I'm excited about how this and other songs will sound!</p>
<p>This year's birthday includes a day off from work, yoga, and a 1-hour phone session with Sarajane Case to develop my launch plan for the new music and show broadcast idea that is brewing in my head. I'm sure many more things will come from it if the course outline is any indication...and this is just through September and early October.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/57215/f1e3cffd30d818c76fb756a772d123145779e15f/original/courseoutline2.png/!!/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.png" class="size_m justify_none border_" /></p>
<p><br>Hope you have a great day today! Happy Birthday!</p>2:28Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/54082802018-08-30T16:22:08-07:002018-09-04T17:38:04-07:00* Poof! * You're Back In It<p>It’s true you need to change your habits by your own effort, but sometimes you need a catalyst. Maybe it’s a fast (on purpose or on accident from the flu!). Maybe it’s a change of wall colors. Maybe you chop all your hair off. Maybe you give away all of your clothes or get rid of every old thing you never use. To turn you away from the old distractions. </p>
<p>Lucky for me I've had all of the above. And now its fall. </p>
<p>The air is cold. It's an activator. Where did it come from? From left, going right and forward and swirling down. It was just a thread. A pin. A note. How does it know where it's going? </p>
<p>It softly shakes the trees. Time to get up soon. You've been sleeping in the sun. Heart open. Golden sun soak. But now the cold glint tickles your nose, it rustles you a little, you have to move; it's time to move. </p>
<p>I feel lighter. I'm running.</p>
<p>I smile. I laugh! </p>
<p>------------>>>>>There’s time for everything.<<<<<<------------------------</p>
<p>There is time for everything. It's what I was searching for. This gift that's been there, waiting for me to align. </p>
<p>I found you current! Ha HA!</p>
<p>This time I’ll keep with you. I'll run trough the woods. Forwards and backwards dancing along the gravel. </p>
<p>What a gift. </p>
<p>Isn’t that the magic of life? </p>
<p>* Poof! * </p>
<p>YOU'RE BACK IN IT.</p>6:40Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/53967582018-08-21T21:24:17-07:002021-11-30T00:31:59-08:00You Make Me Want To Share You<p><em>In your purest form, your most raw or silly, you make me want to share you. </em></p>
<p><em>I want to find whatever it is you need to get to whatever next place you are going.</em></p>
<p><em>If I can, I want to introduce you to your hero, so you know: you belong. </em></p>
<p><em>,so you know you're not alone; so I know I'm not either. </em></p>
<p><em>But I don't always find the channels. </em></p>
<p><em>I can't always bridge the chasm in our world.</em></p>
<p><em>I only have You.</em></p>
<p><em>Your story - our story. And the opportunity to remember:</em></p>
<p><em>"Love is a continuum".</em></p>
<p> </p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Special thanks to Diana Tsuchida for posting <a contents="this video" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYwgSNRS9nA&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank">this video</a> which inspired the above, and reminded me that we can't always imagine what will be. Leadership is active; it lives only in this moment.</p>
<p>That's all for this week, folks.</p>
<p>Much love,</p>
<p>Michelle</p>4:32Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/53863352018-08-13T21:06:21-07:002024-02-26T06:51:22-08:00Luck and Imperfection<p>Earlier this week I thought this post would open with an acknowledgement that I am an incredibly lucky person. As I write it, it looks pretty arrogant, but that's not how I mean it. I mean my life, as I've lived it, has proven to be pretty lucky. Incredibly lucky to the point of not always being able to explain how lucky. </p>
<p>Luck, coincidence, whatever you call it happened again this weekend when attending a wedding of a friend from the East Coast who now lives on the West Coast. Among the attendees of the intimate wedding? One of my college roommates, <a contents="Jennifer Colliau" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://longnow.org/people/staff/jennifer/" target="_blank">Jennifer Colliau</a>, whom I hadn't seen in 20 years. It turns out that my friend who was getting married, had, of all places in the Bay Area, secured a job in a bar managed by my college roommate whom I have not seen for 20 years. This is the kind of coincidental circumstance that happens regularly for me. That's what I mean by luck.</p>
<p>Luck is a funny thing though, right? What is luck? Interestingly, if you look up "luck" the defintion is not just positive:</p>
<p>From Mirriam-Webster luck is "success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one's own actions" </p>
<p>That changes it a bit. Who wants to be lucky?? And of course, there are many who say success can only come with failure, so...right back around.</p>
<p>In any case, it was nice to see Jen. She's opening a bar across from The Fox Theater in Oakland soon. Will look forward to seeing some of you there!</p>
<p>I've had a weird dance with luck. I'm superstitious about it. I think I have to live in gratitude to have access to it, and I have fears of my life any time I think I may have jeopardized whatever weird luck I have. </p>
<p>Do you see this? The dichotomy? </p>
<p>On the one hand, I am very lucky. On the other hand, everything can and will fall apart unexpectedly.</p>
<p>On the one hand, I live in gratitude and can feel I am riding on an unseen current, effortlessly gliding to new and great things. On the other hand, my own imperfections - poor decisions made, or really even anything less than best decisions made - terrify me into thinking I will be disconnected from that luck.</p>
<p>It's not logical...in case you're trying to add it up.<br><br>Here's some luck and imperfection all in one. At this same wedding, placed in the woods (where kids play in the dirt), my son began to play in the dusty dirt and was soon covered head to toe in it. I didn't want to stop him and the environment seemed nurturing of a 3.5 year old being able to dig and play. It was a wedding in the woods and people were camping etc. Still, when a guest pointed out how nice it was to see a child play in the dirt, how they would never see that in the foreign country that they were from, I could only hear it as a comment on imperfection. His behavior and mine were imperfect. To someone. A stranger. I let it pass through my head and decided I had made the right decision, though I just wished it wasn't such dusty dirt. Now isn't that gross? An appearance closer to perfection would apparently have appeased my ego. I guess in a sense, I'm lucky it was such dusty dirt. There's no real mistaking it or glossing it over into something else.</p>
<p>Back on the luck side, in my son's dusty adventures he found three marbles in three separate locations in about a soccer field size area. I don't know if you've ever placed a glass marble in very dusty dirt, but it pretty much becomes invisible. Yet, he found not one but three marbles. (He also found one today in an unsuspecting location on the side of the road.) Pretty lucky!</p>
<p>Here's a weird thing...typing this all out makes me consider how these two - Luck and Imperfection - have been coexisting all along. </p>
<p>I am very lucky, and everything can and will fall apart unexpectedly.</p>
<p>I am imperfect, and I am still lucky, and everything can and will fall apart unexpectedly.</p>
<p>Crap.</p>
<p>I had a moment last week where I remembered Suzanne Fiol. She's also on my jogging path with a street sign for SUZANNE. I miss her. If you didn't know her, this obituary says some good things: http://www.brooklynvegan.com/suzanne-fiol-is/ (I also love the URL for this: Suzanne Fiol Is)</p>
<p>I also can't believe the insane chaos that was endured when she passed. What a kind of lonely hell that was! So many people wanting to fulfill her dream and having only their versions of what she envisioned. Maybe that's the point, but it sure was hard. It's hard not to have someone to check in with. It's hard to challenge yourself to make the best decisions that are also the hardest decisions. It's hard to get along with other people! It's hard to trust. It's hard to be honest.</p>
<p>It's also hard to lead other people when you have no way of translating your gut, when you know luck, and when you know what direction to go in and need no map. Other people need maps, and you kind of have to provide them.</p>
<p>I know...talking in rambles here. That's how it goes this week.</p>
<p>Thanks for being here and thanks for listening.</p>
<p>P.S. This is Mama. Photo by Harrison Bulkley.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/57215/73eb6e200b0da2ee8c1ea9de489848766eabfeef/original/thisismama.jpg/!!/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" /></p>
<p> </p>
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<p> </p>4:20Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/53731692018-08-02T23:07:50-07:002018-08-02T23:27:00-07:00You Have to Get Your Hands Dirty<p>You have to get your hands dirty. </p>
<p>You have to look at the stack of papers that will help you move forward and stop dragging them around for any more weeks. It's been a month. The edges are frayed, even! </p>
