All posts tagged: Unglamorous Music

In her honour, we played our first ever gig as The Ruths

Have you ever been in a band? It’s a complex juggle of personalities, skill, nerves, and creativity. Hello Folks, thanks for dropping by. I’ve been ridiculously busy lately, but in the best way for me: various art projects, which of course also includes grant applications/rehearsals/long-distance driving to gigs/exhaustion/recalibrating. I’ve written before HERE about my ‘Band Me Up’ project, inspiring local women who always wanted to play music to actually give it a go; finally, our weekly rehearsals culminated in our first performance at a local pub’s [very low-key] Sunday afternoon Open Mic. It was a process to get there, let me tell you! Seven women, at seven different stages of musical prowess, including our funky bass player who only picked up her guitar three months earlier. She started out on tamborine, tried backing vocals and the drums (but I was very hard to prise off the throne), then finally found her niche. ‘But we’re not ready,’ some of us said. ‘You’ll never be ready, and you’ll never feel good enough,‘ advised one old musician. ‘You …

Too old to learn the drums at 56? Hell no! One year later…

Welcome Folks, to the best year of my life. I mean that. Twelve months ago exactly I bought my first electronic drum kit for $400, played it for 2 weeks every day, then upgraded to a $1500 kit. I wrote all about it HERE. A couple of months later I spent $500 on a cute blue acoustic kit (which means the proper ‘drum kit’ you see with rock bands), then again upgraded to my now-much-beloved-almost-new-proper Pearl kit, with pride of place in my living room: And yes, I’d sleep there if I thought it would help me learn quicker. For me, drums are the perfect combination of rhythm, dance, meditation, creativity, focus, play, fun, and discipline. I try and play every day for an hour (sometimes more), and let me acknowledge here what a privilege this is: I don’t have to deal with a fulltime job, 3 kids, a struggle with homelessness, or even just grumpy neighbours. I am SO blessed. Last week marked six months of weekly rehearsals with my group of over-45 women …

How reading an article about over 50s women musicians changed my life

Hello Folks, thanks for dropping by. Are you reading this post while sipping tea or coffee? That’s what I was doing when I read an article online which has changed my life dramatically in the last 12 months, and here it is: ArticleThatMayChangeYourLife. My new Shero– who I’ve never met but hope to one day- Ruth Miller had a gem of an idea to start an over 50s punk band, especially for women who never had a chance to do that when they were younger (for whatever reasons). YES. YES. YES PLEASE. In 2021, using the name Unglamorous Music, she launched workshops to teach simple song writing and instrument playing to women around Leicester in England; now there are 8 all-female bands gigging round her local area, and they’ve just released a 12-song sampler you can buy HERE (vinyl, CD or digital). As I’ve written in my previous post, the urge to start playing the drums came to me in a shaft of bright light from above, and that article about Ruth may have been …