So I thought I'd start off my first official (post introductory) post by talking about my music. It's not all that I am and it's not the only thing I'm doing but at the moment it's quite important and I'm putting a lot of energy into it so it seems fitting to me to explain what it's all about, why I'm doing it and what I want to get out of it.
I have always played music, I can't actually remember how old I was when I started with music. It was always in our house, both parents are musicians and I must have spent the 9 months growing in my mum's belly listening to her playing and teaching music so it is as much a part of me as breathing is.
I remember my sister, when I was about four teaching me what harmony was and how you could sing two different things together and they sounded nice.
I can remember both my sisters and I with our heads in bowls of water singing and bubbling the frog chorus for my mum and dad.
I officially started learning to play the Piano at about six or seven (reluctantly at first I might add). I didn't enjoy grades, I didn't enjoy scales, I didn't enjoy reading music but I did love playing and working things out by listening to them.
I started the Clarinet at eleven and throughout my teens I learnt different woodwind instruments and was part of a rather cliquey but very good and thriving school music department and I was greatly encouraged. I found that somehow at about the age of sixteen, the ability to read music and not solely rely on my ear kicked in and I became a well rounded musician.
After a degree in music I had quite a few years where I did absolutely nothing with my music. I had pupils, I played the piano in a restaurant and I taught music in schools but I was not doing anything with music that was just for me and I was not being particularly creative.
After a few years like this one of my friends asked me to write her a string arrangement for one of her songs that she was recording. I had not done anything like this before but thought it would be fun to try so I did that, recorded it at a really nice studio with real strings and this I think was the very beginning of my personal and creative journey as a musician which has still really only just begun.
This led to me playing the Piano and being in a music video with her which led to a little bit of performance, another music video, some more recordings and finally a little bit of writing myself.
Throughout this time I got together with my Mr Welsh who is incredibly supportive and he encouraged me and keeps encouraging me all the time with my music (and everything in general). He also happens to be a brilliant musician and sound engineer himself so we make a good team.
I got really into a local piano led band that really inspired me with my (Piano based) songwriting. Up until this point I hadn't really figured out how to write songs in my own personal style at the Piano.
I always kind of felt that songs were written using a guitar more often than not and although I can bash out a load of chords I wouldn't by any stretch of the imagination call myself a guitarist and I also struggled with lyrics.
I had written bits of songs and never finished them but for some reason one day after a few years of being involved in small ways for other people with the local music scene I decided that as singing and playing the piano are two of my most favourite things to do in the world I should really combine them, finish the songs I had, write some more songs and get out there and do it for myself.
Lena Smith was born :)
I decided that I should have a pseudonym because it sounded fun to have an alter ego to present my musical self under and I like bands that have the person as the name so I could do Lena Smith solo stuff and The Lena Smith Band. Lena because I always like the name and thought that if I was russian I'd probably be called Helena and because I really like the singer 'Lena Horne'. Smith because it is my maiden name.
So back in May this year (2011) I actually finished a song, recorded it with my clever husband, set up a facebook page and posted it.
I was really scared that people wouldn't like it but it was very well received so I did more and more and more and more :) and there is a lot more to come too!
I'm going to leave this post here now because I'm going to put up some more specific ones about first gig, songs and all sorts of other Lena Smith related things later.
Here is my favourite quote that more or less sums up how I feel about the whole thing.
'Make your own kind of music, sing your own special song, make your own kind of music even if nobody else sings along' (Mama Cass)