<p>What do the papers say? Same stuff as the goals post. They say where you're supposed to be and possibly where you aren't. </p>
<p>You have to get your hands dirty with commitment, and be uncomfortable, and be OK with that discomfort.</p>
<p>You have to let up on drinking because the 25 pounds is not going to lose itself. </p>
<p>You have to stop leaning on coffee to make it through the day. </p>
<p>You have to actually reach out and connect with other human beings, and count on them. </p>
<p>Count on them to: </p>
<p>Help you. <br>Understand you. <br>Guide and advise you. <br>Show you shortcuts to your best self. <br>Keep you in motion. </p>
<p>Keep you in motion. Keep you in motion. Keep you in motion. </p>
<p>That was much easier when it was anonymous in a City. </p>
<p><strong>OK!! Enough stalling... Let's look at the papers. How do I really stack up? </strong></p>
<p><strong>#1 Career: successfully plan </strong><strong>album</strong><strong> release</strong> </p>
<p>I contacted Eli to see if the tracks are done. I took a webinar by <a contents="Jasmine Star" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.instagram.com/jasminestar/?hl=en" target="_blank">Jasmine Star</a> about social media posting. She emphasized consistency, which is one big anti-magnet. Why is consistency so hard right now? I talked to my friend Dawn Carlson who is an amazing designer and manages the marketing for her business <a contents="MAS Design" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://mas-interior-design.com/" target="_blank">MAS Design</a>. I didn't actually ask her any questions about marketing, though. Oops. Stalls. I thought about writing to <a contents="Nikki McClure" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://nikkimcclure.com/" target="_self">Nikki </a><a contents="Nikki McClure" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://nikkimcclure.com/" target="_self">McClure</a>, but then chickened out. I did not reach out to Ryan.</p>
<p><strong>#2 Health: Exercise Daily </strong></p>
<p>I am running 3-4x per week. </p>
<p>I am not doing yoga 10 minutes a day. I am doing 1 stretch for like 2 minutes 3 times a week. I am better about packing my lunch but still not so great at making sure to do it. I have reduced alcohol. I have not gone to sleep earlier. I have reduced coffee most days and replaced it with water. </p>
<p><strong>#3 Creativity: Be Visible, Show Up, Collaborate, Perform </strong></p>
<p>I did not look at that song from Evan’s friend. I did not reach out to Clevenger, Mezzacappa, or Sadigursky. I did not book any dates in NYC. I have not started broadcasting songs. I found out how and where to book a show in my area and have not made the call to book the shows, and subsequent rehearsals. I did try and nudge a friend to do a recording of his music at our house this fall. I did perform as Penny Youngman and separately as myself. </p>
<p><strong>#4 Happiness: Be More Present, Expand Culinary Skills </strong></p>
<p>I have not started regular meditation. I did not sign up for a culinary course. I did find individual recipes and try out unusual things for dinner meals. I did not start planning meals for the week on Sundays. I did book a babysitter once a week to make a date night possible! I have reduced dark mental dwelling greatly and have been more forgiving and curious about my own idiosyncrasies. I did make fresh blackberry jam!</p>
<p>That's funny. I feel kind of OK. </p>
<p>Hmmm. </p>
<p>P.S. ”I love you just the way you are.” (Thanks Mr. Rogers and Nicholas Ma for making ”<a contents="Won't You Be My Neighbor" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://focusfeatures.com/wont-you-be-my-neighbor/" target="_blank">Won't You Be My Neighbor</a>” - Go see it now.)</p>3:53Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/53618562018-07-25T16:06:08-07:002022-05-27T21:48:37-07:00Introducing Penny Youngman<p>Sometimes you have to outside to go inside. </p>
<p>When I was in theater school at USC, there was an acting exercise where you would exaggerate your interpretation of lines, which would help you discover new colors and dimensions for expression that wouldn't be apparent to you without stretching. I've used that exercise regularly to get outside of my preconceived notion of my voice for singing.</p>
<p>I mention this exercise, because it also holds true for finding new dimensions to your humanity. Sometimes you have to leave your house, go outside, walk by water, be off the clock, lose your cell phone, etc. to be able to center yourself. </p>
<p>And that brings me to Penny Youngman. Three years ago Penny was born out of a wig and a great party. I was at an annual gathering of friends. A ridiculous somewhat square-shaped-headed blonde/pink wig with braids was available. I put it on to be funny, and then proceeded to be seriously ridiculous. At this gathering there was an annual Hootenanny for friends to perform, and I proceeded to do a small stand up act. It was decided in the moment. I would re-tell Henny Youngman's jokes. Reading from my cell phone, in this ridiculous wig, I read the jokes, and as the outdated words spilled from my mouth I found myself yelling a loud "WHAT?" in response, followed by that familiar rim shot sound, the live drum punchline response. Penny's first performance also included an element of slapstick; I think this first year involved me setting the microphone so preposterously high that I had to jump to tell these jokes. </p>
<p>The next year's gathering came. There was that same wig and there was the microphone. I decided I would cartwheel on and off the stage and tell 2 or maybe it was 3 jokes. The first involved allowing the audience to watch me work hard to get as close to the ground as possible with my body and the microphone. Then, after a beat, Penny said "I call this "How Low Can You Go". I can't recall her second joke that night. The closing joke involved lying on my back with my feet and legs in the air - feet adorned with socks pulled up and placed in flip flops. I did a little 1-2 scissor dance with my legs and then in the microphone whispered "SOXY!"<br><br>This year, Penny would be a premeditated act. One day as I was jogging to Justin Timberlake's Mirrors, <a contents="the lyrics" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/justintimberlake/mirrors.html" target="_blank">the lyrics</a> seemed too perfect for the times we are in. It was settled. Penny would impersonate Donald Trump in an outrageous dance routine, singing to himself in the mirror, "You reflect me, I love that about you. And if I could, I would look at us all the time." Midway through this comedy, Trump would transform into Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and begin to sing to the audience "Yesterday is history. Tomorrow's a mystery. Oooh!" finally making an ultimate transformation into Princess Leia singing "Girl you're my reflection, all I see is you. My reflection, in everything I do."</p>
<p>It would be incredible, hysterical, and seriously ridiculous.</p>
<p>And it was.</p>
<p>And then, later in the Hootenanny set, I played an older song of mine, with fresh openness. A clarity that wouldn’t have been there had I not allowed Penny Youngman all of the room to stretch.</p>
<p>Here’s Penny from her 2016 set. A fool in her prime, a fool all the time.<br><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/57215/3744728024becf5c7127b773b8fb4d973936fbd9/original/bce38a64-d80b-4f6f-9647-2019bb28b5e5.jpeg/!!/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpeg" class="size_s justify_left border_" /></p>
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<p><br>SOXY! <br><br>:)<br><br>P.S. Don't forget to watch the new <a contents="Robin Williams doc" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/robin-williams-come-inside-my-mind" target="_blank">Robin Williams doc</a>.</p>4:21Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/53426072018-07-11T22:47:23-07:002018-07-11T22:47:23-07:00Morning and A Seventh Heaven<p>Too much to write. Not enough. The thoughts are scattered again, so here they are, again, in pieces.</p>
<p>I'm running around the track.</p>
<p>I'm listening to "<a contents="Morning" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UvKbBkiYN9Y" target="_blank">Morning</a>" by Beck...The album this is on is one of the best-produced albums I've heard. I've listened to it intensely several times for years. Every corner is considered; it's a beautiful reality. It sounds slower than it used to. I wonder if the pace of activity around me when I used to run to this in NY was syncopated into this and so it seemed faster. I am in a slower pace in CA. I feel the shift. I hear it in conversations. I wonder if I come across as slower now to people in NYC. "This morning, I lost all my defenses...won't you show me the way it used to be."</p>
<p>I turn the corner of the track...The image of a bonsai garden comes to mind. Beautifully crafted reality. It's a dance. For a moment, I think about art work as just an atom that an artist has decided to focus on. A focus on one aspect of reality. A push of reality. How we push reality all day. Through our jobs, through our politics, through our art.</p>
