SINGING & SELF
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Ring the bells
My (im)perfect offering This week Leonard Cohen's Anthem has been resounding in my brain: "ring the bells that still can ring/forget your perfect offering/there's a crack, a crack in everything/that's how the light gets in". I've been ruminating on perfection...
Let beauty awake!
Early morning sumach turning colour Sept. 2020 "Let beauty awake", the title of one of the Songs of Travel by Ralph Vaughan Williams came to mind as I sat down to write... These days seem so full and there is so much to learn, to do, to adapt to. Where was beauty? As...
New seasons, new beginnings
This has been an exhausting, exhilarating, infuriating, exciting, exasperating and thrilling past two weeks. We started back at the university, completely remotely, and trying out all kinds of new ways of teaching and learning, with mixed but mostly good results....
Amplifying Other Voices
My new rhythm seems to be every two weeks now. I always think of writing every Thursday night, but some Thursdays it appears I am overwhelmed, distracted or just don't seem to find the space for this. But today's space belongs to other voices. Today was the second day...
All I need is the air that I breathe
Breathing the Air of Art: first post-COVID visit to the AGO, August 2020 Last week's post examined the idea of an artist's selfishness, and I've been thinking more about that since. The space we need to make art, to create, is largely a personal one, a sanctum....
So selfish
Apologies once again to my readers...somehow life seems to be interfering with my blogging discipline of late. I began this post last week and then promptly forgot. It's a topic I've been ruminating on for a bit, because I think it affects many artists. How often have...
All of me in the room
Many sides of me in the room (and I never said I was a photographer...) [Apologies for those of you who regularly read these posts...I somehow erred last week and didn't end up scheduling the publication of this post, so I will go ahead and share it this week, and...
Taking a vacation
Everybody needs a vacation. And this week I'm getting mine. So no deep thoughts, no meditations in public forums, nothing but rest and relaxation. As you read this, I'm at a cottage somewhere near Georgian Bay in Ontario, enjoying the company of my siblings, their...
Loving what is
My practice in the last week or two has very much been focused on this principle, embodied in the book by the same name by Byron Katie. I've been sitting more deeply in who I am: as a human, as a musician, as a singer, and just owning it. I've been beginning each...
How not to recoil from the hug
I've been pondering several things this week in my practice, but a major theme has been self-love. In recognition of the fact that my singing journey is very connected to my life journey, I observe that I tend to recoil from the hug. That is to say that, when I think...
How S-L-O-W can you go?
Slow as molasses...(Kimberly Barber, July 2020) This past week has been full of realizations and the challenging of old notions. Although I have been teaching voice for over 18 years and have been practicing seriously as a singer and musician for at least 40 years, I...
Life Post-Epiphany
lay down Sally (Kimberly Barber, June 2020) Beware the epiphany. Or better said: beware the assumption that the epiphany will of necessity be the immediate beginning of something new. Last week I described a breakthrough in my singing practice that was based in a...
The Bullfight that never was
Dropping the red rag (Kimberly Barber, June 2020) When I began writing this blog last August, my intent was to explore the relationship between the act and art of singing and the excavation of selfhood. I had always understood these to be intimately connected. I also...
Embracing the Goddess
Two goddesses: Jana Philipp I've lost count on how many weeks in we are now...15? One thing I can say is that the goddesses in my life have continued to give me support, courage and meaning in this time of isolation. These women are colleagues, friends, family and...
