today i did a workshop in a workshop
a piano restoration workshop
2 women who have apprenticed and taken this artform under their belt
the place is not beautiful, just a very satisfying hard-working environment
they are fine-tuned, aware of subtle difference between pianos. happy when some arrive happy when some leave. some of the piano they have rescued should just be featured as 'glorious art' even if they are no longer functional, that is how beautiful they are.

and perhaps here is a clue to the mysterious pull and power of pianos. they look like they are justing sitting there like any wooden thing. BUT they have a tension of 16,000 tons going on. to be clearer, imagine 11 elephants pulling the strings out to the right length.

the workshop i did was about song-writing. someone who was not a musician was so interested to hear 'inside musician talk'  that now she's going to go back to her musician friends to grill them. 'we never talk about these things!'

it snowed outside but i ignored it pointedly. i'm not ready.

i have been uncomfortable with my new guitar. it is made of carbon-fibre, not wood. ('blackbird'). it is small enough for airplane carry-on and sounds better acoustically than my little painted one (which is important for all the salons next year). i was wondering if there was a guitar shop in town when someone who owned a guitar shop came up. wha? people seem to be telepathic in this town. he took the action down on my guitar (made strings closer to fretboard) and put on strings with a longer sustain because it wasn't 'singing' properly. MUCH better. the audience was a mix  of people who knew me and others checking me out because of the publicity.  and though i could feel reservation, i could feel thoughtfulness and interested hearts.

this is an almost first class club/theatre in a cool little heritage town. musicians - put it on your touring maps.  (sound booth was not good enough - soundman had to lean out a window which was disconcerting.) especially intriguing here is the octagonal village centre. it felt really good. i like to study town layouts whereever i go.  some local performers who had recorded two of my songs for a cd called 'noted' opened the show. feels a bit like cape breton. good musical energy here, a tiny happening gem. goderich is great, goderich is good in bed.  met a lovely man with whom i could have been good friends had situations been different. kindredness is comforting. tonight's show was a different bale of hay than the 1st night. finding my footing. i think this tour will lead the third cd to water.  i think i'm losing it. i'd better report for duty. 'night.