Songs from Birch Island is streaming on Spotify!

 

It's a first for me, but I'm really pleased to say that all of my instrumental guitar music from the past 7 years is now streaming on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Apple Music and probably wherever you listen to music.

Here's the Spotify link: Songs from Birch Island

Songs from Birch Island is a compilation of all three of my guitar albums, a total of 26 short, jubilant pieces, in collaboration with Allister Thompson, who is also the editor of my books. 

Or find  Songs from Birch Island on YouTube.

My favourite tune from Songs from Birch Island is probably All the Stars (at least today). But that could change! I hope you'll listen and choose your own favourite. The songs are inspired by a wide variety of guitarists from John Fahey to Bruce Cockburn, from Django Reinhardt to Adrianne Lenker. The beautiful compilation cover art is Birches in Autumn, paper collage by Baye Hunter. Check out more of her lovely art at bayehunter.com.

And someone has asked me if there is a particular Birch Island? There is (mine is in Algonquin Park), but I think most Canadians have a favourite lake with a Birch Island on it, so this music tries to capture that Canadian ubiquity: hearing music through the birch trees wherever you may be.

I'm delighted to bring you this compilation, especially right now during the pandemic. Creating is a great release, artists have it luckiest at this time, I think. I hope you'll listen to Songs from Birch Island, and gain a little calm in the storm.

Update! You can also listen to Songs from Birch Island on CD!  If you'd like a CD, contact me via email (contact info in the sidebar at right). 

More about my music on this blog.

Songs from Birch Island is a compilation of
the following albums and one single:

The Crow's Nest, April/2021
10 songs, click link to listen on Bandcamp

Cover art by Shawna Daigle

Birches, October, 2017
8 songs, including me singing on Moonlight
Click to listen on Bandcamp

Cover art, Birches in Summer, by Baye Hunter

Fifth Season, October 2015
7 songs on Bandcamp

Cover art, Lake Nipissing, photo by Allister Thompson

The Gargoyle Shuffle, April, 2019
Single on Bandcamp

Cover art by Emma Dolan

You'll find me on Bandcamp ...

BIRCHES (2017) with Allister Thompson

I finally opened a Bandcamp account! 

Here it is:  Philippa Dowding, Bandcamp

You'll find a few tunes from my two guitar albums with my editor, Allister Thompson.

You'll also find recordings from my first book, The Gargoyle in My Yard. The book just turned 10 years in April 2019, and to celebrate I recorded me reading two chapters. 

You'll also find The Gargoyle Shuffle on there.

More to come, stay tuned!

SUMMER, from the album Fifth Season (2015)
with Allister Thompson

The first time I touched a guitar, I was 10 years old and I had just snuck into my older brother's room to crouch before his brand new birthday gift: an acoustic guitar. I drew my finger tips across the strings, and was shocked into wonder by the beautiful voice, the gentle whisper. That was it. Hooked for life.

I've played guitar ever since, and made friends for life through music. I've written dozens of instrumentals for the guitar since then, and have a handful of songs which I sing for friends (usually reluctantly) when pressed. You'll hear me singing in only one place that I know of: on Birches, Moonlight, a song I wrote for my sister-in-law, a song which Allister pressed me to record.

Does any amateur musician like the sound of their own voice?

I still play guitar for about 20 minutes every day, and I record new compositions all the time. Recording acoustic is hard though. You have to be perfect, you can't suddenly get itchy, or have to sneeze. The neighbours can't be cutting their grass, the dog can't bark, the front door can't slam, the cellphone has to be off ... it takes patience!

But there may be a new collaboration soon, so perhaps more tunes to come. Happy listening, everyone.

MORE ABOUT GUITAR on this blog.

Guitar music for Winter Solstice and a long snowy walk home

Image courtesy artist Baye Hunter

Welcome, Winter Solstice!
Time to curl up and read by the fire, indulge in carb-loading, and open that annual bottle of port.

Also, time to listen to music. Here's a guitar piece I wrote with my editor, Allister Thompson (The Gateless Gate), a few years ago. It celebrates a sleigh ride, or a long, cold walk in the snow, and the return to hearth and home on the darkest day of the year (or perhaps on Christmas Eve).

Listen to WINTER free. Enjoy! 

More Posts about 
MUSIC on this BLOG

Moonlight, for loss and love

Birches in Summer, paper collage, by Baye Hunter
www.bayehunter.com

This week reminds me that my lovely sister-in-law has been gone for almost two years now. It's gone so quickly, and so slowly too.

Here is the song I wrote for her, this time last summer: Moonlight

I hope you give a listen and remember those you've loved. If you've ever wanted to hear me sing (and channel my inner hippie), now's your chance!

Many thanks to my editor, Allister Thompson, who sings with me and added all the other lovely instruments to the track.

