Here’s the second of a 3 video serie with me singing at a lower and without music but with some explanations the lyrics for our collaborative video project based on the Breton version of Running Up That Hill.
It’s in French we know! But, you can still follow along, and, Simone is creating a video about more general Breton pronunciation, that can be interesting for you and can then give you some tips to follow with more ease on whatever Breton song you would be learning from its written version.
Let us know in the comments if that’s something you’d be interested in đ
Here’s the first of a 3 video serie with me singing at a lower and without music but with some explanations the lyrics for our collaborative video project based on the Breton version of Running Up That Hill.
It’s in French we know! But, you can still follow along, and, Simone is creating a video about more general Breton pronunciation, that can be interesting for you and can then give you some tips to follow with more ease on whatever Breton song you would be learning from its written version.
Let us know in the comments if that’s something you’d be interested in đ
We did a Q&A yesterday on facebook, you can watch it on our YouTube here, but know that since it came from the live version, this version has completely unsynchronized sound ! It’s good on some parts, completely out in some others, it’s a mystery for me why, if you have any advice, feel free to leave a comment đ In any case do something else and just listen, there’s no fancy sequence included ! But rather go to the YouTube channel, I have put in shortcuts (in the description box) to every question (all is in French first, English afterwards).
Already said they will be in ! Big up to folks in Wales, US & Corwal, but also in England, Mexico…
Shared our project, give us lovely feedback !
Supported our project by buying digital music last Friday on Bandcamp (you still can, anytime, but if you are planning on doing so, we’ll send you a reminder, on the 3rd of June, Bandcamp won’t charge anything, so that will be a little extra for us đ )
Supported us by making a donation to http://www.paypal.me/astrakan (you can donate any amount, it makes a huge difference for us!)
To donate and support our project http://www.paypal.me/astrakan any amount small or big can make a huge difference to us ! A huge thank you for those who contributed!
Your friends might thank you for letting them know about our music !
Today, and because it’s been a long time, 2 videos, one in English, on in French, both with a big up-date, and some clues about next project that we’re about to release in its first phase… tomorrow!
We filmed a bit in Carnac (a beautiful and magical location in the south of Brittany) where we were some days ago, we wanted to share a bit with you what we are at. If you have a look at our tour schedule, you’ll straight away notice we’re far from being over-booked for next summer, and we thought it would be fair to also share with you what has been going on. Don’t forget to subscribe to our Youtube channel if you haven’t yet ! And leave any comment that could support our moods đ
In case you wonder, we’re doing much better, the small tout to Catalunya and Portugal were amazing and like the medicine we needed, but we are still practicing intense self-care, as much as we can. We still have our job contracts running up until early July, but we still manage to squeeze in some creative time. For me personally, creating and editing videos is a fun way to do something different, and stay creative, which makes me feel much better!
Thanks for reading and following our creative crazy journey, even in darker days *Simone.
Your friends might thank you for letting them know about our music !
June is around the corner. And it’s almost the end of the school year which for us means the end of our job contracts in high schools/ secondary schools. And it means also look behind and realise that despite of all going on in our lives, and we’ve definitely had our share this year, we have still been quite creative since January.Â
Yann has done some deep sound work in the studio, and rethought the all way we organise our music set. Iâve done some small videos (some are even published on Youtube here), learned new editing tricks, taken pictures, done small drawings. Nothing physically released that’s for sure, no new recording, although we’ve tried hard on that.
I guess like for most
artists, creating is a need, can I even say a basic need? One that if it isnât
met messes up all of our lives even where all could go well? Or maybe it could
rather be an addiction. Something we got so much used to that we feel we need
and to want to experience it again and again?
As the years pass by Iâm
coming to the conclusion that it isnât just about âbeing creativeâ. Itâs also
about âstayingâ and âfeeling creativeâ no matter what. No matter the turmoil of
life, no matter if our art doesnât generate enough revenue to make a living and
get us back to side-tiring-non exciting-jobs.
