Inspired Me To Play Again

[peacock]

This isn't about a specific song - well, it's about a few - but I've been listening to Cat/Yusuf's songs a lot lately and they've inspired me to re-learn piano and guitar.

I took piano lessons for many years, played a bit of guitar and even thought one day I'd play professionally, or at least amateurishly messing around in a band. Actually did play in a band way back in the day, but wow, we were bad!

But I haven't really played for . . . well, about as long as our dear Yusuf went without it. A good 25 years. I just lost interest, then I was so awful at it that I got discouraged whenever I tried.

But I was determined to begin again, and am happy to report I can now play a nice little simple version of Morning Has Broken on piano (sure is a pretty song!), and can manage the chords on the guitar.

I'm working on the intro to Sad Lisa as a piano hand exercise. It's hard!

Yep, not easy, but fun. Maybe one day I'll be able to play for friends.

[richina]

That's wonderful news Peacock (love your avatar)!

I, too, played piano long ago, and would love to relearn it, but alas I have no piano. Unless I want to drive to my Mom's house 30 miles away.

Maybe one day we'll see you on YouTube! ;D

[ilovemycat]

Funny - I've started playing piano again lately and began with Morning Has Broken as well. Keep it up Peacock! I think it's good for the soul to have a creative outlet, don't you think?

Richina - go buy yourself a piano on ebay! ;D

[peacock]

Or just a nice electronic keyboard. You can get one on ebay probably under $50.

I have a piano and also two electrics. Nice thing about the electrics is you can use headphones, so nobody knows how bad you're playing!

Trouble is now I'm lusting after a 12 string guitar. Hm, maybe someday.

[richina]

What a good idea. I'd have to have something with headphones so I wouldn't drive my husband crazy!
Y'all don't know it, but I'm a dancer (shut up Jane ). I tap and do American Step Dance (in the mountains it's called clogging). The reason I'm telling you this is because I make my husband a little goofy when I bust out dancing and singing around the house. He makes a squirrely face and shakes his head (the dogs love it though, and so do my birds ). Could you imagine if I added piano accompaniment to it ?
Oh, and he really gets annoyed when I git to dancin' in public...I hear music (sometimes only in my head) and don't realize....oh well, maybe I'm just happy!? hee hee whatever!!

[ilovemycat]

You could probably take that show on the road! Piano accompaniment to clogging - awesome!

[JaneB]

Ha! I just love you, Richina! That little "shut up, Jane" in the middle of your post is the best! This is great news - since your husband is used to you HE can sit between us at the Yusuf concerts! This way poor Yusuf doesn't have to look aout at the audience and see empty seats.

Problem solved!

[richina]

Heck no! He has to stay here and take care of my critters! Anyway, he is a total "stick in the mud"! One of us had to be the fun one....turns out it wuz me!! My sister will probably come with me and would be a perfect "padding" between us. She lets me be myself, but will also snatch a knot in my butt if I should get too carried away. Besides, Yusuf won't have to look OUT at the audience to see us ...remember, we're gonna be right up front
"justa smilin' man"! ;D

PS I think I write like I talk...only slower. And you know how slow we talk in the south...took me a damn hour to type this.
Peace out

[tiffany]

I like listening to music of the last five decades, and my era was in the 1960s, the decade of the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and Donovan, who I was really hooked on at first. Eventually, Cat Stevens burst on to the music scene also as a teenage pop sensation, until illness hit him at the age of 19, then in 1970, he was a changed man!! Reflective music, a new outlook inspired me to learn to play a instrument, so I tried playing a guitar, but couldn't handle the notes. Finally, I was introduced to the zither, a flat stringed instrument similar to an autoharp, so I learned to play tunes on it, by playing the chords. Since then, I've been playing every song by Yusuf/Cat, and singing along with it.

[flemmishfangent]

Richina invites us all we would have a hell of a time maybe your husband can go on a little holiday for his poor heart lol

[peacock]

Self-taught song of the week: Sitting. It's really easy, and so much fun to play!

Yeah, I'm gonna have to record my stuff sometime, just for grins. I try to play a little each day and have gotten to the point where I can play Morning Has Broken without any mistakes, which is awesome for me. I've even revisited some of the classical songs from my long-ago lessons and gosh, it's amazing how much better it goes when you practice regularly.

About a month ago a friend of mine had a party and his guests included, informally, a bluegrass band. They played some stuff for us, but it was all real friendly, just sitting around a campfire, not like on stage or anything. And one guy invited ME to come up and play the upright bass--you know, the thing that looks like a cello that you pluck, has no frets -- and he taught me a few basics, then our friend the guitar player did a little tune for me to play along with. I tell you, I was in HEAVEN. And nobody else seemed to really understand why this got me so excited.

I really need to do more of this.

[Sir Lorry Load]

Aug 24, 2010 15:38:13 GMT -5 peacock said:

This isn't about a specific song - well, it's about a few - but I've been listening to Cat/Yusuf's songs a lot lately and they've inspired me to re-learn piano and guitar.

This has truly been a great thread from its inception, Peacock, and one that is extremely interesting, as well as so much fun, to follow.

I would imagine that your thoughts and experiences about returning to piano and guitar have inspired more than a few of us to pick up on some special activities, again, ones that we had let slip away and greatly missed.

Yusuf inspired you... You have inspired us!