<p>"Love keeps coming back, there's nothing left for me to give." as I listen to Sasha Dobson's latest release "<a contents="Nothing Left" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/nothing-left-single/1408332374" target="_blank">Nothing Left</a>" I'm reminded of <em>not </em>pushing reality. Not doing a one-person piano move through life. Not banging my head against the wall. Not working hard; working smart and letting go.</p>
<p>The lyrics to "<a contents="A Seventh Heaven" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/a-seventh-heaven/616829755?i=616830585" target="_blank">A Seventh Heaven</a>" by Gordon Stevens, which I had the luxury of singing on, come to mind. Listening to the track Adam Shulman's playing reminds me of Fred Astaire and Tim Volpicella's guitar turns into a horn or a flute in some moments. Gordon called me the other day to share that he'd been thinking about the lyrics lately. "I cannot see what waits for us, nor feel it, could it transport us? To netherlands sublime, beyond the pulse of time, to stars - A Seventh Heaven - who's to know? Will it come quickly? Must we seek it out? What motivation? Quietly withdraw and tempt stagnation? Risk a fatal move to try and catch a glimpse: of what and when and where and why." I haven't called him back; my pulse has been buried.</p>
<p>In the early 2000s I went to an acupuncturist to deal with sluggish allergies. I told her I'd been running outside to try and break out of the sluggishness. She pointed out that I was allergic to pollen and running in it. She told me my pulse was buried.</p>
<p>Activity - activeness - and cities. For all of my city years, I've always had restorative breaks. In these breaks, I've usually gained a stronger sense of self and my art and what I might offer to the world. And each time I would go back to a city and feel lost in the activity, confused on my direction.</p>
<p>I've realized that I associate being active and action-oriented with feeling worthful. Without action, I am worried there's a deep dark truth to confront: that I'm worthless. It feels silly to write, but that's been the driver possibly my whole life. It's one thing to be productive; it's another thing to be productive because you're scared. And I'm terrified. Of being worthless. Of rejection. It's why I've never pushed an album past the point of recording. You can't lose when you don't try, isn't that the phrase? </p>
<p>So now to figure out worth without busy-ness...value without fear of rejection.</p>
<p>Setting goals helps. <a contents="Sarajane Case" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.sarajanecase.com/shop/goalmapping" target="_blank">Sarajane Case</a> advises setting 4 goals every six months along 4 themes. Career, Health, Happiness, Creativity. I'm not used to thinking about all of these areas at the same time. I've certainly focused on Career and Creativity in swings. Health in swings as well. I've never set a goal for happiness before.</p>
<p>Here are those clarified goals for me by December:</p>
<p>Goal 1: Career - Develop a plan to successfully launch the new music I recorded / Create work rituals that settle me down from busy action-ness into thoughtful progression<br>Action steps: Finish tracks (contact <a contents="Eli Crews" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://elicrews.com/wp/" target="_blank">Eli Crews</a>), Find animator (Talk to <a contents="Goh Nakamura" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://gohnakamura.com/" target="_blank">Goh Nakamura</a> and Lisa Schatz), Get PR organized (talk to <a contents="Ryan Hobler" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.ryanhobler.com/" target="_blank">Ryan Hobler</a>), Figure out Artwork, Rework office and music spaces + Create daily routines.</p>
<p>Goal 2: Health <br>Action steps: Practice Yoga (any amount) daily, Do a full practice of Yoga 1x a week, Continue Running 4x week, Reduce coffee to 1 cup a day, Reduce alcohol to weekends</p>
<p>Goal 3: Creative - Secure a 2019 residency / Be Visible Again ->Reconnect with Past Collaborators - Reach out to New Collaborators<br>Action steps: Work on the song of Evan Francis' friend that he sent you, Reach out to <a contents="Nathan Clevenger" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.nathanclevengermusic.com/" target="_blank">Nathan Clevenger</a>, Reach out to <a contents="Sam Sadigursky" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://samsadigursky.com/" target="_blank">Sam Sadigursky</a>, Reach out to <a contents="Lisa Mezzacappa" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.lisamezzacappa.com/" target="_blank">Lisa Mezzacappa</a> and finally have coffee with her, Build a next live band based off of my new recording and other works, Practice daily (any amount), Actively seek out and listen to things that are new and unfamiliar</p>
<p>Goal 4: Happiness<br>Action steps: Stop dark dwelling and emotionally freezing and be more present, Actively seek out and make new foods and recipes, Book a babysitter regularly, Start meditating, Start writing on real paper and not just digitally, Go to sleep earlier more often</p>
<p>It feels embarrassing to share these, but there they are. </p>
<p>I was supposed to attach calendar dates to the action steps, but I haven't quite gotten to that. Still in a buried heart beat. "Be-yond the pulse of time."</p>
<p> </p>5:15Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/53268412018-07-01T06:51:23-07:002022-01-21T02:47:18-08:00Personification<p>Personification </p>
<ul> <li><em>the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form. </em></li>
</ul>
<p>I think I was in fifth or six grade when I learned the first part of this definition and and that there was some kind of disdain for it. Disdain is stronger than I mean, more that there was societal quiet disfavor for it. </p>
<p>I found this description on yourdicitonary.com which gets to what I'm alking about </p>
<ul> <li>
<em>It is when you assign the qualities of a person to something that isn't human or that isn't even alive, like nature or emotions.</em> </li>
</ul>
<p>That's what I'm talking about. The kind of sense that nature and emotions are not alive. But that’s not true in all cultures; it's not true for me. </p>
<p>Here are two sisters: </p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/57215/a20155cf754cefc5fbf59674281eb44ccd5dff4d/original/img-6746.jpg/!!/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p>Here are two cousins:</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/57215/05de6ed7cd4e5bb0623ba7d06da414fe09c5bdb4/original/img-6748.jpg/!!/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsIm1lZGl1bSJdXQ==.jpg" class="size_m justify_center border_none" alt="" /></p>
<p>When we talk about diversity, when we talk about listening to other ways of being it’s much more challenging than finding broad strokes for agreement. It’s about daily interaction and radically different approaches to, for example, looking someone in the eye, to how you view conversational interruption. It's sentence structure, acronyms and emphasis on unusual-to-you phonetic sounds. It's about acceptance that other societal structures have something of value to enrich your life. </p>
<p>Exclusion and prized exclusivity keeps us from enjoying all that life is actively offering us, creating rules around what's not, instead of nurturing understanding for what is. </p>
<p>Some say our society is an enneagram type 3 society - extroversion is prized, exclusivity is coveted (i'm recalling so many micro-apartment ads that I walked by in Williamsburg in the past few years), there is only 1st place, there is only hard work. </p>
<p>From Integrative9's website:</p>
<p><em>At their best, others will experience Threes as hard-working, principled and receptive, offering the gifts of hope and integrity to the world.<br><br>In an unhealthy state, the Three’s over-expressed need for achievement may seem self-important and inconstant. This stems from a sense of self-worth that is built on what the Three does, rather than who they are.</em></p>
<p>I mention our country because it's almost July 4 and as we celebrate all that we all, I want to acknowledge that this undercurrent is true in my experience. And yet, we know that introversion has value, inclusivity is an acceptance of reality - it's not a choice, and that bronze and silver are achievements too (funny how even typing that brings discomfort!). We now know that there is smart work that better replaces hard work.</p>
<p>My wish for this Independence Day is this: </p>
<p>Let us free ourselves from viewing life through a what's not lens. </p>
<p>What is? </p>
<p>What is - in all its gory glory. </p>
<p>What is that is with or without you. <br><br>What is in that second part of the definition of personification and how can we better represent the abstract in our human form.</p>
<p>Peace and love til next week,</p>
<p>Michelle</p>3:51Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/53015722018-06-23T16:23:13-07:002021-09-05T18:23:06-07:00What's Your Politics?<p>A friend from college just launched an incredible podcast breaking open the conversation around teen mental health. It's focused on the situation she lived through with her family, but it's also not just for people with kids. She's talking about us; our society. She's looking at the statistic - suicide is the 2nd leading cause of teen death - and taking a step forward to point out the invisible walls that keep us isolated and invite people to engage. If you do nothing else, <a contents="please listen to episode 1" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.agirliknow.org/new-page-1/" target="_blank">please listen to <em>A Girl I Know</em></a>.</p>
