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!
Cindy, Thanks for inspiring us to step outside of our comfort zone. We need to remember that beauty is everyone, we just need to slow down sometimes in order to see it. Best Wishes, Blake from Boise
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