I play amid a Circle Of Jerks!
This Thursday I’m proud and pleased to join the jerks night of music and tom-jerkery! If you’ve already experienced the jerks, you know what fun they are! If you haven’t experienced them yet, this could be an excellent opportunity!!!
Thursday Jan 9 at 8:30pm
Free Times Cafe
320 College Street, Toronto
Four Winds at Lizzie Violet’s Cabaret Noir!
It’s happening! Finally the Four Winds Music Collective blow onto the LVCN’s stage like a hot winter breeze! Sunday December 8 at The Central Toronto 7pm. It promises to be a stellar night at the Cabaret– which is usually the case at LVCN– as we join Matt Gerber, TOPoet as well as a potpourri of open micers! Hope to see you there!
You remember who the Four Winds are, right? Meghan Morrison, Heather Hill, Arlene Paculan and moi! It’s true!
Fundraiser: Baby It’s Warm Inside
Wontcha come on in?! This Sunday December 1st we bust into December raising funds and warming the cockles of the holiday spirit with some holiday tunes! Hope you can join us at The Cameron House 7pm! Ho! Ho! Ho!
Four Winds: A songstorm of musical forces intertwined for the greater good!
www.ArlenePaculan.com
www.KatLeonard.com
www.MeghanMorrison.com
www.HeatherHill.ca
The Four Winds Collective share their gifts of music as they gather to play a concert fundraiser at the Church of The Good Shepherd Sunday September 29, 2013 2pm-4pm. Who are the Four Winds Collective? Kat Leonard (KatLeonard.com) has training in Science, music, theatre and The Second City. She performs feisty comedic pop. Arlene Paculan (ArlenePaculan.com) was trained at Randolph Academy and Royal Conservatory of Music, and performs soulful jazzy pop. Heather Hill (HeatherHill.ca) trained at Royal Conservatory of Music as well as New York City and plays piano pop rock. Meghan Morrison (MeghanMorrison.com) is a mover and a shaker. She started a successful music jam podcast and is an art rocker who plays Celtic groove music.
The Four Winds Collective is a songstorm of musical forces intertwined for the greater good. They travel together with their dynamic live shows in an aim to draw together a community to share joy and inspiration through music and storytelling.
Catch us Sunday September 29th 2pm in Wyebridge, Ontario!
www.KatLeonard.com
@Katbandoo
Come By Here!
Once upon a time I wrote lyrics which depicted experiences with Cancer of three people that affected me greatly. Of course there are more than three that have affected me, but writing about them all would create an epic song for which the music video would be a multi-ogy. So I highlighted these three. What to do about music? Enter the astounding Heather Hill who created the music and worked with me to finesse the lyrics and come up with a resounding chorus and title. Come By Here; it’s what the term “Kumbaya” translates to. You may remember the spiritual song Kumbaya from the 1930s about human bonding, empathy and compassion. During the songwriting process Heather had goosebumps, so we knew we were onto something special.
Foreground: Heather Hill’s goosebumps
Background: Heather Hill’s hitmaker piano
Then came along the brilliant Orville Heyn who helped to finalize the lyrics and music. It was with Orville that I went into the studio this past July to record the track.
1. My reflective self! 2. My mic and my notes!
3. My producer/vocal coach/director Orville Heyn!
The result? These are the final lyrics.
COME BY HERE
-Kat Leonard, Heather Hill, Orville Heyn
(c) 2013
I had an aunt with grace untold
A hefty laugh, warm hand to hold
You’d fall in love before you knew it
Her smile was bright, her humour sharp
Encouraging words dispelled the dark
She was gone before we knew it
Chorus:
Come by here
Come by here
Oh god
Come by here
Grampie fought the great evil abroad
He’s the old kind of brave we’ll forever applaud
He fought for light and liberty
Taught me I was never alone
Gave a young girl a place to belong
When all was done he fell to only one enemy
[repeat chorus]
I have a friend who’s fought before
The devil it seems came back for more
She struggles inside, you’d never know it
Like a buoyant wave on a frantic sea
She’s the kind of friend I strive to be
An army of hope she marches on
[repeat chorus]
In perpetual echo our lost live on!
Where can you hear the song?
For one, you can listen here on Soundcloud!
For two, it is part of an artist compilation CD called She’s Listening which is in support of Ovarian Cancer Canada! If you’d like, you can pre-order your copy for $12 here. If you’re in Ottawa on September 8th, you can join Heather Hill and I at the Walk Of Hope and hear us perform the song live then pick up your copy of She’s Listening! There will also be other artists from She’s Listening performing! Sounds like a hoot and holla to me! 🙂
For three, you can see the music video… once there is one! The aim is to produce the video this fall. Come By Here, all!
Love Kat
@Katbandoo
www.KatLeonard.com
WonderKids: Songwriting Workshop!