<p>And listen to <a contents="this song" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Kf2nd_EaHQ" target="_blank">this song</a> by the artist Father John Misty. (I grabbed the title from this post from the lyrics.) I'll hope to do justice to a cover of this soon.</p>
<p>Mental health is a challenge, I think, for most people I know, myself included. I've experienced that tar, stuck to my insides, unnamed, sinking. I experienced it the other weekend, which is why I didn't post anything. It woke me up on Saturday night and sat there. It disappeared on my morning jog and reappeared when I ate my dinner. "What's wrong?" asked my husband. "Black hole," I said. "Oh" he said, knowing what I meant, "You had serious brows." I had already talked to him about it, which helped. He asks if I talk to my friend. I say yes, and that helped too. I was beating myself up, like I often do, about some or other instance, a moment, something I said, something I did or didn't do. </p>
<p>What is a black hole? Well, from <a contents="NASA's site" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/what-is-a-black-hole-k4.html" target="_blank">NASA's site</a>:</p>
<p>"A black hole is a place in space where gravity pulls so much that even light can not get out. The gravity is so strong because matter has been squeezed into a tiny space. This can happen when a star is dying.</p>
<p>Because no light can get out, people can't see black holes. They are invisible. Space telescopes with special tools can help find black holes. The special tools can see how stars that are very close to black holes act differently than other stars."</p>
<p>I wonder if anyone has tested how you can feel them.</p>
<p>It is in these moments, when I'm rubbernecking in my mind, that the common advice - that people can choose to hold on to thoughts like choosing moments in a stream; just grab on to another thought - feels impossible. It feels like it couldn't work to look at something else. But I must. </p>
<p>So I exercise again. </p>
<p>I meditate. </p>
<p>I talk to friends. <br>I read. </p>
<p>And I recognize i may have no resolution to the feeling. It may just linger and then it may just move on.</p>
<p>Or I just look up things I don't know about.</p>
<p>Like black holes.</p>
<p>If you didn't know, <a contents=" Stephen Hawking's voice was shot&nbsp;as a song into a black hole." data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/a21578815/stephen-hawkings-voice-beamed-into-black-hole/" target="_blank">Stephen Hawking's voice was shot as a song into a black hole.</a> It will get there in a 3,500 light years.</p>
<p>But a real shift took place on Tuesday when my efforts to look up new things brought me to Enneagrams. I learned I'm a competitive achiever, not competing with other people, but competing, constantly, with myself. I realized that kind of competition is what had made me so good at achieving goals. I learned I'm a self preserver and that I'm action oriented. I could probably have known these things with out the enneagram report, but it was actually helpful to see it all in one place. I'm great in a crisis. But the question is, who and how do I want to be when I'm not. I don't really want to be in crisis mode with myself, so who do I want to be? How do I want to be different?</p>
<p>Guess I'll find out next week. I signed up for <a contents="Sarajane Case's Goal-Mapping Workshop" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.sarajanecase.com/shop/goalmapping" target="_blank">Sarajane Case's Goal-Mapping Workshop</a>. She's pretty great. And her workshops help you take quantum leaps without feeling like it's a Herculean effort. I'll get an email each day next week and at the end of the week I'll have a plan for where I want to be in December.</p>5:26Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/52883152018-06-10T23:20:19-07:002022-05-27T23:37:29-07:00Push, When Push Comes to Shove<p>Push and pushiness. </p>
<p>"When push comes to shove..." </p>
<p>Hustle. </p>
<p>And other - in my mind - dying paradigms. </p>
<p>I've let people push me. Push in this post has a negative connotation. Or maybe it has a negative connotation out in the world. Why are you pushing? Why am I pushing? Why is pushiness so loud but masquerading as silence - a silence that says "DON'T SAY THIS! NO ONE SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THIS!" </p>
<p>Think about the contrast between pushing and inviting. The difference! So stark!! </p>
<p>I've let people push me. </p>
<p>I suppose you could say that's "pushing me around". I suppose it's the same. I always let it happen because ultimately I didn't care about the pusher's agenda. Whatever time was needed was needed more immediately for them to refocus on the goal I saw they needed to help to achieve. I could spend time looking back on the adversarial feelings they were inspiring OR, I could move forward more immediately, grabbing their attention, convincing them to move on the present. </p>
<p>And in this way, I think I thought I was somehow magical, that I was somehow transforming aggression just because I wasn't seeing it reappear the same way. I thought this was a way to demonstrate value and that truly demonstrated value was irresistible, contagious, exponentially reciprocal. </p>
<p>But it's not for everyone. And not addressing the truth - of how things aren't working in our society - of how things aren't working in day-to-day interactions - only perpetuates bad behavior, poor treatment of people, disrespect. </p>
<p>I've been accommodating. It's a gross word when you think about applying that adjective to yourself. I've accommodated sexism, racism, imperialism, colonialism, needyness, self-centered-ness, any kind of uncomfortable-ism that wants to place itself above other people. My accommodation looked like silence, or an awkward joke to try and break through reality. It looked like being stunned. It looked like 4 or more hours of trying to write or rewrite communication to someone. It even looked diplomatic or neutral. Sometimes confrontation actually should have all of the fire of emotion that it hit you with. I think? Maybe not. </p>
<p>I think about the future consequences almost immediately. Will everything be harder? Everything? </p>
<p>Maybe. </p>
<p>- - - - - - here is the boundary - - - - - - - </p>
<p>Now what happens when it's crossed? </p>
<p>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - </p>
<p>Probably nothing. Probably it's just over. And good. </p>
<p>More room for all the things that don't push but invite...</p>
<p>That's where it's at. for me. for my family. for my friends and loved ones. </p>
<p>Invited. </p>
<p>You are invited. </p>
<p>YOU are INVITED. </p>
<p>You are welcome.</p>4:08Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/52718042018-06-02T07:30:36-07:002022-02-23T06:06:36-08:00Where do you want to be in 6 months?<p>In the summer of 2007 (i think it was 2007), I hopped on a plane to Manchester with Tim so I could make an album.</p>
<p>We spent the week in the studio with Dave Jones (aka Zed Bias) and Sefton Mottley. Zed and Sefton had written the music and I would write the melody and lyrics. That was our agreement and it was a very clear conversation before we started collaborating, which I appreciated. zed's an honest business man. Clarifying the terms before we started working made it possible for each of us to give fully to the project.</p>
<p>Before we started working, he provided me with a contract that honored my equal participation as a co-creator. I hadn't seen a contract for work before and what I appreciated was that it was simple, clear and honest. A reconfirmation of great decision to collaborate.</p>
<p>We created 10 tracks (In & Out was created earlier that year during the RBMA Rome session) in that week. </p>
<p>--</p>
<p>I'm a Patreon subscriber to <a contents="Sarajane Case" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.sarajanecase.com/" target="_blank">Sarajane Case</a> and her June video workshop really killed me. I still have to re-listen to it a few times, but here's what sticking:</p>
<p>"Where do you want to be in 6 months? Now is your time to stop, think about what's working, what's not working, make a plan to move forward or decide if you want to let something go.... Anything is fine, I just want you to choose it.</p>
<p>Where do you want to be in December? "What do I want my life to look and feel like on a regular basis?</p>
<p>What kind of projects are you working on? Eating? Fitness? How do you want to finish the year? Now is the opportunity to set the tone for that."</p>
<p>She suggests writing down 4 goals to achieve by December. Then setting markers at the halfway and monthly points.</p>
<p>This used to come naturally to me. Now it feels really tough, but here we go:</p>
<p>1. I don't want to be rushing or rushed.</p>
<p>2. I want to regularly exercise and reduce caffeine and alcohol consumption.</p>
<p>3. I want to have a real plan for my next album that insures it reaches a broad audience.</p>
<p>4. I want to have an artist residency in Nevada County.</p>
<p>--</p>