1 Recognise what canât be done right now
Sometimes it’s just not the
time and recognising and accepting it seems to make it easier to navigate
through. Iâve seen too many times what denial could do to us. Denying that
we arenât getting the expected gigs/sales/views/streams. Denying that it makes
us feel sad and worthless. And fooling ourselves pretending itâs about not
giving up. Getting revenue to sustain our living and ensure weâll be able to
live decently, afford healthy food, replace expensive violin strings, do some unavoidable
repairs in the house or on the car, all this certainly isnât about giving up on
our creativity.
2 See instead what you can do & start creating something small
We all hear about âdream bigâ, and keep on seeing this quote shared by anyone on facebook âShoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.â (which btw is by Norman Vincent Peale, author of the Power of Positive Thinking which worth a read ). I feel itâs ok to do soâŠ. when it makes me feel good! When it doesnât, because letâs be honest when my tour agenda is almost empty the gap is too big for my mind to deal with, I canât fool myself on that one.
I realised I hadnât created many videos in years, although it made me extremely happy, and I just thought this was extremely sad. I used to vlog for Astrakan Project. To shoot little sequences just because they had interest for my eyes and because I wanted to see them come to life. There are many reasons for why I was doing less of these. On one hand itâs true that the small equipment Iâm lucky to own has its limitations. A lot of limitations for sure, and the truth is also, when I hear our music, I have visions of glorious landscapes and skies that I canât capture. And I imagine scripts (I wrote a few of them, some even with a storyboard!) that canât be done with me alone so far.
What was then my cure? Go back to step 1! I acknowledged I couldnât do these projects right now, and started thinking about what was doable right now. Doable technically. Doable schedule-wise too. I realised I was aiming at creating a full music video, with our tracks being almost all more than 5 min long, thatâs a tremendous amount of work, and just the thought was pulling me back from doing anything.at.all! And guess what? It made me so happy to imagine, shot and edit this small sequence with my son!
In a way, I try to change my perspective. Instead of staying stuck into “want I want to do”, I gently try to push myself to also see “what I can easily do” and that makes me (quite as) happy too.
And Iâm serious on that one! More than often I can be more than happy about friends having gigs, tours, exhibitions, and Iâm happy to listen to new music people share, discover new videos. But again, if the gap is too big with what Iâm experiencing right now, I just see how it makes me feel sad to hear/see their own achievements, and then it builds up to resentment, to feeling like a victim, and I deeply believe feeling like a victim doesnât really pair with being a thriving artist! My feeling again, everyone is different, some people may get motivated by some sort of competition or revenge, but itâs not my case at all, I need to be centered and at peace to create.
The Ghost of Me.
Since a reduced my scrolling time, I noticed how I had more clarity, more ideas, and more focus for sure to deepen the ideas I have, and actually create them (I also noticed I could remember vibrant dreams, is that related?). I feel that even âniceâ, âinspiringâ, “classes”, “how to” content is an excuse for not being creating myself. Thereâs so much waiting to be done! I have a long way to go, but I’m taking responsibility for trying it out.
4 Read (or listen) to inspiring books instead!
My bible
will forever be The Artist Way by Julia Cameron. I donât know if thereâs anyone
around that hasnât heard about her book, but if itâs your case, know that itâs
been a companion for a decade, and itâs more than a usual inspirational book. It
has concrete steps and exercises to get back on creativity. I could even award
it as best-value-book-ever!
My second
go to book is Big Magic, Creative Living beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert. I
listen to it actually rather than I read it, but I love it and it has changed
my perspective on the expectations I had towards my art. I realised I was
putting a lot of pressure on what I was creating. It had to please me, to make
me happy, to get me revenue (oh! Thatâs a big one!), to get me to travel, to
get me to meet new people. I realised I needed to accept (remember step 1 đ )
that if it was really cool when it would happen, I should relax, step back, and
re-focus on the process of creating, not on the out-come. To be honest, thatâs
way easier said than done and experienced!
The author
has also a very unique take on inspiration and ideas. For Elizabeth Guilbert,
ideas have an existence on their own, like they are floating around waiting for
someone to grab them and materialise them into the physical world. A very
profound book that I feel like⊠listening to again as soon as I press the
publish button on this post!
