‘Rivierzeep’ (RiverSoap) Part I- an Ode to the city of Dordrecht in 4-parts

After doing a gig with Phoenix Lights in Dordrecht, we were asked by Petra Revet, the art director of VertelFabriek, to write music for her piece “Riversoap”. So this is a collaboration with young actors, visual artists, poets and singers, and it is great to be a part of the team.

“Riversoap” is a soap… A perfromance art piece in 4 parts. The piece is an ode to the city and the island of Dordt and a fragment of a life journey of the young girl Diet.

Why Dordt?

Dordrecht (The Netherlands) is a city that covers the whole island, the so-called Island of Dordt. It is well known as city of art and artists. Diet is a young artist who lives in Dordrecht, but is thinking of leaving the city to pursue a career somewhere else. She struggles with the decision to leave and start a more adventurous living or stay where her roots are – at the island of Dordt.

Dutch…

The funny thing was that this time i had to write the lyrics in -Dutch! Which was kind of a challenge, because it’s not my maternal language and I’ve never done it before. Plus Dutch language is not the most easy for lyrics writing and pronounciation while singing… Sometimes it sounds very harsh, while actually expressing smooth things…But I’m very happy I took the challenge as it was really awarding to write this piece. 🙂

"And While Im sitting on your shores
I wash my hands in your waters
Hear the growing of the bulrush 
And the light is sublime out here
On our island 
Embraced by you- river."

Here is an excerpt from “Riversong” from performance art piece “Riversoap”
by yours truly.

Check here for a video made by someone in the audiance during the try-out performance, June 19th, 2017.

Check here for more performances.

NEXT PERFORMANCE:  JUNE 30,2017 @ SCHOUWBURG KUNSTMIN, DORDRECHT

Tickets Shouwburg Kunstmin : https://www.kunstmin.nl/programma/dop-festival/

 

New Music Video ‘Lies’ (Phoenix Lights)

A shot during the recording of the musicvideo Lies by Phoenix Lights.

Dear all, past few weeks I was very busy making a new music video for Phoenix Lights! We used our own camera, lamp, incense (!), editing skills and imagination and we are very pleased with the results.

KLIK TO WATCH THE VIDEO

 

Cheers, Sandra

Boost your creativity

I came across this book via a friend of mine. It is about boosting your creativity. Check it out, i think it gives a couple of great tips. The book is called The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, written by Julia Cameron. 

The Artists’ Way By J. Cameron

http://juliacameronlive.com/

Expo Sanja Zovko @ Antwerp

I made this little compilation video of the expo opening of one of my favorite artists, Sanja Zovko 🙂

Her paintings can be seen in De Zwarte Komedie Theatre in Antwerp, until June 15, 2014.

More info at http://www.dezwartekomedie.be/Sanja_Zovko.html

 

A poem : Whatever the case…

Whatever the case, it would have been better not to be born,
For no matter how interesting it is at every moment,
Life sometimes hurts, jades, cuts, bruises, grates,
Makes us want to scream, to jump, to wallow, to walk
Out of every house and every logic and off every balcony,
And to become savage and die among trees and things forgotten,
Among collapses and hazards and absence of tomorrows,
And all this, O life, should be something closer to what I think,
To what I think or what I feel, whatever that is.

I cross my arms on the table, I lay my head on my arms,
And I need to want to cry, but I don’t know where to find the tears.
No matter how hard I try to pity myself, I don’t cry,
My soul is broken under the curved finger that touches it . . .
What will become of me? What will become of me?

Fernando Pessoa

Is Music the Key to Success?

“… Many high achievers told me music opened up the pathways to creative thinking. And their experiences suggest that music training sharpens other qualities: Collaboration. The ability to listen. A way of thinking that weaves together disparate ideas. The power to focus on the present and the future simultaneously.”

From Is Music the Key to Success

This Is Your Brain On Music (D. Levitin)

Music session @ park

At least once a week Lau and me get together to make some music. Since he plays all the possible instruments, and since i am a master of coming up with new music and lyrics, we are a great team when it comes to making new songs. Yesterday we decided not to practice in the music studio at home, but instead to get out in the open. We ended up playing and singing on a bench in a huge, beautiful park (a forest!) in The Hague. Maybe we ended up in the park cuz the new song we were working on lately is actually situated in a park.  It is about a murder. In a park. Well, it is not as heavy stuff as it sounds, since the murder in this song is ‘just’ a metaphor for breaking up a relationship. This is the first song i’ve composed on/for guitar btw and in which i will actually be playing guitar for the first time! Luckily – together with Lau. The recordings will follow soon, here on these pages. x

Musicians need to be paid too.

Musicians need to be paid too.

On the Process of Songwriting….

Few days ago I’ve enrolled in a Coursera online course on Songwriting, given by Pat Pattison, professor at Berklee College of Music, where he teaches Lyric Writing and Poetry.

According to Pat Pattison, there are no rules to songwriting. Just tools. Well, maybe some rules then, included in one word – ‘prosody’. Prosody (Aristotle) is the relationship of all elements that make a song, melody and lyrics, chords and metrum, rhyme, rhythm and emotion, etc.  Pat continues, ‘A song needs to answer (or give an idea about) the three questions’:

1. Who is talking?

2. To whom?

3. Why?

As a songwriter, I have noticed I have different ways of approaching songwriting. Sometimes, an idea that has been maturing inside my head for a longer time, comes out when I start playing some tunes on my piano. Sometimes the piano jam triggers some emotion and brings me to a place where i can find the words to describe that particular feeling or situation. And sometimes i happen to hear both the lyrics and the music in my head, and have to rush to piano and my recording equipment in the middle of the night (yes, this happens mostly at 3am, when I’m already in bed, tossing and turning for hours due to all that music in my head..). What ive noticed happens in all the cases, is that i sink into the feeling, connect with myself. There is also great deal of focus present there, some kind of meditation, a situation that even can be described as a kind of a trance. Then time seizes to exist. That is such a great feeling. When the song or a piece of song is there, you are left wondering “where did this come from?!”.

