No man is a "I"-land

Subject: No man is a 'I'=Land
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 12 Jan 05 - 12:09 PM

Neither is any woman.

One of the real payoffs in being a performer is that infrequent occasion when everything converges and you make a powerful connection with your audience. It's the perfect antidote for those occasions when you've sung your heart out and the audience did a perfectly good imitation of a herd of cows. Blank eyed and expressionless. I had one of those experiences yesterday. (The connection kind... not the bovien.) I'm on my way out the door, and perhaps will have another one today. Ya never know.

But, whether it's performing, or just moving through your days, for me it's all about connection. There are many ways it happens. It has happened for me many times when I was teaching.

How about sharing some of your memorable connections with me and the rest of us "I's?"

After all, Mudcat at its best is a "We"-land.

Jerry

Subject: RE: No man is a 'I'=Land
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 12 Jan 05 - 12:10 PM

Duh... "I"-Land.

That's what I get for rushing..

Jerry

Subject: RE: No man is a "I"-land
From: Leadfingers
Date: 12 Jan 05 - 02:23 PM

I know exactly what you mean Jerry - Being Musical Wallpaper until you hit on the 'right' song out of the list of 'grabbers' and suddenly people are singing along , and asking for requests , and its suddenly a 'Nice' evening .

Subject: RE: No man is a "I"-land
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 12 Jan 05 - 02:29 PM

Just back from Australia, where I had two such moments, Jerry:

The first was on 18th December at the Almost Acoustic club in Sydney, where the capacity crowd (it was their Christmas "do"), primed by the meticulous Margaret Walters (who had distributed slips of paper with the words to my most convoluted choruses on every table), joined in each and every song I sang with gust and tasteful harmonies. With some 150 people in the room, the wall of sound coming back at me was one of the most heartening experiences in my brief performing career and cancelled any jetlag feeling (I'd landed in Canberra 36 hours earlier and had driven to Sydney that morning).

Afterwards, among the may who approached me for thanks and congratulations was a pretty young lady with her equally young mum, who baught all 5 of my albums and enquired about further performances; and when I told them I would play in Brisbane 4 days later, they promised to be there.

The second was at the Brisbane gig with Cloudstreet. The audience was smaller - no club event, this concert had been hastily organised to take advantage of my trip there, and it was 3 nights before Christmas - but filled the room nevertheless and I was having fun, simply because John and Nicole (Cloudstreet) were there, as we'd become friends last year when they toured the UK. But then, from the first song....

.... I noticed 4 voices standing out in singing passionately all the choruses, right next to me. You guessed it - it was the young lady with her mum, accompanied by her younger sister and a gentleman who turned out to be mum's brother, the girls' uncle. All four were singing, with their eyes closed; and during my "Without you on Christmas Day" tear-jerker about missing dead relatives, the four hugged each other and cried. I guessed right there that there must have been a recent bereavement (the absent father? a granny?) in the family, and I felt - well, like a priest conducting a service with those four as my congregation. Weird but oh, so wonderful. So I choked along with them a little in the last verse. And everyone knew it was OK to do so.

Funny the link between these two events: The first was wonderful because it touched the whole roomful - the second because it touched those four individuals.

I've sung in front of an audience of 6 in the past, and no doubt I will do so again (and fewer) in these declining days of folk clubs in the UK. But I will gladly sing to a single individual, when they are responding in such ways.

Subject: RE: No man is a "I"-land
From: GUEST,Wesley S
Date: 12 Jan 05 - 05:49 PM

I often sing for the pre-schoolers at our church. You'd be suprised how many of them have never heard a folk song. They all seem to be raised on Raffi. Anyway - I was leaving church a few weeks ago when a little one stoped and told his mom in a very excited { and loud } voice - "Look Mom - It's the Song Man". It made my day.

Subject: RE: No man is a "I"-land
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 12 Jan 05 - 06:49 PM

Great stories:

I'll add two from this afternoon. My wife and I went to do a program (she doesn't sing with me, but is part of who I am) at an adult Day Care Center. Don't know if they have places like this everywhere, but they are a wonderful invention. The people who come for the day are well enough not to have to be in a nursing home or health care facility, but end up sitting home alone all day if they didn't have this kind of a program. I had never sung at this place before... It is The Jewish Home for the Aged, although most of the people in the day care program are Christian. I came, intending to do mostly folk music but was warming up, playing Old Rugged Cross on the guitar, and everyone started to sing along. Then, people started asking for other old hymns. I hadn't even been introduced, but I just started playing. We had a rousing time singing together, and they were quick to pick up on choruses of songs they hadn't heard. There was one many in particular who my eye kept coming back to. He was very, very enthusiastic. After having done three of four hymns, I said I was going to do a song I'd written, and he said "You can sing anything.. I just want to hear you!" All through the program, he kept calling out his enthusiasm, and when I talked to him afterward he was bubbling over with enthusiasm. After I finished talking with him, one of the women who works there came over and, "You have no idea what you're done for that man. I have never seen him smile. He just complains about everything."

Two women sitting behind my wife were talking about another woman who came in, feeling terrible. The yahd talked to her and were concerned about her. By the time the program was over, and they had talked to her, they were very excited because the woman was feeling so good. The woman came up and spoke to my wife and told her that when she came in she was feeling very sick, but the music really uplifted her, and now she was feeling really good.

Sometimes you get it right.

Jerry

Subject: RE: No man is a "I"-land
From: Charley Noble
Date: 12 Jan 05 - 07:54 PM

I was marching with some 600,000 other in Washington, DC, one cold November in 1969, when I heard a familar voice nearby leading "Amazing Grace" and found an old music friend I hadn't sung with in 10 years. Helped make my day!

Cheerily,
XCharley Noble

Subject: RE: No man is a "I"-land
From: Mr Happy
Date: 12 Jan 05 - 08:06 PM

'No man is an island..'

Except, the Isle of Man!!