Iâm personally a big fan of audiobooks, especially for non-fiction books, books about creativity, motivational books. When I discovered about it, I was in awe with all the possibilities. I already loved long drives, but that definitely make them even more exciting! Same goes for cooking sessions!
Thatâs all for today folks, if you have any advice or thought to share with me, please to in the comments below, if that was useful too đ
Wishing you a lovely, peaceful and creative week!
A galon / with heart, Simone
PS: Links may be affiliated for some of them (on Amazon for instance). As a friend of Astrakan Project, you allow us to earn a small commission if you make a purchase through our affiliate/referral links. This doesn’t affect you in any way in the checkout process. Thank you for supporting our creative journey!
Your friends might thank you for letting them know about our music !
We feel very honored to be among all these talented artists. And it gives extra value to these months/year of deep and profound search around music and sound. And also it cheers us up as we are just back from almost a week of radio promo in Brittany. We did very nice interview, met very nice people too, and let’s be honest, it always feels good to talk about this very personal projet.
So, why? Why do we need to be cheered up? Well, despite of dedicated promo work, and having the chance to be welcomed by most of Breton radios, it hasn’t really translated into sales. Not sales from Brittany at least. And of course, yes, we’d love to also have some more folks enjoying and supporting our music over here. After all it’s Breton music right? Also, every single sale pushes the day we’ll have to go back to employee job a bit further away, and everyday staying focussed on our music and art is to be enjoyed and made great use of!
This is true. Our child is rather enthusiast, and also we promised he would get extra carousel rides for each book and album sold, but without that it really makes him happy when we have sales.
Probably he also feels our own happiness. We always celebrate when we get a sale, a new Facebook like, a new gig, a review, a nice message from fans, whatever. Always.
This goes back to the topic we bringing up yesterday, and could be the second tip to deal with anxiousness of having our music appreciated by audience and reviewers (side note, nope, I didn’t say “not being liked”, I clearly talk about your music! You’re much more than your music!).
The tip is to celebrate. Over-celebrate. Be joyful. Over-joyful. Be grateful. Over-grateful. Be like a child!
Why?
If you fill your day with celebration, joyfulness, chances are you’ll have less time to be wondering about a review you’d like to have or the sales you hope to make. Of course, ask for sales, advertise, share about it, be professional and enthusiastic about your project. But also detach enough from it to avoid suffering due to unfulfilled expectations.
Celebrating helps. At least it has helped us.
Have a joyful day out there, and share any tips you would have to dissociate from your music so that it doesn’t kill you!
And if you want to make our child and us even happier, yes you have that power! One click to order!
For more videos, you can also subscribe to our YouTube channel >here<
~ Simone.
Your friends might thank you for letting them know about our music !
As we already mentioned in previous blogs, we are in this awkward time frame. InĂȘs is released, copies have been sent to most of our audience that supported the project along the crowdfund campaign, we’ve done some limited sales on our network, and we’ve sent a couple of copies for review.
They’re a few types of possible reviews. The ones that previously supported our projects, the ones we never sent any material too but are now getting in touch with, and the ones whom we probably won’t bother sending to this time, since we are trying to slash down our promo costs too (we’ll have a Vlog running on the topic pretty soon, hit the subscribe button on our YouTube channel).
Regarding medias that had already trusted, supported and reviewed our project with respect and understanding from the very beginning, we noticed it with B album, we freak out with questions like “will they like it this time?” “does it add anything so that we’ve leveled up from previous recordings?” etc, etc…
One tip we happily use is to  gather all the kind messages and even print them out. The first impressions tend, from our experience, to be the good ones you receive, the enthusiastic ones, the supportive ones. When in doubt, go threw the message and that will make us realise that indeed we truly are supported by lovely and kind people. Do you have any other tip? Share in the comment section please! We’re always up to learning new tricks!
But today we can breathe and celebrate, fRoots that had us reviewed for both our albums and also made us the great honor of featuring us on their cover, has included the last song from the album on its autumn playlist here:
Have you ever dream of a list of Breton music to listen to? Essentials that you could be introduced to ? Fascinated by breton fest-noz music and not knowing where to start from?
