Month: April 2024

Mother Insider Frayed Jeans / L’Agence Blouse / Gucci Sunglasses / B Low the Belt Belt /        Veronica Beard Purse / Schutz Sandals 

Sizing tips: I’m typically a size 8/Medium and am wearing a Medium in the blouse and a size 8/10 in the jeans. The sandals run true to American shoe sizing, I’m in an 11. The belt is true to size, I’m a Medium.

This is the perfect weekend look for a ladies lunch, visiting a friend or going out to dinner. The jeans are giving weekend because they are made of the softest denim and are so comfortable, yet very flattering. The gold buttons on the blouse and shoulder pads really elevate the look. The low heel on the sandals make them easy to walk in, and the accessories top it all of. Expert Tip: If you want to dress it up a bit more you can even layer with a blazer.

Click Here to Shop this Look via the Shop LTK App

Originally posted at: My Weekend Uniform Featuring Mother Denim

Welcome to piano lesson 34! Today I discuss the French chef’s term Mise en Place, and how, like a chef’s kitchen, musicians order their practice space to make it organized, efficient, and appealing.

[NOTE: If you are just joining us for the first time, you can find my previous Sixty and Me Free Piano Lessons on my Author pages. You can join our lessons any time and move at your own pace!]

34.1 Mise en Place!

As you will see in my video, I am thrilled to be back in my original teaching space! Here I am able to use my full 88-key keyboard, store all of my music books at arm’s length, have good ventilation and light, have my digital music accessible on my laptop in front of my keyboard, and have some of my favorite things around me.

In this week’s video I discuss Mise en Place, and how you might make your music practice space more organized and pleasing to you.

34.2 Simple Gifts video, p.85-86

Back in Lesson 22, I suggested that you might like to jump ahead to play Simple Gifts for the American Thanksgiving holiday. For Lesson 34, you will either be reviewing Simple Gifts, or playing it for the first time. Read the box at the bottom of p.86, noting that sometimes you can play a full chord, and other times just the root (bottom) of the chord, or a couple notes from the chord.

Here I demonstrate Simple Gifts as written.

34.3 Drink to Me video, p.87

We are playing Drink to Me again (you originally played it on p.46), this time using chord symbols. In the first 2 lines I am playing just the root of each chord with my left hand. In the 3^rd and 4^th lines I am playing the full C chord, then just the roots of the F and G chords with my LH 2- and 1- fingers, for ease of movement, similar to my left-hand accompaniment in Simple Gifts.

When my left hand doesn’t have to jump around as much, I am likely to make fewer mistakes. However, you might like the sound of the full chords better than the simplified notes, so you can choose how you want to play the chords: the full triad or simplified.

Passion Practice

1. Exercise #2 (Appendix iii) in F-sharp and D-flat, with hands together.
2. p.84 – Create a sentence to go with each line of music using the note name as the first letter of each word. The sentences can make sense or be funny or silly. Then play and sing the notes.
3. Simple Gifts p.85-86 – Play the left hand alone first, then practice with hands together.
4. Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes, p.87 – Play with hands together and determine whether you will play the full chords, partial chords or just the root of the chords. You can make a note to yourself next to the chord symbol on how you will play it.
5. Chord Calisthenics #3 – (Appendix vii) Play the Major-minor-Major triads in F-sharp to F with hands together, forward and backward.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Have you heard of the French culinary phrase, Mise en Place? What does it mean to you? How might you apply the idea of Mise en Place to your practice space? Do you prefer to work in a neat, organized environment, or does messy feel more creative to you? Do you have artwork on the walls or special items near your keyboard in order to make your space pleasurable to you?

Leave a comment below and tell us where you practice and what you would like your practice space to look like! Is there a way you might improve it? For further discussion, please read my Mise en Place blog post!

I’d like to talk about a difficult topic, depression – and what we may be teaching our children and grandchildren about revealing vulnerability. Or not teaching them.

Lots of people don’t like talking about troubling things. You might rather read a post that’s more light-hearted, more upbeat. Unless you’re one of the ones struggling with difficult feelings – maybe even depression.

The Rise of Depression

There are many current studies highlighting an international rise of depression and suicide. It’s becoming a rampant issue. It is one that is more and more likely to affect your life or the lives of those you love. Wherever you live. At whatever age.

The rise of depression with increased social media involvement in younger people is well documented. Symptoms are being recognized as what they really are. Depression should be grabbing our attention as a culture, and as a world.

I’ve been writing for a few years about a different version of depression, one that won’t likely be included in these studies. This is one where people wouldn’t admit to experiencing symptoms such as depressed mood, not enjoying things that you’ve previously enjoyed, foggy thinking, a tendency to isolate.

It might include sleep and appetite changes, maybe even a sense of hopelessness or helplessness. The symptoms of classic depression might not be present. Or if they are, they aren’t revealed. Ever.

Perfectly Hidden Depression (PHD)

Actually, people with PHD look engaged, happy, productive. They’re often the people others look up to, “I want to be like them. They’ve got a great marriage, a wonderful career.”

As we age, these folks are the people who appear to have exciting lives, whether they’re retiring or staying in the work world. They’re busy, busy, busy.

One could even write a midlife blog, touting how stimulating and empowering it is to age gracefully. They’ll give tips for staying active and upbeat, while secretly stumbling down a rabbit hole of despair and emptiness when alone at night.

Obviously, there are some people who are truly doing well. We can all learn from them.

But many of us may believe, and have modeled for our younger people, that it’s not okay to admit feeling overwhelmed. That it’s embarrassing to talk about the discrepancy that can exist between what life looks like and what it feels to be living it.

Stanford Duck Syndrome

In a Gen-Y Psychology Today column, Caroline Beaton quotes a Stanford blogger on the Stanford Duck Syndrome: “Everyone on campus appears to be gliding effortlessly across this Lake College. But below the surface, our little duck feet are paddling furiously, working our feathered little tails off.”

For Stanford students, the duck syndrome represents a false ease and fronted genius. “Frustration, anxiety, self-doubt, effort and failure don’t have a place in the Stanford experience.”

Where did, “We learn from our mistakes” go?

The Penn Face

How about the Penn face? The student author of this article is warning future graduates of Penn to stay away from the hypocrisy of putting on a smile and trying to look like everything’s going smoothly, when it’s very difficult.

On a national morning show in the US, I heard a psychiatrist answer questions about what parents should do if depression is suspected. The interview was showcasing the book What Made Maddy Run by Kate Fagan, a true story of one young female Penn track star who jumped to her own death.

The answer troubled me. She basically cited classic symptoms of depression – isolating, sleeping too much or not at all, wanting to drop out of things. At that point, I was yelling at the TV.

Maddie Holleran, the young woman in the book, was talking about not enjoying track anymore, about how much she wasn’t enjoying being at Penn. But she didn’t look consistently depressed.

She put on a great face when taking a selfie or Face Timing with friends. She never told anyone she was thinking of and researching suicide.

Her parents agreed to the book to help others through their own tragedy. What an extremely admirable thing to do – to make your own very private grief, public.

Adults don’t have control over what their children go through. But we do have control of what we teach them and how to handle things if feeling overwhelmed.

We can model openness and honesty. We can remember that depression can wear many faces, and they’re not all sad.

Here’s a questionnaire to determine if you may belong on the spectrum of Perfectly Hidden Depression.

You can hear more about Perfectly Hidden Depression and many other topics by listening to my new podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Do you agree that we often hide our vulnerability and depression from our friends and family? Please join the conversation below.