Neighbourhood Folk - House Concert - Fall Equinox 2025 - Introduction - 2025 09 25 1/13

Tom is practicing the calliope intro and outro to Ferris Wheel, our first song in the program this evening. It came out perfectly.

 It is 6:30 pm and we are getting ready to open the doors at 7 pm for our first Neighbourhood Folk house concert. It is Monday, September 22, 2025. We are gathered to inspire our efforts for the season ahead, to build strength and confidence enough to get us through to Winter Solstice.

We presented a program of a poem written by a friend and neighbour, and eleven songs written and performed by myself, my family, and neighbourhood musician friends.

We decluttered the livingroom and set up seating for 15 friends and neighbours. An ipad is up high on a stand for the Zoom attendees. A stationary camera is on a tripod to capture the performance.

Tucked in the back corner of the living room Adele is in her crate with a bone to chew. She does not like the sound of camera beeps. 

Final preparation - Matt is taping down the sound cable, Michel and Tom are fine tuning a chart and arrangement notes.

Laurence arrives with his guitar, music, and a contribution for the dessert potluck.


We are getting ready to start. Everyone is talking to each other. Some are meeting for the first time, others have known each other for decades, having home-schooled their children together for years. Some I have known since high school, some I am meeting for the first time this evening. Many attending are incredible singer-songwriters themselves. My hope is that they will feature at future house concerts.

"Welcome to the first Neighbourhood Folk - House Concert - Fall Equinox 2025... first ever!"

We are here to get ourselves off to a good start with this season change. 

Yes, there is a dog chewing a bone in its crate in the back corner. Hopefully her chewing will be in time with the music.

We want to set our expectations in the right place. We are people who love to play music. It doesn't matter where we started, how old we are, or how much we practice. We love to play and we love to play with others. 

It is very meaningful to share our work, and to have it witnessed by our friends and neighbours. Your attention to us, to the music we are sharing, you reflect back to us the value of our work, that we are visible and that we are appreciated for what we do, that it has meaning beyond our singular experience, that we are part of something greater than ourselves. It is in your loving eyes, reflecting back to us, that tells us, "Way to go!" Just so you, friends and neighbours, understand your job here this evening.

Most of the songs we are doing this evening have been written or re-written by myself, of they are favourite songs that have come through our Neighbourhood Folk - First Sundays over the last year.

To get us off on the right foot, I am going to share with you a poem written by our good friend and neighbour, Virginia. It is a poem about swimming, about taking the first dive into cold wild water in the spring. The poem is titled, "Entry".

Google Sites - Collected Works

Substack - Table of Contents

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

No Hard Feelings - 2025 06 02

Image
  No Hard Feelings - Avett Brothers, performed by Jenny Arntzen at home in the livingroom. My musical challenge at this stage of my life is to simply hit 'Record' and see what happens. There is no question that I will not sound like a highly produced, professionally engineered performance backed by professional musicians with decades of experience, skill and knowledge. I am not going to create anything that sounds like that. Also, more importantly, that is not my aesthetic. It is not my interest. It is not what drives me to play music, learn new songs, and share music with anyone who wants to play with me.
Read more

Neighbourhood Folk - House Concert - Fall Equinox 2025 - Entry - Taking the Plunge - 2025 09 25 2/13

Image
Lynn Canyon - 2005 03 03 - the cool, late afternoon light of early spring glancing off cold stream tossed boulders  Entry - Taking the Plunge by Virginia Bowden Well into the afternoon, on the day of the concert, I was reviewing my lists and checking what was left to do. It occurred to me that I was going to need introductory words to set expectations and get us all on the same page. Where to start? Virginia brought this poem and shared it at our Neighbourhood Folk - First Sunday - September 2025. As soon as I thought of it, I knew it needed to be the cornerstone of my introductory words to set the stage for the house concert. Today it is the 30th of September. A full week since I started this writing. It has taken me days and many hours to prepare to write this short piece. I had an idea of bringing in interleaving stories, of swimming, over generations, of women. Of our creative works, both domestic and artistic, that mark the passing of our lifetimes into our collective history....
Read more

When I Grow Too Old to Dream - 2023 11 12

Image
  Two years ago Mom moved in with me after forty years in mental health group housing due to the impact of her schizophrenia. She turned 91 on the day she moved in. She immediately suffered a serious health decline and we were put on the palliative care registry. This month Mom celebrated her 93rd birthday. She is a frail elder. Often when she has energy, she is singing in her room. This is a song she has been singing since she moved in. It was only recently I finally asked where the song came from. It turns out Aunti Ivy, Mom's oldest sister, used to play this song on the piano. The family used to gather around and sing together from her songbook. This was one of those songs.  Aunti Ivy is gone now. She was 11 years old when Mom was born. Mom must have been a little girl when this song was sung and she memorized the words. This week we have finally identified the song and it is going to be added to our songbook. We are now learning to play it. A new music project has been ins...
Read more