We’ve had the request quite often, and since we’re catching-up on all we postponed during InĂȘs album recording and release, here it is:Â a WIP list of breton music that we like and that has influenced us. You can find the list on this section of tour web-site that we plan on up-dating regularly, as well as books recommended for artists, online ressources and links to the gear we use for music and video. But, without further due, let’s get in to the world of fest-noz and breton music:Â
Fest-noz & modern breton music
From late XXc â 80âs and 90âs power!
Gwerz â musique bretonne (1997)Â a basic must have favorite of ours, with the amazing voice of the singer Erik Marchand from whom we learned a lot.
Barzaz â An den Kozh Dal & EcâHonder another essential from the 90âČ with the beautiful voice of Yann-Fañch Kemener, the great guitar player Gilles Le bigot and our friend Hopy Hopkins on drums to name but a few. Previous albums have been put together recently as a re-edit.
Pevar Den â fest-noz . As the title says! Easy pleasant fest-noz music. The band still performs if youâd like to experiment them live!
Kornog â Korong â beautiful sound from the iconic band â and still available!
Penou Skoulm â Breton Ballroom â this was Yannâs favorite when we met back in 1996. The combination of fiddle and Irish flute has profoundly influenced breton music for a few decades. Precious to understand some influences heard among plenty of fest-noz bands.
Carre Manchot â again an iconic fest-noz band, active since⊠we canât remember! Some members changed along the way, but they still play in Brittany and beyond, fantastic dancing music. Look up for them when youâre in Brittany. Theyâve released quite some albums, most of the earlier ones arenât to be found on the market, but they sometimes show up on second hand markets!
Any album by/with Erik Marchand worth it! His collaboration with the french oud player Thierry Titi Robin in the 80âs: chants du centre Bretagne and An Tri Breur deeply and profoundly inspired and nourished our musical experiences. Heâs also famous for his fusion world music with musicians from the Balkans. Our favorite ever is Pruna (although Unu, daou, tri easily available or Dor are totally worth it). Another favorite of ours is his collab with the french indie musician Rodolphe Burger which resulted in the unexpected album Before Bach.
Norkst and Kreiz Breizh Akademi. It sounds weird to add an album in which we personally performed, but when it was released in 2005, it was quite a unique project, both artistic and pedagogic, upon an idea from Erik Marchand. The project still goes on with several albums released by different KBA bands, but Norkst being the very first one, it certainly would be the one to listen to as it opened the road to all the later ones. (let us know if youâd like us to elaborate on the project!)
Kan ha Diskan by Loeiz Roparz. A collection of kan ha diskan with several singers and Loeiz Roparz, known to be the âinventorâ of fest-noz in its actual form.
Kan ha Diskan â Yann-Fañch Kemener. Kan ha diskan from Yann-Fañch Kemener with most of big names from the breton kan ha diskan scene, both old and new scene: Erik Marchand, Annie Ebrel, Patrick Marie, Valentine Colleter, Claudine Flohic, Marcel Guilloux, Ifig Troadeg. A must have!
Fest-Noz en Poher. Not very often available, but pay close attention to the name and picture, so far there isnât any re-edit, but if it at some point would show up on the second hand market, be quick! Simone has practically learned all the basics from Kan ha Diskan with this excellent very traditional album. Features gavotte from Annie Ebrel with Noluen Le Buhez (excellent and brilliant energy!), from Fustec/Le Corre and Les FrĂšres Dilasser â both huge favorites and role models for kan ha diskan when Yann was a child (and also probably the only recording available from the Dilasser Brothers).
Enjoy, and let us know in the comment section if you have any request or suggestion!
Links are amazon affiliated, if you decide to buy any of these based on our recommendations, please, do use our links, you will pay the exact same price, but weâll receive a little percentage that can help us producing more music and share more useful links.
Also, this list is based on our personal musical journey, on what made a difference to us, and also on our personal tastes! This ainât meant to be a chart, or any âultimateâ listing! Get inspired, enjoy our story sharing, but create your own story and connection with breton music.
Your friends might thank you for letting them know about our music !
. astrakan project . 