<p>i saw an advertisement for the <a contents="Huichica Music Festival" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://sonoma.huichica.com/" target="_blank">Huichica Music Festival</a>. A group called <a contents="(((folkYEAH!)))" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://folkyeah.com/" target="_blank">(((folkYEAH!)))</a> is presenting the festival and seems to regularly do things I like up and down the coast. They are featuring Linda Perhacs, who is a great artist, 73, with one other album that she did in her 20s I think. She came out with "The Soul of All Natural Things" in 2014 and I remember really being into her song <em>Intensity</em> then. I'm really appreciating <a contents="Children" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://thesoulofallnaturalthings.bandcamp.com/track/children" target="_blank"><em>Children</em></a> right now.</p>5:48Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/52647182018-05-29T20:38:12-07:002018-05-30T06:55:24-07:00Own It<p>It’s taken me longer to write this week’s post because my mind has skipped around to a few topics. I may or may not sew them up here. Maybe you can? </p>
<p>Heart and mind sunshine explosion </p>
<p>There's not a person I know who doesn't thrive on feeling like they are in the right place at the right time. Or maybe even that they are in the right place just before it is the right time. </p>
<p>What is that, exactly?</p>
<p>Why does immediate connection provide such amplified confirmation? And how is it that disconnection is so disorienting? </p>
<p>Last Monday I was able to attend the Creative Placemaking workshop hosted by Nevada County Arts Council. Grass Valley, Nevada City and Truckee are all part of a newly recognized rural arts district. There are only 14 arts districts recognized in the entire state of California. </p>
<p>It felt like being somewhere just before something amazing happens. I feel like I am in some lucky time portal where I can contribute to the planning, where I'm not living in the after effects of activity, but where I can be an architect. </p>
<p>It was inclusive, passionate and energized. </p>
<p>And I don't really know what to do with myself outside of that kind of energy. It's honest, it shakes (in a good way). I was amped the whole day! </p>
<p>I actually had a conversation with an attendee about coffee. She had left it behind after moving here from LA. </p>
<p>It reminded me of a conversation with another close friend about alcohol. ”I realized I only need it after a day working at a job I don't like.” </p>
<p><a contents="This is something I’ve explored before." data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://youtu.be/Hv6_VAALH3c" target="_blank">This is something I’ve explored before.</a> I haven't found anything further on this. I still drink coffee and alcohol.</p>
<p>The feeling of sunshine exploding from your head and heart is so high that when you encounter anything that is less, it's dramatically depressing. It is night and day. And it calls on a person to confront. And confrontation is so much harder than pointing out mistakes and walking away. It feels heavy. It feels fraught. It is the opposite of feeling like sunshine is exploding out of your heart and mind. </p>
<p>And you must own it. Again and again, it’s up to you to own it and spare your own sanity!</p>
<p>You to say you disagree or were hurt or upset and why, even when you’re afraid the other person won’t relate or understand. </p>
<p>You to eat healthy and exercise and figure out how to live your life. </p>
<p>You to be honest no matter what the cost. </p>
<p>You to learn to hear your instincts and develop that skill through practice.</p>
<p>You to be more responsible and not be wasteful. </p>
<p>You to let your hair go grey (if it’s a voice that’s nagging you - very much not a care of mine if people decide to not be grey!) </p>
<p>You to know you are not alone; other people relate to you.</p>
<p>Thanks for reading, </p>
<p>Michelle</p>4:18Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/52457812018-05-20T15:32:56-07:002020-07-04T00:52:07-07:00Pastrami and Preferred Architecture<p>Multi-floored buildings packed with people are great examples of giant pastrami-like layers of ideas. </p>
<p>Delicious, but I don’t want a meat lover’s sandwich right now, or ever actually, but that’s just me. All good if that’s your thing. </p>
<p>I have a preferred architecture. I forgot I did. Or I never thought consciously about it until now.</p>
<p>It operates in curves and waves. It is a rolling diagonal of tree covered mountains. It has equal parts blue sky and clouds for remembering that life is bigger. It swoops in and out of time. It speeds up on a wind current, and slows down to rest. It takes in the sun and connects dreams to experience regularly.</p>
<p>Now I just have to remember that when I’m between pastrami slices. </p>
<p>This week I overworked again. I felt I had to, which is a problem I’m having. I felt it was the only way out. It cascaded across the week until I felt a panic on Saturday night. I started thinking “I could take on that project at 8pm and work til midnight or 1. After all I won’t have internet on the day’s drive from Portland to Grass Valley on Sunday and Monday I deliberately took off in order to really recoup, get myself, the house and fam prepped for the week.” Something in me said stop. Perhaps it was the part that was aware that I had confused three projects during the week, and that I would never have the clarity of mind that I want if I keep diving in. It’s not effective. Overworking is not effective. And it’s not my preference despite somehow having a PTSD muscle memory response and continued bad habit of participating in it. </p>
<p>“I have to” and “I can’t” are my horse blinders. Here are some that I discoverered were active without my conscious signoff. Some of these hurt to think about in the sense that I realize I wasn’t the person who thought I could, who broke through whatever wall was in my way. Acting - I can’t be cast. There’s no one who looks like me or my family on the screen (This was back in the 90s.) I can’t have money/get credit. I can’t pay my bills. I have to break my back for things I believe in. I have to work for little to no money. I have to feel separate. </p>
<p>That’ll shape your perspective and break your heart a little in the - as Michael Pollen said on a late night interview on his book <a contents="Reluctant Psychonaut" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/05/15/611225541/reluctant-psychonaut-michael-pollan-embraces-the-new-science-of-psychedelics" target="_blank">Reluctant Psychonaut</a>, “I am not my ego.” - sense. </p>
<p>How to reapproach? Stop. Stop before I start. Stop again. Stop ‘til it feels like a risk; ‘til it feels like I’m going in the wrong direction and until I see a new one. </p>
<p>That works. </p>
<p>I didn’t let myself overwork on Saturday. I can see the three hours I need on Tuesday very clearly and they can wait til Tuesday, when I’m rested. This is much better than 5 hours on Saturday, exhausted, panicked and not seeing clearly or feeling confident about my work. </p>
<p>Not following the “fight” reflex makes space for me to see my preferred line: green, ascending, multi-dimensional, calm, conscientious of the structures my actions exist in, in order to move from reactive to responsive, transcend, find, operate and build in superstructures. </p>
<p>—- </p>
<p>“With a Thought” ends our Chapter 2.</p>5:04Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/52306272018-05-12T07:39:57-07:002022-04-15T04:11:16-07:00Pace and Space<p>"It's rarely possible in a high pace, high profile, high pressure environment, to reflect on what you're doing." This was said by renowned pastry chef Wil Goldfarb in Volume 3 of Chef's Table. He's talking about why he disappeared from NYC.</p>
<p>I can relate to that. And it's timely to read this on vacation after six months of really over-working and going back forth from NYC. NYC is for doing (Love!). Fast (Love!). Well (Exponential Love!). NYC pace. A pace that I sought out by living in different cities and enjoyed most of my life. There's an overtone to all of that activity and it's intriguing. </p>
<p>I wouldn't say reflection is rarely possible, but it's not a kind of evening bath soak of a reflection. It's a how-fast-can-you-say-ok how-fast-can-this-observation-become-second-nature how-fast-can-you-incorporate-what-you-just-learned kind of reflection. That has it's own refreshing power. You learn and you move on, as fast as you can.</p>
<p>As fast as I can is also, for me, a way of not dealing with a longer term reality, or a lack of vision about a longer term reality. I used to be able to see an end goal or feel some kind of end feeling. I think it looked like recording; I don't think it ever looked like touring. Now I don't know what's over there. I have a vision of Sarah Vaughan at the piano and a memory of my dad saying "not many people know she used to play piano too" Is that me at 50? What is 6 months from now? What is 5 years? I couldn't tell you. I have to rebuild those skills. I've lost them in cities.</p>
<p>Not everybody loses those skills in cities. Some people have them and stick to them. They're disciplined.</p>
