And, ahem, did I mention it was a 7:30 wake-up? I don't do 7:30 wake-ups...
But I got up, AND went to breakfast -- which was french toast with strawberry compote, so it made things a little better. Still not feeling much for coffee, but I did have several cups of their delicious ginger tea (they keep a big pot brewing all day in the main lodge).
We grabbed our instruments and headed to our morning session, with instruments in tow. I brought my accordion for Louise (she had apparently done up to Grade 8 Conservatory on it as a youngster), but she did not feel like taking poor Scarlett out of the box. We'll work on her further tomorrow. :-)
We started with our favourite songs, songs that touched us, with each of us introducing "our" song and why we loved it so much. Don's was Cheryl Wheeler's "Sylvia Hotel". I finally settled on Jon Brooks's "There's Only Love". It's really hard to settle on just one, but I think I did it justice -- and Eric was excited to learn of a new songwriter, who greatly impressed him! It was great to hear everyone else's choices, too -- they're putting together a list, so I'll share it later. Of course, once we had all shared "the" song, there were many more thrown in that reminded people of other songs, etc. A fun morning!
By the end of the morning session, I could actually breathe through both nostrils, so life was very exciting. :-)
Lunch was hoagies (including vegetarian hoagies for me) plus salad and... lots of stuff. We never go hungry here!
Don had started to write a new song going to bed the night before, so he went off to the field with his guitar to work on it, while I had a much-needed nap, to try and get rid of this $&#*(%^ cold. I slept like a baby...
Woke up in time for some more ginger tea before the afternoon session. We started working on a group song, and managed to get the chorus completed -- getting eight songwriters to agree is kind of like herding cats, but we were all happy with the result. This was Cameron's turn to shine, because not only was he amazing at singing the chorus, he came up with some really great lines and ideas, and seemed to have lots of confidence presenting them. Yay Cameron! (Go Brays!)
Of course, mid-way through, because I had actually been feeling OK, my body decided to go into full nosebleed mode. Yeah, seriously. It's pulling out All The Tricks today, isn't it? If my brain can't silence me, my body will find a way. Grrr... After about 20 minutes hanging out in the bathroom and having Don fetch me ice cubes, I was finally able to get back into the group, where the lyrics for the 1st verse were taking shape. But then it was time for our dinner break!
Dinner was pork somethingorother for the carnivores, and a yam and lots-of-other-stuff pie for the veggies. Louise and I both found it a bit sweet for our tastes, but that meant we didn't have to have dessert (Don had it for all of us).
Back to the evening session, and we somehow managed to write the music for the verses, AND complete the second verse -- we're thinking that's all the song really needs, since it starts with the chorus, but we'd see how we felt with fresh ears in the morning.
Did I mention my voice was going tonight? Stupid body tricks...
Sorry, folks, the blogs from our workshop days are going to be pretty short and probably unpoetic. The sessions are pretty intense, and this cold isn't helping much.
Musically and bloodily and hackingly,
Alyssa
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