-Bud

[peacock]

So. Today, I was at my church with several other people helping to decorate the sanctuary and altar for Christmas. We have a new pastor. Getting a new church pastor is always an interesting experience. We all loved the old one and miss him. This new guy may only stay 2 years - it's complicated - but we're getting to know him and so far we really like him a lot! He's got a great sense of humor and something I didn't know till today is that he sings opera, used to direct operas at his college, and plays piano.

Our church has been suffering financially and has had to eliminate our organist except for special occasions. This means blah recorded music. But up there on the side of the altar along with the organ is an electric piano. I am very shy but have been aching to volunteer to play - it's gotta be better than that recorded computerized system they've got. Now, our new pastor was messing around, taking a little break from helping with the decorating, and played a Michael Jackson melody. I came over to enjoy it. He asked me if I played.

My response? "Nah," I said, "I just play Cat Stevens songs." But of course one of those songs happens to be in our hymnbook. So I played it.

What fun! I got to play Morning Has Broken for a few people in our church! I'm not sure too many of them really paid attention, but I enjoyed it anyhow!

I also played a couple of simple Christmas tunes. OK, so I wasn't entirely honest, I do know a few other songs.

Will I do more of that? I don't know. Maybe, if I'm asked, but as I said, I'm dreadfully, painfully shy!!!!

[suncatcher]

Lovely story, Peacock. I met some peacocks at a farm once - really - they were using them as watch dogs because they make a very loud, harsh sound! Funny thing about peacocks, they're flashy and loud, but run away when you try to get near them - I suppose you could say they're painfully shy. Your story reminded me of this.



I hope you get to play piano at church every week - that would be lovely.

Peace,
~Sun~

[peacock]

I went to a sleepover once when I was about 10 or so, with the Girl Scouts; we slept in a barn, in the hay loft, over the sheep pens. Sometime that next morning I was awakened by the sound of somebody yelling HELP! HELP! HELP! And I woke up our GS leader to tell her somebody was yelling for help! Turned out it was the peacocks!

But there is another reason I chose the name.

[downunder72]

Peacock, this is your lucky chance, don't knock it back. Even if they don'y ask you, offer that you would love to play for your church. I was painfully shy when I was young, and I still am to a a certain degree that is still quite painfull, and I have missed out on many wonderful experiences due to shyness, but now I always try to remember a particular song when I feel this way. I don't have to remind you how that song goes ;D..."DON'T BE SHY"... Christmas would be a lovely begining, offer, and only good will come out of this. Your new pastor seems a very nice character and I think he would really appreciate your offer. DO IT TODAY!!!!

Peacocks yelling for help!!!!? ;D Love to know the other reason, but I won't insist if it's very special, or very personal that you prefer to keep to yourself.

[Incognita]

I just discovered this thread and I'm loving it ;D ;D
LMAO at the peacocks yelling

[Incognita]

And to anybody here who hestitates about getting back to music/dance I'd say just let your heart take over and you'll find yourself singing and playing like before. Rediscovering Cat's music (via Morning Has Broken - yes that song has some magic spell) brought back my urge to sing. And I realized the music hadn't vanished anywhere, it was all inside.

[peacock]

It's no great secret why I chose "peacock." But I'm going to challenge you to visit my web site and figure it out for yourself.

[richina]

I know, I know! :-) But I ain't tellin'!

[Incognita]

Haha I visited your site Peacock - no I'm not telling either - and the site is lovely. Glad to know you better

[downunder72]

Thankyou for the challege 'peacock', it wasn't at all difficult Found the connection too. ;D I hope you enjoy you work, quite a challenge too.

[peacock]

After we came back from church this evening, we were just sitting around relaxing . . . and I decided this was a good time to play piano. I tried not to feel nervous; I haven't played in front of anyone for a while, but I thought I'd play some Christmas songs. I "winged it" so to speak, and managed a few of them, trying to get the family to sing along and it was GREAT! I have to say, no way would I be able to play this stuff last year, I was so out of practice but now I've been playing so much lately that even new play-by-ear songs come easy.

Then I finally decided to try out that Morning Has Broken song and see what the hubby said . . . he just hates Cat/Yusuf. He's more of a metal/rock/country/redneck kind of guy. But he does respect the Hymnbook so how could he be too critical? And he said "no, I don't like that song, but you do play it very well," which I took as some serious progress.

Why does he dislike Cat/Yusuf so much? Typical American stereotype against Muslims, partly, and then there's the sensitive-guy-hippie thing, just not his kind of music. Logically I can tell him he's an idiot for misunderstanding an entire religion and not appreciating the true musicianship of an entire musical era - mention Cat and all people really remember is Moonshadow and miss the *depth* of his work. But oh well, we're making progress I think

[tiffany]

Well, Peacock, I'm very surprised that your hubby could hate the man we all knew as the Cat, but of course, not many people like him. In my opinon, his music has been inspirational, meaningful, and every song he sung seemed to tell a story. When he left the music world in 1977, it shocked everyone, including me.

I was so inspired by his music, that I was introduced to a zither, which was played in the Third Man, and eventually I began to learn to play the chords. I can play many of those melodies, such as his old music, along with his new stuff he's bringing out. Looking forward to seeing this musical Moonshadow appear in the West End

[Marge]

Dec 20, 2010 9:17:35 GMT -5 peacock said:

I went to a sleepover once when I was about 10 or so, with the Girl Scouts; we slept in a barn, in the hay loft, over the sheep pens. Sometime that next morning I was awakened by the sound of somebody yelling HELP! HELP! HELP! And I woke up our GS leader to tell her somebody was yelling for help! Turned out it was the peacocks!

But there is another reason I chose the name.

And that would be what?