<p>I know how to be disciplined. I remember charting out my day in sometimes 5 minute increments of activity. I was fine in losing myself in that kind of chart when it was about skill building, but when it was about artistic career building...the magnet reversed. I can't explain how or why the record stops but it's a firm unwillingness kind of a feeling. A haunting feeling that work in that direction is just work to sign up for the bad pyramid scheme of broken capitalism, and endless sign up of courses to learn how to, video after video of search engine optimization, of how to be a better salesman. For what, again? It doesn't add up and so my road tends to stop right there.</p>
<p>I don't know where to go when it comes to economizing. And by that I don't mean that I don't know the myriad mechanisms. I mean I don't want to sell myself or my work (short). Personally anyway. I'd be happy if there was someone else who wanted to sell it for me. (And that's probably what everyone who is no longer having to sell something for themselves gets to say?)</p>
<p>This post marks the near end of Chapter 2. And now I have a looming feeling. We're catching up to the present day. I don't have a plan.</p>
<p>I say near because the whole time I've been writing the post, I've actually been thinking I would be sharing "With A Thought" which is the last track on the album. Today's track is actually "Problem with You" which makes more sense than it should considering it's from more than 10 years ago.</p>
<p>Thanks for this time and space together. This is my new weekly residency. It is the space where I can share developed and under-developed ideas. It is the space for me to reflect, with you, and I'm grateful to have it. I build these thoughts on short walks to work, or moments before bed or in the morning, in conversations through the week. I'm not in NYC but I still live a high-paced life where the only time to write this is the 30 minutes before I "need" to post it on Saturdays. It's the only artistic discipline I feel like upholding right now as I shake the marbles out of my head and try to make sense of it all.</p>4:34Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/52193572018-05-05T21:55:05-07:002022-03-18T21:57:56-07:00All The Things<p>Three short thoughts this week:</p>
<p>1. All the things you think you have to do vs. all the things you don't do.</p>
<p>2. Why is silence so powerful?</p>
<p>3. How is it that truly earnest expression - of any kind, it need not be artistic expression - can unlock so much in another human being?</p>
<p> </p>3:47Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/52069832018-04-27T22:08:12-07:002022-02-24T02:35:15-08:00Some thoughts are energizing.<p>and others aren't.</p>
<p>Why? </p>
<p>--</p>
<p>This track features writer Genevia Wylie. I like collaborating with Genevia. We can talk about a sparse idea and she sometimes has words to lend. In this track she's also speaking her words. That's hard to do. </p>
<p>Speaking over music is maybe even harder than singing. </p>
<p>Speaking over no music is probably the hardest thing of all. A super moon.</p>
<p>Lexicon.</p>6:21Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/51942462018-04-21T06:52:20-07:002018-04-21T06:52:20-07:00I'm on a plane.<p>I'm flying in to New York City.</p>
<p>I'm being flown in to New York City.</p>
<p>I'm being flown in because I am the best person for the job. In New York City. From the 7.5 miles up in the air on this plane that feels quietly remarkable. (It still feels remarkable on the ground.)</p>
<p>Recognition is a powerful thing. It calls on you. It enables your strengths by simply seeing they are there. It's reciprocal, or can be, but it's more than reciprocal. It's yeast in bread. </p>
<p>It makes me look back on situations. Where could recognition have played a transformational role? Where did I abandon instead of recognize? Good and bad. Recognizing good is great. Recognizing bad is important too. To face it head on. To not pretend it's not there.</p>
<p>Once on the ground, I check in and walk to the day's work. I run into a past work friend. She tells me she had just been thinking of me, of all of the history of Issue Project Room and how no one there now had the opportunity of knowing Suzanne Fiol and how she wants to put together that history because what Suzanne built is so powerful. I immediately remember standing in the space on Livingston, when it was still a dream to her, and feeling the current under our feet. Issue would be there. It is now.</p>
<p><img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/An_aerial_scenic_view_of_clouds_from_plane.jpg/!!/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsImxhcmdlIl1d.jpg" class="size_l justify_left border_none" alt="" /></p>5:54Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/51796932018-04-16T23:11:13-07:002020-06-24T22:20:10-07:00Entregar, to deliver<p>Sometimes I hear Spanish words as song titles. Sometimes as lyrics.</p>
<p>This song developed across 2003, recorded in 2004 and released in 2005 is one of those.</p>
<p>I didn't know the word entregar, but it came to mind. I looked up what it meant. One meaning was "to deliver" and that seemed right for the rest of the lyrics that I had written.</p>
<p>I don’t speak Spanish. I should speak Spanish. I studied it in high school, I studied it in college. I studied four years of Latin. I bought some CDs again 5 years ago. I'll sign up for babbel tomorrow. </p>
<p>It’s in there, but isn’t developed. I am not in enough dominantly Spanish-speaking environments on a daily basis to force the language out of its hermit crab shell. Right now it just peers out and tries to crack a joke where it can:</p>
<p>Un perro y un gato se siente en el patio.</p>
<p>El perro preguntas "Como estas?" y el gato dice "Ohhh, ,meow bien. Meow bien." <br> </p>
<p>:D</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>The saxophone sound at 2:31 on this track recorded in 2004 is the sound I now hear in 2018 at sunset each night. It is the sound of geese at sunset in Grass Valley. </p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Improvisation. The conversations these musicians have with each other. Like little cities.</p>4:09Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/51753592018-04-10T22:40:55-07:002018-04-11T09:15:51-07:00I quit my job.<p>(in 2003)</p>
<p>On a day's notice. It's the only time I've done that. </p>
<p>"How dare I ask for more money...When someone asks you to step up, you say yes!" he roared red-faced in front of the entrance lobby of my work as everyone looked through the glass wall office. I tried to stay neutral. I was shaking...that shake. With every roar, I tried to diffuse his anger, 'he can escalate, but I will neutralize' was what I kept saying to myself, but then he got me. His "how dare I take advantage of the company in its moment of need" flew like a giant fishing hook into my gut and it was over. This strange uproar was the result of my request for more money, not even a request, consideration of a request! This ugliness. This master and slave ugliness and that's when I started crying, bawling. And then, seeing I was broken, he calmed from his ten alarm fire of distraction down to zero - so fast, I realize in retrospect the creepy speed at which he shifted gears. Without a trace of his rage he calmly offered that the job was just like family, how I'd rethink my position over the weekend and come back clear-headed. </p>
<p>I did. And I quit.</p>
<p>I remember what I was wearing in that shaking moment. It was a mint cotton 3/4 sleeve shirt and black straight leg jeans.</p>
<p>Close door. Open new one.</p>
<p>Possibly the same day, but more likely the next one, I walked down the street and right into Todd Brown's studio in San Francisco, a studio which would become Red Poppy. I would tell him I just quit my job and needed a place to play. He would tell me he had been talking about that 5 minutes prior to my arrival.</p>
<p>I started playing there weekly across I think a year or so? That weekly conversation, the rotating cast of musicians - who can do the gig this week? - that's what you need to develop something, anything really. Time, relationship, and some really talented people who are willing to go down your road just to see where it leads. Thanks to everyone who showed up during that time.</p>
<p>It's strange to look back and see the community that surrounded me then and at the same time remember feeling alone. I felt alone with these songs. I think I still felt on the wrong side of urgent.</p>
<p>I didn't know I was just dreaming about today.</p>
<p>I can wonder how it would have changed things, or I can recognize that's what is happening the next time I feel alone with my perspective. </p>
<p>On a related and not related note, <a contents="this article" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science/talking-to-whales-180968698/" target="_self">this article</a> from start to finish.</p>6:43Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/51633542018-04-07T00:56:22-07:002018-04-07T08:28:48-07:00End of Chapter 1: Floored<p>I am lying on my back on the ground in Dave Bell’s recording studio. My elbows are crossed over my face. I am listening to the playback of this take. I am listening to Leonard Thompson’s solo. I am realizing how much music happened in such a short span of recording.</p>
<p>Do you hear what I hear when you listen to these tracks? </p>
<p>Do you hear a tidal wave? Some other-worldliness? Some all-encompassing language more present than words? </p>
