Hobby Hub Challenge #4 - The Power of Music

Music is the hobby that is currently filling my spare time. In my youth, I aspired to be a concert pianist, but now I am content to just have fun with music. I am actually rather grateful my "dream" did not pan out. I suspect had I followed that path, I would still be playing nothing but classical piano. I love piano, but I also play guitar now, and I write songs and I sing with our local choir. I would probably have had my love of music crushed by making it a job.

My current project is the Christmas program we put on once a year. We begin practice the week after Labor Day, in September. It seems a little odd to sing about dashing through the snow in your flip flops and shorts, but the dedicated people of this group show up, year after year. We are now about 2 weeks from our show. This year I made "cheat" videos for each part, like this one:

They are not really fun to listen to, that is just an example. It was quite an eye-opener for me These simple single note lines of harmony appeared to my brain as nothing, nothing at all. Then when I sat to get after the task, I realized I could hardly read music any more. I play things from memory these days, or I go by the chords. Quite a lucky break to volunteer for this before I totally lost that skill!

I still enjoy playing classical music, I have played a little snippet of Beethoven in a previous post.
https://steemit.com/untalented/@fishyculture/who-am-i-steemit-untalented-surpassinggoogle-submission-admission

I still own my guitar, but honestly I have not picked it up in months. I have a bad wrist, and the guitar just aggravates it terribly. Here is a number I wrote several years ago. It is interesting, youtube shows 9 views. This was featured on Max Keiser's program, it had hundreds and hundreds of views a few years ago. I guess people have been unwatching it since then? Fair warning, I was much less bashful in those days, so you may wish you could unwatch this too...

That is sort of my "thing" now. I like to write silly songs that tell the truth and make people laugh. Being a truther is sort of my "job" these days and it is quite thankless... but if I make it rhyme and put a simple tune behind it people seem to be able to hear me better.

Steemit is something of a hobby these days, and I am finding my "recipe" for melding these two. I entered @papapepper's "Wild N Strange" contest and wrote the winning lyrics! Perhaps the most delightful thing that has ever happened to me as a "song writer" was to watch what someone else did with MY lyrics:

https://steemit.com/wildnstrange/@chrisroberts/the-three-steem-amigos-an-song-created-by-wild-and-strange-steemians-for-wild-and-strange-steemians

Music has been a rock for me, I can play by myself and let my soul pour out all its emotion without having to say a word. I can get together with friends and we can make beautiful music together. Or off key music, depending on the friends... lol! It is all "joyful noise" and good by me! In our little town, ripped apart by tragedy and injustice (google Jack Yantis), we all came together for the local music festival this summer and we danced the night away. The rift is still deep, may never mend, but at least we have taken a step toward being the close-knit community we once were.

And Christmas is coming... and a dedicated group of local singers are doing our best to keep that healing trend going. Here is a video (courtesy of the choir director, who "owns" the video but allows free use of it) of our choir last year:

The other videos and picture are my original work.