So as one can notice, the process of my songwriting is not that much of a conscious process. That’s where this songwriting course comes in. It teaches you how to recognize patterns in songs, that affect the movement, stability, and the general message of the song, with in this case focus on the lyrics. Although many of these things come naturally to many of us, it is rather interesting and refreshing to see how different patterns/elements influence the song. For example, the effects of number of lines within a verse (odd versus even), can have a profound effect on the song: stationary/stable (even) versus moving/unstable (odd), or even building tension (odd) vs. giving confirmation (even). Pat shows these examples directly implementing the two options in a same piece of the song, so the student is able to hear it’s effects on it on the spot. Amazing stuff! Huge effects!

I am now in my third week of the course, and im more conscious about tricks, dos and don’ts in songwriting as such. Wonder how this will be influencing my writings…For the better i hope 

Five Seasons in One Day

New Years eve: Timetravel with Debbie Onvlee

Those three months were a blast! October-December 2012 : Music @ Aalmarkt15

My work at Open, Makers Aan De Markt has been finished! We have had a lots of fun, nice workshops, Meet The Artist events, jam sessions, concerts and a lots of rehearsals with various musicians! I want to thank the organizers from Peen en Ui, Jennefer Verbeek and Gideon Roggeven, who made this project possible! Thank you guys for everything and keep up the good work! I’d like to thank my good friend Debbie Onvlee for her help with all those things people mostly forget that NEED to be done too, like setting up the room, moving stuff to and from Aalmarkt, taking care of recording of the events and help with planning and ideas! Also i’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who participated, joined or supported Music@Aalmarkt15 project! Peace and lots of love, Sandra ♥

Quote of the day

“The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.” (C.Castaneda)

PLs in da house

PLs in da house

Sanja Zovko Art @ Aalmarkt 15

‘Peace’ by Sanja Zovko, 2008, oil on canvas

Sanja Zovko (1982, Bosnia and Herzegovina) is academic painter and art restorer. During her study at Royal academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp she receives various artist-awards including Jozef Van Lerius Award in 2003. She graduates  in 2004 as academic painter, receiving the University Of Antwerp Award for best graduation project.

Poster “Phoenix Lights” by Sanja Zovko, 2012

She continues her education at the RAFAA and in 2008 she earns  Master degree Conservation and Restoration of  Paintings.  The same year she receives “Arenberg” award for the second place, for restoration of painting. Since then she has been working as painter and painting restorer in Antwerp, Belgium.

For the official opening of the Music@Aalmarkt15, that took place on October 14, 2012, Sanja made a poster specially for the band Phoenix Lights, which is one of the major projects of Sandra Spaceflower, the person behind Music@Aalmarkt15.

From 9 December (for the whole month of December) a number of her paintings will be exhibited at Aalmarkt 15 gallery. Feel free to come and check them out! 🙂  For more info on Sanja’s work go to www.freewebs.com/sanjazovko/

Concert Finn Silver @ Aalmarkt

Finn Silver in da house! A pic from the beautiful acoustic concert of Finn Silver held last Sunday, 25 november 2012 at Aalmarkt15. They’ve played in Tokyo, North Sea Jazz and now here at Aalmarkt- quite an honor! This concert was organized together with the great Finn Silver fan and music blogger- Peter Visser. Photo by Peter Visser

 

Jam Session for Kids

The idea to organize a jam session for kids came actually from my friends- Debbie and Arjen, who are both parents of course 🙂 They organized the whole sunday afternoon and brought in various instruments: kid-size electric guitar, percussion, kid-harp and xylophones. And a lots of ‘pepernoten’ since the Sinterklaas just came to town.

At 2pm  a number of kids and parents were already standing in front of the Aalmarkt waiting to start with this musical adventure. And then we started! Everywhere kids running around 🙂 Debbie was telling the stories and singing about ice bears and turtles, while Arjen played keys, musically supporting the jam.  Some kids were playing guitar and xylophone. Two little boys were playing the drums – the whole building was shaking 😉 All in all it was great fun! Debbie and Arjen were great in supervising the kids. And in being very very patient with them 🙂

Watch the video-compilation of Meet The Artist II

A lots of inspiration at workshop ‘Beyond Words and Notes’

Today we spent the whole afternoon with Scott Blick, academic dancer, actor and singer. Seven people followed today his workshop “Beyond Words and Notes- How To Perform Well’. All of them singers and sing-songwriters, with exception of Erik vd Berg, who is a poet.

 

The workshop started with a warm-up, body awareness exercises, followed by vocal exercises. Scott then started working on each of the participants individually. He addressed various problems as the students performed their act. Things like body placement and body use on stage, as well as mimics and text interpretation were the subjects of discussion. The group watched during this process, and was amazed to see how fast the improvements were made on the spot. The whole vibe in the group was amazing- great people, inspiring and experienced teacher, cooperating and ready-to learn students! The workshop came to be an hour longer than planned-there was so much to discuss and to learn 🙂

For more info see following links:

https://www.facebook.com/scott.w.blick?fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/events/316252935148681/