<p>Is it breathing?</p>
<p>...The lyrics to this song never fully made sense to me until now. </p>
<p>This is freedom.</p>
<p>At the end of this take, at the end of this session, I will close the door of the studio and I will feel the urgency of contrast. I won't understand where I fit in or how. I will be heartbroken that the world does not hear a tidal wave too. I I won't value the response I do receive.</p>
<p>It's OK. It's life. I'll make it through.</p>
<p>Charles Mingus will help. There's an interview of him that I still can't find. I heard it on cassette tape, loaned out from the Sunnyvale Library back when there was microfiche. I wish I could find that tape and hear his exact words. Something about how when you make music, you picture people dancing in the streets. And how that's not what happens. I don't think he says that last part explicitly. He just says you make music and you picture people dancing in the streets....</p>
<p>I will feel floored again. Floored without containment or urgency. In Boston in May 2014.</p>
<p>At sunrise, I will walk across town and listen to a recording from Dayna Stephens of a work of mine that he recorded by surprise. A work I wrote for him a few years after Composition's recording. A work I knew was his when it was just in my head, while in the passenger seat of a car, driving westward on the Bay Bridge, just passing Treasure Island. In my right peripheral vision, I will see golden sparkles lifting from low left to high almost like an overlay to the silhouette of Treasure Island at sunset. In this quiet moment I will smile to know that "Amber is Falling" is Dayna's. I will know I should give it to him, and I do.</p>
<p>I won't remember I've seen glitter once before, in 1996, when Adrian Orme died.</p>
<p>- I've re-written this next section all week, so I'll stop trying to rewrite it and just let you read these elements. -</p>
<p>From the side view, any activity in a cylinder that happens along a cylinder appears in a sequence, but view the activity from one end of the cylinder and it becomes layered co-existence. I'm reminded of <a contents="SLAC" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/about/slac-history" target="_blank">SLAC</a> and a grade school tour of the facility. Particle acceleration.</p>
<p>Now consider these things again: I will envision golden leaves which I will interpret to be a statement of some kind that Amber is Falling is song that cosmically belongs to Dayna. I will record that song with John Shifflett and the many members of the True Believers in 2005. Nearly a decade later, Dayna Stephens will record it with artists I greatly admire. It will feel like the heavens open. I will feel like I belong and I will feel in awe of how beautiful it is that each of these artists will contribute their best. Every choice they make will be incredible. I will hear a tidal wave in their sound. Dayna will call his album Gratitude (in honor of his own life, saved by his aunt who donated her kidney to save him) and will release it on April 7, 2017. </p>
<p>John Shifflett will pass away on April 27, 2017. RIP, John.<br><br><a contents="here" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1vXo_cdDGIxV0xGSnUyOVdVaHlHckxyWkRIaWFPSnllanhF" target="_blank">Here</a> is the recording of Amber with John Shifflett in 2005.</p>
<p>And <a contents="here" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://daynastephens.net/music/gratitude/" target="_blank">here</a> is an excerpt from Dayna's recording in 2014/released in 2017. (Purchase his album. You won't regret it.)</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/57215/20c365225fc0729afced7c1e26023756b2f65dd3/medium/img-5594.jpg" class="size_m justify_left border_" /></p>
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<p><br>Stained glass artwork by Tim Bulkley.</p>3:08Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/51612002018-04-02T22:43:50-07:002018-04-03T06:36:50-07:00Hellfire and Orange Juice<p>You have something unique to offer. </p>
<p>This is what most healthy parents tell their children.</p>
<p>It's true.</p>
<p>It's as true as your face.</p>
<p>I can't explain the hellfire urgency that accompanied trying to offer this uniqueness in my twenties. I hated it. When something's urgent, it means it's not here and it's not now. This urgency was an unwelcome obstacle. I would hear it in recordings. It was the extension of the shake. in the middle of Rome, in the middle of legendary producers and other young artists, I would feel it, and I would hate it. Leroy Burgess would yell across a crowd to me "Michelle, you're SO SAD!" or maybe he said mad? It was pretty much both. That he could see it made it even worse.</p>
<p>It's the kind of angry urgency I've only seen a few times, once when I worked in my parents' cafe. A man in his 50s walked in, irate. "GIIIVE MEEE ORANGE JUICE!!!" he roared. I was stunned. My dad was familiar with the situation, but he wasn't behind the counter. "Pupa, get the man some orange juice!" and in minutes the roaring monster turned into a human being. In case you are wondering, Pupa, pronounced poo-pah but without hanging out too long on the vowels, is one of my dad's names for me from the many names in his imagination. Pupita, Puca (this one was actually granted by my godfather and means imaginary 6-foot rabbit. Thanks! I'll take that). Years later my oldest brother would insist that Cachoomba was an original part of the nickname lexicon. He would perpetuate this propaganda until now when people's memories are fuzzy. It was not, though you can expect to see a comment below from him if he reads this. Who knows. Maybe it was what they called me behind my back! I didn't hear it until my late 20s, so I call bull, is all I'm saying. Besides, it has an unpleasant sound. </p>
<p>I wasn't urgent about music growing up. Music was just a part of life. Go swimming. Eat food. Climb a tree. Ride your bike around the block. Play the piano. Make up some music. There's some TV in there and me trying to sneak in rock and roll on my stereo in my room. (Rock and roll was not allowed. :D!)</p>
<p>I don't remember my first song, but I remember my second song, which I made in high school and which I think I created as a soundtrack to a high school memories video? My dad had a camcorder that I had quickly made my own. That thing was heavy!! But I loved bringing it everywhere and catching pieces. And if anyone out there has that VHS gift I made, please share it back. I remember fragments only and I'm fairly confident there was an overuse of the built-in effects! YEAH!!</p>
<p>This second song is one I have remembered clearly for years. <a contents="I just sat down to record it for you." data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hdCIXt22pqG4rnGJTJUUSYO6uxWakyzS" target="_self">I just sat down to record a rough for you.</a> (It's done on my phone, so you know...production quality.)</p>
<p>I don't remember my first song, but I remember playing it for my godfather. I think I was in middle school? I remember it having a rag-time feel. I think. I remember the beautiful brown tigerwood upright piano that my mother refinished. And I remember my godfather standing about 3 feet behind me. Listening. He didn't say anything, really. He asked me to play it again. A few times. He asked me if it was mine.</p>
<p>At that time, he was just my godfather, as in a person who has no identity except the role they play in your life. I mean that was one aspect of who he was. He was also a crooner. That's how my godfather met my dad and became friends. He would sing and my dad would accompany him in San Francisco. Back in the day. Those two on the town. Now that's something. Imagining these two made me imagine hellfire and orange juice as a cocktail. Guess what? <a contents="It is one!" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.gayot.com/blog/short-order-nancy-silverton-burger-restaurant/hellfire-cocktail/" target="_blank">It is one!</a></p>3:05Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/51555142018-03-29T22:43:10-07:002023-12-10T09:31:46-08:00I feel anxious.<p>I’m in a car. </p>
<p>For a while. </p>
<p>The best thing that I can do is breathe deeply. I breathe in the most that I can. I try to breathe in to each last lung pocket. (The word crepuscular came to mind just now, a word i don’t remember ever really learning. I had to look it up just now. This happens regularly when writing. Words come out that I don't remember ever learning or using before. Crepuscular means relating to twilight.)</p>
<p>I try to use the technique from Brent Blair’s acting class. I breathe in to every last corner. It doesn't feel like it's enough. I feel conscious of the pockets that aren't getting filled, that the inhalation isn't big enough. After a few breaths like this, I decide to hold it at the top of the inhale and exhale, waiting to notice any small microcosmic difference. I feel stiff. I feel myself over-expecting with every breath. I will need to do this for 30 more minutes to feel a margin of relief. I will share with whomever is next to me that I am anxious. This time it is my husband. He will squeeze my knee to acknowledge.</p>
<p>The best thing for me not to do is flip through every aspect of my life to try and uncover what might produce the cause. What might match up exactly to this deep and nameless anxiety. This is the best thing for me not to do because there is no matchup. </p>
