August 14, 2010

I am sitting on my new orange sofa and writing music on my new mandolin. Such a simple sentence, yet such a miracle. The sofa arrived today. It replaces a decades-old lump of a sofabed that got me through all the kid-at-home years and should have been gone ages ago. The mandolin is not technically new, but was bought from a friend in June. I’d been looking for a new voice to inspire a new style of writing, my muses having dried up several months ago, and somehow felt it might be found in this instrument. Inspiration is never an easy door to open, even if you do arrive with the golden key of instinct. But today, completely unplanned, sitting on the orange sofa, I break through. Nothing brilliant, but ideas awaken yielding cheerful tunes that I know lead somewhere. It’s impossible to describe the extent of my delight. And happy birthday today to my bro, alas not here, but celebrating with those he loves miles away.

Written by mairmusic

August 15, 2010 at 12:24 pm

Posted in August

Tagged with mandolin, music, writing music

10 Responses

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have fun writing music…

Jingle

August 15, 2010 at 4:02 pm

Reply
- Thanks! I will!
  
  mairmusic
  
  August 15, 2010 at 7:27 pm
  
  Reply
http://jingleyanqiu.wordpress.com/2010/08/15/poetry-awards-4thursday-poets-rally-week-26-plus-more/

Week 26 awards,
have fun!
;)

Jingle

August 15, 2010 at 4:02 pm

Reply
- thanks, Jingle!
  
  mairmusic
  
  August 15, 2010 at 7:28 pm
  
  Reply
You are so talented my friend…have fun xxx

buttercup600

August 15, 2010 at 10:31 pm

Reply
- you too– hope your winter seems like it’s ending!
  
  mairmusic
  
  August 15, 2010 at 11:53 pm
  
  Reply
sometimes a new thing triggers a new emotion. just like flow of life and river.

trisha

August 16, 2010 at 4:08 am

Reply
- it’s working!
  
  mairmusic
  
  August 16, 2010 at 9:01 am
  
  Reply
Ah, you have broken out of that liminal time. Now the music will flow … maybe one day you’ll post a vid for us. Yes? I think we would all love it …

Meanwhile enjoy the new instrument, the flow … and your all your artistic endeavors ….

Jamie Dedes

August 16, 2010 at 10:22 pm

Reply
- Thanks for the encouragement! I wrote the first 2 pieces up on my MySpace page, http://www.myspace.com/marilynnmair if you want to listen.
  
  mairmusic
  
  August 16, 2010 at 10:51 pm
  
  Reply

Who am I?

A mandolinist, a bandolimist, a writer, a photographer, a wannabe Brasileira. Check my webpage for information on my music and my sometimes life in Rio.

What is this?

I made a plan, beginning on my birthday- October 16, 2008 - to keep creativity in focus in my daily life, spontaneously, reflectively, and with intention, by setting in motion several series of small events. Every day I take a photo and record a thought. Every week I write a poem and post a photograph of myself in the context of my life. i don't post every day, but I maintain the schedule of each series and post as often as I can. Before I began I wrote, "I think this will be fun, may be interesting, and will result in a considered year of small moments stolen from a busy life and strung together to make... who knows? At this point it's just a plan. Wish me luck~ here goes!"

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“Years 2 – 6” — so what’s changed?

I decided to continue on after a year, because this document had become a treasured reflective spot in my life. There are some changes in "Year 2," expanding options for my weekly poem beyond sonnet to add some other forms-- rondeau or triolet, villanelle. I added the decima in late January 2010, and the pantoum in August. Definitions of each form appear below. I continue to post a photo daily, but may post several pictures taken on one day over the course of a week if I have an interesting series. I may even post an old photo if I'm writing about something I'm thinking back to. I'll continue to have fun with this project; I hope you will too. For Year 3 I tried including other people in the self-portraits that accompany my poems, adding "Musical Sundays" to post mp3s of my music, but these petered out in a few months. This is simply a place for my daily thoughts & photos, and weekly poems in the forms I love. Onward...!

The material on these pages belongs to me

Everything published here was created especially for this project and is owned and copyright by me. When the project is complete I may do something concrete with some of it. So enjoy, but please, if you want to share more than a quote or two send people here, don't displace my work from its context or authorship.

What’s a sonnet?

A sonnet is a 14-line iambic pentameter poem with a unique and characteristic rhyme scheme. They have been written in Europe and England for centuries, and usually combine viewpoint and reflection in a personal yet universal way. I call mine blank-verse sonnets and try for a simple casual scan that observes yet obscures the form. Inspirations are the American sonnets of e. e. cummings and Edna "Vince" Millay.

What’s a villanelle?

A villanelle is an early French form with 19 lines using only 2 rhymes, traditionally broken into 6 verses. It's kind of obsessive, with lines 1 & 3 repeating alternately, the 4th time as lines 18 & 19. The lines can be any length, but don't seem to vary within a poem, and subjects include love, loss and challenge. Dylan Thomas, Elizabeth Bishop and Sylvia Plath all wrote them, and from the minute I typed villanelle in "Year 2 begins" I was itching to try it out because I've never written one. My first appear in Weeks 53 & 56. I've run some verses together, as many modern writers have done, for continuity and a cleaner line.

What’s a rondeau?

A rondeau is a form of medieval poetry that pre-dates the villanelle and also uses only 2 rhymes. The earliest come from an 8-line song form with 2 lines of music that repeat-- line 1 as 4 & 7, and line 2 as 8, rhyming the rest in a characteristic pattern. The result is a sturdy little poem that makes its point thoughtfully, and less obsessively than the villanelle, perhaps because the generating couplet is unrhymed, and the lines don't need to be the same length, just able to be sung or spoken in the same amount of time. The first ones appear in weeks 55 & 57. Sometimes the poetic form, sans music, is called a triolet.

What’s a decima?

A decima is an early 10-line Spanish poetic form, with a distinct break after the first 4. It uses an 8-syllable line and has an unusual but characteristic rhyme scheme. It's also a 19th-century form of improvised Cuban song so I thought it would work well in this blog format. My first appear in weeks 66 & 69.

What’s a pantoum?

A Malaysian form from the 15th century-- how exotic! It's a series of quatrains, w/ lines 2 & 4 repeating as lines 1 & 3 in the next. The last quatrain also uses lines 1 & 3 from the first quatrain, with the first line ending the poem. So every line is used twice. My first one is week 95.

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