Presented by Let’s Make Good Productions
and One Parent Families Association
When: Sunday July 14, 2013 and Sunday August 11, 2013 2pm-4pm
Who: Suggested ages: 6-13
Where: The Central, 603 Markham Street Toronto, Ontario, Canada
How: $10 per child per session or $15 per child for both sessions
$7 brunch special offered by The Central for parents to enjoy
What: Parents of workshop participants expected to stay onsite and merrily eat while the children participate in the songwriting workshop. When the workshop is done, children and parents will enjoy a performance presentation of what the children created during the workshop.
Event Outline:
-Intro/welcome for participants and parents; performances by workshop leaders.
-Kids break off for workshop; parents remain in dining area for brunch/relaxation.
-Workshop involves: Improv session to warm up to play and experimentation; intro to songwriting- demonstration of song structure and lyric play; kids break off into groups to work on a song for presentation.
-Kids and parents reconvene in main stage dining room area for final presentation of songs the groups came up with.
– If time allows, there will be an open mic for further performances by participants should they wish to continue being stars.
-Extro/goodbyes
Workshop leaders are singer/songwriter/performers:
ArlenePaculan.com
KatLeonard.com
BryanPickell (brytunes.net)
MattGerberMusic.com
Limited spaces. For reservations and more info:
letsmakegoodmail@gmail.com
www.WonderWomenWorld.tumblr.com
There’s Hope!
(SAC Songwriting Challenge-epilogue)
Lookie! Lookie! I did it! I made it through Pat Pattison’s songwriting course!
There’s hope for me yet!
______________________________________________________________________________
And there’s hope for Spring too! Morning coffee visuals in my backyard:
“A moment of satisfaction and hope before I’ve sunk into a funk or tizzy over something not worth a funk or tizzy.”
-Lyrics from my ode to coffee song “Morning Lover”
ASCAP Expo: My Take
Report: ASCAP Expo! The lovely Heather Hill did a bang-up writeup on our adventures at ASCAP Expo and all I did was hit “Reblog”. Love, KAT! XO
I See The Light! I Smell Cake!
I see the light!
I made it! I submitted my final peer evaluations for Pat Pattison’s course this morn! This songwriting course has introduced me to a whole world of what I don’t know. But now I actually know what I don’t know, and what I should know. And knowing is half the knowing! Now when I discuss songwriting, I have new musical vocabulary as well as deeper definitions for common vocabulary like stable and unstable. I’m able to absorb song execution tactics with more profound saturation. I see a door to a valuable toolshed, a door beckoning me like freshly baked cake to a whole new world of songwriting. Knowing that door to the toolshed is there, and that I have access to it whenever I find the initiative to flick the latch, is as comforting as eating half that freshly baked cake and knowing the second half of the cake is there for dessert!
Thank you to SAC for instigating yet another great blogging challenge, and thank you thank you thank you to Berklee College and Pat Pattison! An unstable hero is just what I needed!
Pat Pattison-a sung hero!
(Get it? He’s not unsung? ‘Cause he sings and stuff? Get it?)
To Stress or Not to Stress…
SAC songwriting challenge-Week 4
Oh man, during this week’s Pat Pattison songwriting lesson, I got lost by “industrial strength magnets” when a squirrel hopped upon my windowsill… or rather I was drawn vegetatively to the windowsill in hopes of luring a squirrel to hop on by and entertain me. This week’s lesson felt like someone forced me to go camping against my will. And camping is ALWAYS against my will. Ugh. Perhaps I’m over-exhausted from Canadian Music Week shenanigans.
Me saying goodnight to CMW 2013 and dreaming of CMW 2014!
To stress or not to stress… within music, means to analyze the syllables and whether they’re nouns or articles or verbs or squirrels. I tried sooooo hard to pay attention. Okay, to be honest, I can’t precisely qualify how deep my effort to pay attention was, for I kept winding up unconscious. I felt a tangible resistance to attention paying. It felt like the times I’d feigned attention while being scolded for something I planned to do again anyway. The stress was definitely ON.
I didn’t like it. So I shifted my attention to something else important to me: my next live show, for which I plan to perform new songs that are in various stages of incompletion. The most amazing thing happened! I was working with lyrics and– guess what! I found myself employing the tactics of syllable stress in my writing– and– I altered the chorus of one of the songs so that the chorus’s title was more defined! I couldn’t believe it! It worked! Pat Pattison’s songwriting tools had hoed their way into my songwriting process and it wasn’t painful or numbing! Weehaaaaahoooooooey! I believe there’s hope for me yet! I CAN use tools outside of myself! Needless to blog, I am thrilled with the prospect, and recharged with vigor! I feel like I’ve benefited from a long-needed nap! Yowza! Yowza!
And on the songwriting note– ha! Get it?! If you’d like to be among the first to hear these new songs, you should come out to Smiling Buddha Bar next week! There’s even some open mic slots, so you could play a song new or old as well! I’m pretty sure it’s gonna be a smack-on good time! Come if you can!
The Four Winds Collective smiles at Buddha Thursday April 4th 9pm!
KAT LEONARD (Kat & The MP3) 