<p>The best thing for me to do is let it come and let it go. It has a crescendo. It has a denoument.</p>
<p>This is the best thing for me to do.</p>
<p>“It’s Just A Thought” </p>
<p>My father wrote the music. He’s written a lot of songs but is not a lyricist. It took a few years for me to complete the lyrics. </p>
<p>Scott Sorkin is playing guitar here, beautifully.</p>
<p>The album cover pictured here did not feature this song, but it does feature amazing versions of Moon River, Laura and <a contents="more" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://www.augustoamadormusic.com/" target="_self">more</a>.</p>4:19Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/51415462018-03-24T11:14:54-07:002018-03-26T11:45:25-07:00Why Do You Want to Make a CD?<p>"Why do you want to make a CD?"</p>
<p>This was one of two instances (that I remember) where someone more experienced asked me a question that I didn't fully hear until years later. </p>
<p>The first time was when I was in college and decided to change my major from acting to political science. My father kept asking "But what are you going to do?” (I remember the "doooooo" having a kind of echo through the payphone receiver.)</p>
<p>What he meant was "what are you going to do with a political science degree; what are you going to do for work? You're a musician and how will that help you get work?"</p>
<p>I think I couldn’t hear my dad then (he would argue "ever!" haha, very funny Pops!) because I just wanted to get out of school. To me, political science was the fastest way that was still interesting. I really just wanted to be a professional musician and I was discouraged that transferring to the BA program for music meant starting over and gaining more debt. (Besides, obviously the clear path for anyone who has studied acting, writes music and has a degree in political science is to become an arts administrator for outstanding arts organizations on the east and west coasts and record albums every four years. I mean DUH, right?)</p>
<p>The second time a question skipped over me was when Ann Dyer - vocalist, dancer, and now director of Mountain Yoga - asked me why I'd want to make a CD. At the time she was also marketing director for SFJAZZ. Somehow, when my green self came into her office to ask if she'd have time to meet with me to share advice on the music business, she decided to make the time. She welcomed me into her home. We talked about this and that. She asked me that question and what I think she meant was why did I literally want to make a CD, and more to the point of experience, "what are you going to do with the 1,000 CDs in your garage?" Cuz that's what happens when you make a CD, unless you have a plan to sell them. Good point, Ann! I think I'm down to 500 at this point, so you know...progress! ;) </p>
<p>I couldn’t hear Ann then, because I was following some play book laid out by articles on "what to do next", but there is no clear path for an artist, it's your own. But you sure seek one out. Or I did anyway. I just wanted a clue of what to do, where to go, and to feel like there was some path carved out that I was safe to follow.</p>
<p>Sometimes I'm sorry I didn't transfer to music school. I see the relationships that formed, the community that I might have had in being somewhere at the same time with other people who were trying to grow their skills. </p>
<p>I'm not sorry I made a CD. I'm so glad I recorded these ideas. I'm so lucky I got to record these ideas with these people!! I'm so grateful to have a chance to reflect. You can't reflect on undeveloped ideas, or you can on your own, but they don't engage on a broader scale. I have a box of cassette tapes with short ideas from years ago, a box of written out song ideas, and 200+ short recordings on my phone that are great evidence to that fact.</p>
<p>My point is...I'm happy I etched out the moments in time that I did. </p>
<p>There's something I keep thinking about from the first post in this blog to the memory of talking with Ann. I'm not sure that I'll write this out clearly, I've rewritten it a few times, so bear with me for this last section...</p>
<p>I'm the age Ann was when I came bounding up asking her questions. The college grads are the same age I was when they asked questions of me. And how a recording is a moment in time that still lives on. Past. Present. and Future. </p>
<p>I am the younger me, I am me now, and I'm some future me, all in this moment. I am here and I am there(s). Contributing to this -- I am also living in CA and working with people in Brooklyn. I am in two time zones at once. </p>
<p>This shifts my perspective from 360 degrees to something spherical. From flat to 3D. (On a side nerd note, if you are wondering how many degrees are in a sphere, you would be asking the wrong question. Spheres can't be measured in degrees.Turns out they are measured in steradians or square degrees. There are 4 pi, or approximately 12.5664, steradians in a complete sphere.)</p>
<p>I feel a deeper, more immediate appreciation of the path I am taking, a path that doesn't have the comfort of a well-worn mud pathway to follow, but diverges through the field. I'm compelled.</p>
<p>As I walk around town thinking about this I am filled to tears with appreciation for the relationships and community around me. This is a greater depth of gratitude than I've known before. </p>
<p>Here's to life in 4 pi!</p>
<p>Thanks for being here. Thanks for listening.</p>5:17Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/51353402018-03-19T00:26:21-07:002022-04-21T04:42:35-07:00I Used To Shake<p>The first time I sang as myself - not as part of a choir, not as an actress playing a character - I shook. Visibly. Violently.</p>
<p>I was looking down. Shaking. And singing. I could not lift my head. I could not stop myself from shaking. And I could not stop singing.</p>
<p>Tapping in to that energy is exhilarating.</p>
<p>It’s a lightning rod. It’s the truth.</p>
<p>And it's hard for me to do. Singing is the hardest thing I do. I am always failing at it. </p>
<p>It used to be harder; back when I would hate everything I did. Back when the time before a show felt like an hour of navigating real fears of spontaneous combustion. And when the time after a show was filled with the deepest heart-breaking-est disappointment in myself. I wasn't a clear channel. I wasn't Sarah Vaughn. I wasn't Carmen McRae. I wasn't even me. UGH.</p>
<p>...Funny the things you can tell yourself. Who else can you be?</p>
<p>I say "back when" but I didn't stop shaking in one way or another until I turned 40. I mean, I guess it's still there sometimes, but something changed for the better.</p>
<p>"Hold On" </p>
<p>It's 1998. I'm 23.</p>
<p> </p>5:25Michelle Amadortag:michelleamadormusic.com,2005:Post/51253032018-03-12T23:21:54-07:002022-05-27T22:56:43-07:00First Time In A Long Time<p>For the first time in a long time, I'm going to communicate. Out from under the rock. Out from a space I like to go to. Out from hibernation. I'm going to make some kind of effort. Against the reverse magnet feeling I've come to have about this.</p>
<p>It must be starting to be spring.</p>
<p>I moved. We moved. </p>
<p>We moved from cities (homes for the last 20+ years) to the forest. Now we live in the forest.</p>
<p>In this move, I was confronted with box after box of music. My music. My past in music. Some kind of trail. Am I still a musician? Maybe the college graduates I'm scheduled to meet with on Thursday will be able to tell me. I'm part of a group discussion panel on how to maintain being a practicing artist and an arts administrator. </p>
<p>Maybe I'll understand if I look at each song. What is it I've written? What did I feel so motivated by to engage other people, many I barely know, in learning, recording, performing, and sharing? What do I invest in again and again?...And why did I desert these ideas so soon after they were created? </p>
<p>Don't know. Just know to listen.</p>
<p>First up? Element of Soul</p>
<p>Here's what I remember: I remember asking people to listen to it, this first album. I remember hating my voice and loving my voice. I remember I was taking piano from Don Haas before this album. I remember recording at Dave Bell's studio. I remember John Shifflett and my first memory of him as a happy bee of a bass player. I miss John Shifflett. I remember Leonard Thompson. I remember finding Michaelle Goerlitz. I remember listening in the booth with my then boyfriend now husband Tim Bulkley. I remember sharing it with people and I remember Howard Wiley singing the chorus back to me "Find, element of soul...can you find element of soul?"</p>
<p>I remember sitting on the bus for the cover photo. Nicholas Furnari took the picture and Megan Claire Riedel did the graphic design. Megan and I were friends. We still are. We met because we lived in the same apartment bulding, in the same room of our floor plans. We also worked together. She for a graphics company and me for SFJAZZ. Nick was one of the roommates in my apartment and a great photographer.</p>
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/57215/d424d16ce94827cf3c0338880f0d20b95bb75292/original/composition.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" /></p>
<p>This is my life in San Francisco in 2001. </p>2:56Michelle Amador