Here is Allister's Bandcamp page (he's a wonderful editor and a fantastic musician).

If you'd like to hear the entire album, (with thanks) you can download it free or pay whatever you like: Birches. 

All posts on this BLOG about BIRCHES

BIRCHES in Bristol street art video!

 

Really very honoured to post this: my guitar piece, BIRCHES, has been used (with my permission of course), in a video about Bristol street artist, Andrew Burns Colwill. The video is created by Scuba Lux Creative, Bristol.

Andrew's painting, "Artic Scream", is a heartbreaking comment about our complicity in environmental crisis. It's quite moving, and I'm proud to have my music be part of it. 

BIRCHES is from the larger album of the same name, released in October 2017 with my collaborator (and long-time editor) Allister Thompson.

Here's the entire album on the Free Music Archive: BIRCHES. You can also listen to it on Allister's Bandcamp account (and if you want to toss a few dimes our way, many thanks).

This album has had quite a bit of exposure in the past few weeks. Songs have been in a Free Music Archive playlist, a drone video of St. Leon, Quebec and on a canoe trip on the River Wye in England. In all, the music has been listened to or downloaded almost 20,000 times since early July. 

Many thanks for listening! Enjoy!

VIDEOS AND MORE ABOUT BIRCHES ON THIS BLOG

COVER ART: Birches in Summer,
by Toronto-Islander, Baye Hunter
www.bayehunter.com

Mountains of Madness on the Free Music Archive Playlist

Birches in Summer, by Baye Hunter. Paper collage.

Been away in the wilds of Ontario all week, without wifi or my computer. 

Came home to this lovely surprise: my acoustic guitar piece, Mountains of Madness, was selected as part of the Listening Party Playlist this week on the Free Music Archive.

HOW COOL! Thank you!

Here's the complete Playlist Link: 
Free Music Archive Listening Party, "Mostly Unhyphenated Folk", Vol. 57, July 16/2018. 

I love that this week's selections are mostly by female musicians. I ALSO love the cover for the playlist appears to be our cover for Birches, the beautiful art is by my friend (and flute and guitar duet partner), Baye Hunter.

"Mountains of Madness" was of course inspired by the H. P. Lovecraft story of the same name, which I read at the suggestion of my editor, Allister Thompson, a few years ago. I wrote the song after reading that chilling ending, then Allister added his own musical genius to it (that's his voice screaming) and produced it on the album Birches, our second musical collaboration, from October 2017.

You can also listen and pay what you wish on Bandcamp, if you want to throw some money at us (with our thanks)! Hope you give a listen to the playlist and enjoy some tunes!

More about BIRCHES on this blog:
Videos using BIRCHES
Music with Allister Thompson
Fifth Season, Philippa Dowding and Allister Thompson, October 2015

My acoustic guitar music goes on tour ...

The author at a coffee house at 16 years

Here are 3 new artist videos that use my guitar music:

Canoe Trip on the River Wye, England
Drone tour of St-Leon-le-Grand, Quebec
Lovely Fall trees 

In my non-author life, I play acoustic guitar.

I've played guitar most of my life. I started with a ukulele that someone thoughtfully gave me when I was nine. I begged my family for a guitar (my older brother had one, it seemed only fair), and when I was 12, I got a Sears guitar for Christmas. I played it until it bent in half (admittedly it wasn't a great instrument, more of a toy really).

For my 16th birthday, I got a truly wonderful instrument which I still have and record with even today: a solid body acoustic Yamaha dreadnought, mahogany top, made in Japan. Glorious deep voice, still. It's in the picture, above.

My first guitar album with
editor Allister Thompson, 2015

But before that, when I was 12, I started guitar lessons with the Sears toy guitar on Wednesday nights with Ursula Davidson, an amazing Russian woman who loved guitar and loved teaching kids how to play. Each student dropped a $2 bill in the jar at Ursula's feet, then sat in a circle and tuned (which usually took a long time). Then we played great old tunes, a new one each week, including some Monkees, Beatles, Jim Croce, even some America and CSNY.

It was perfect for me. Not too intense, no one-on-one unless I needed it, just learned some fun music every week and realized I really loved the instrument.

Ursula told my mother one spring night that I should go and audition for another guitar teacher because I had promise, and she couldn't teach me much more. So I did. I'll never forget how nervous I was auditioning for this man in a stern beard.

My second guitar album with
editor Allister Thompson, 2017

He assured me that I knew how to read music because my mother had assured him that I could. I assured him that I couldn't read music. He sighed. He said he didn't teach beginners anymore. Then he had me follow some complicated picking that he showed me quickly and I thought, sure, I can do that. I'm pretty sure I couldn't, and didn't, but he must have seen something in me because he told me to turn up for lessons the next week.

