Saturday,
June 28, 2014
4:28 PM
By Cindy Pendegraft
Welcome to
SingYourSongToo! I am Cindy Pendegraft,
the voice behind this blog. As of June
24, I began a new online endeavor, singyoursongtoo.com, to encourage people
everywhere to "Sing the Song" they have inside. My website is still under construction so I
can't post anything there yet. But I
just I couldn't wait to share with you the newest part of my life-long journey
to "SingMySong". So here it
is:
I have been a singer
as long as I can remember and I've played guitar since I was 13. I have always had a longing to play fiddle
but never had the time. I am now 61 and just recently retired so I figured it's
time to jump in and go for it, so I'm learning to play fiddle. Besides the sheer joy of making the fiddle
sing, I have a dream to combine my fiddle playing with my guitar and voice to
keep American Folk Songs alive and well in our culture.
As I thought about
how to go about taking lessons, I decided to learn as much as I could from
YouTube videos until I felt I needed a live teacher. I also committed to practicing for 15 minutes
every day. I've been practicing for a
few weeks and am really not very good, but I wanted to share my first steps
along the path with you. I must tell you that I majored in music in college, so
I did take 6 weeks of viola lessons 26 years ago. Just so you know that everyone has to start
somewhere, here it is....
Last week I was on
vacation at South Lake Tahoe, California.
I needed to practice my 15 minutes and was looking for a place that
would not "bother" anyone. I
decided to go out to the beach in the late afternoon when there were very few
people there. I was afraid of how I
would be received and worried about what people might think of my playing in
public when I was obviously just learning, but decided to go for it
anyway. As I played on the beach that
afternoon, I sounded just like I did in that video you just listened to. To my
amazement people kept asking me to play more -- they didn't want me to
stop! In fact, as I was playing, unknown
to me, a lady took my picture to encourage and inspire her instrumental
students to practice. Here's the
picture:
We struck up a
conversation and I told her about my new website. On the spot, she sent the picture to all her
friends on Facebook with the message: Sing Your Song Too! Now if that is the impact I can have when
I've only been playing for a few weeks -- I can't wait to see what will happen
as I continue. All it took was the
courage to do it.
How about you? Do you have a "Song" that you are
longing to sing? In my case, it actually
is a musical song, but what about yours?
What message do you have inside that needs to be sung? One small voice can teach the world a
song. I challenge you to go out there,
take the first steps, and get started.
If I can do it, then you can SingYourSongToo!