And that's how, at 13, I met my Julliard-trained guitar teacher. He patiently started at the beginning and taught me how to read music for classical guitar. He cajoled and bullied me, a fairly lazy student, into someone who could actually sight read reasonably well, and play acceptably. But I wasn't up to his standards, not really. He and I both knew that I was never going to play in Carnegie Hall. So at 16, I stopped lessons. But I never stopped playing.

2010, author and daughter doing our favourite things 

In fact, learning new songs and creating music of my own has been incredibly important to me my whole life. I've played with friends from university on a regular basis for almost 40 years now. I have a classical duet flute partner, and we practice regularly and play in public from time to time. And I also record music with my editor, Allister Thompson.

And people use the music in their videos to celebrate whatever it is they are doing in their lives. Honestly, that makes me so happy.

I think it would make Ursula Davidson happy too, and even my old Julliard-trained guitar teacher might say a quiet "well done." Or he might just be able to listen without wincing.

Thank you to them and to my musical friends, for the gift of music.

Here's a link to MORE VIDEOS using my music
More musical posts ON THIS BLOG

Top 5 Blog Posts from 5 Years of Blogging

Somehow I've been blogging for five years. I've posted 275 times, an average 55 posts a year, pretty much one post a week. As 2017 comes to a close, here are the "most-viewed" posts on this blog over the five years ...

Author, Sept 2017

I've written about books (mine mostly but not entirely), and about the writer's life (tips and pointers about writing get views). I've posted about my adventures in the Canadian Kid Lit world (always fun). I've put up my poetry and music, or pictures and letters from kids, snippets about my family, sailing, my dog, and more. I've tried to update my blog every week, rain or shine. 

It's been fun for the most part. It's certainly a record of this part of my life, if anyone is ever interested. As I write this, I'm creeping toward 80,000 views, which seems amazing. For a relatively quiet and reserved type, who knew I had so much to say!

The Top 5 posts from the past 5 years are a bit of a surprise, being memoir, music and monsters, so here they are ...

#5. The Tin Foil Fairy. A Christmas Eve memoir, I was six and my older brother's prank turned into the magical stuff of legend. I re-post it annually on Christmas Eve.

#4. My Brush with Mortality ... and Measles. Another memoir, here's the story of the spring when I was 11 years old, and went blind from measles (a message for the anti-vaxxer movement).

#3. When Authors and Editors Write Music Together. Super proud of this one. My first guitar album, Fifth Season, came out in 2015, with my editor. Lovely tunes, I hope you'll give a listen. The second album, Birches, is out now too. Listen free on the Free Music Archive, or pay what you will on Bandcamp. Enjoy!

#2. American Library Association Loves Myles and the Monster Outside. A great review for my 6th book from the ALA, in which they say nice things like "readers will be enthralled." Thank you!

And #1 is ... Myles and the Monster Outside KIRKUS REVIEW. Best review ever for my award-winning horror story for kids (book 2 in the Weird Stories Gone Wrong series). I love "Goosebumps from north of the border." We read R.L. Stine in this house until the books fell apart!

So the top posts (by views) are Memoir, Music and Monsters. Sounds good to me. We're all voyeurs at heart, so who doesn't love a good memoir piece? Or the curiosity of a lovely instrumental guitar album by an author and an editor? And a universal fascination with monsters? That goes without saying.

Will I keep blogging? Yes, for a while anyway. I hope to add reviews of Canadian kid lit authors, more writing tips, and more poetry in the year ahead.

If you're still reading, here are the next top posts from the past 5 years...

#6. It's Blog Tour Week for Everton Miles is Stranger than Me
#7. Book Reviews and How to Survive Them
#8. The Ghost of Lego Past: An Ode
#9. Carter and the Curious Maze Book Trailer is a Featured Video
#10. When Authors and Editors Write Music Together, Part 2

So glad to see a poem in there (#8), and if you're at all interested in magic realism, #6 is an exhaustive set of interviews about my YA fantasy series, The Night Flyer's Handbook. And as for book reviews, #7 is the best advice I can give anyone on that subject.

Thanks for joining me, and here's to another 5 years (wow, 2022, imagine)!

Sequined Mountain Ladies

Birches in Summer, by Baye Hunter www.bayehunter.com

I do two things reasonably well in life. One is write books, the other is play guitar.

Listen to: Sequined Mountain Ladies

In case you missed a blog post from last month, I have a new guitar album out, with my long-time editor and musical collaborator, Allister Thompson. This is our second album, the first was Fifth Season (Nov, 2015).

The new album is called Birches, and is graced with cover art by local Toronto artist, Baye Hunter.

Sequined Mountain Ladies is my (current) favourite piece. Enjoy!