Why play an instrument if you're not going to be a soloist?

Or why I sew (or go to museums or collect plastic recycling) rather than aiming to become a virtuoso guitarist or banjoist or trombonist.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about what instruments mean to me.

What I’ve determined is that they are sound sparks which catalyze my song-making ideas. They appeal to the sonic hunger I’ve always known since childhood.

Instruments don’t exist for me as paths to virtuoso playing. Sometimes I feel embarrassed by having really special instruments because I can not play fiddle tunes or lightning fast solos on them. But I am learning that these kinds of thoughts are negative loops playing in my head. They are the actual criticisms (or theoretical criticisms) of other people which I allow into my creative heart.

Lately, I’ve found the instagram account of Elyse Myers. She talks a lot about standing up for herself which is not something I’ve been very good at doing in my life. I don’t like conflict or making people unhappy. And I don’t like debating or arguing, so I often just let things go. But I realize how letting things go can have a diminishing effect on my own way of seeing myself.

So, I’m going to stand up and say that I love playing instruments because they inspire me to write and their sounds make me happy. And that is a great reason to play and to love instruments. A chord sequence or a resonance in a particular instrument sends me off on a sonic adventure to which words become magically fused. Suddenly, I have a feeling of excitement and I have to see it all through to the end. That’s songwriting for me.

Even though I don’t play my mountain dulcimer in concert, I like strumming it and messing around with the tuning of the strings. I wrote “Seventeen of My Own,” my song about Aunt Laura, on the lap dulcimer. I rarely play the mandolin in concert, but I wrote “Heart of the Mountain” on it – a song which describes my deep sadness about the destruction of whole mountains in my Appalachian home. Sometimes, I might only play banjo on one song in concert, but I love to write songs on banjo like “Silver Darling” – a tribute to my musical mentor Norman Cross and his wife and carer who mended (“knitted”) him many times over. I actually wrote that song on Norman’s banjo.

The sounds of my beloved instruments carry my words and ideas like water carrying a boat.

Back in February, I was visiting a friend and she asked me how long I’d been performing. And I said, “Since I was four.” And that’s when it all began: dance recitals, glee club, piano recitals (cry), church choir, symphonic band, marching band, jazz band, and children’s theatre. In college, I graduated to poetry readings, performance art, and wearing wings around campus if I felt like it. Then came ukulele, guitar, banjo, mandolin, melodeons, flatfoot dance, harmonica, and, ultimately, singing with a sewing machine.

From one of my dance recitals in Watertown, Massachusetts. I was COMPLETELY in love with this dance costume. I still have one of the arm-thingies somewhere. It was also one of the maybe ten times I wore makeup before I was 30.

At the same time that I was performing, I was writing, writing, writing, and sewing, sewing, sewing; drawing, painting, printing, assembling, collecting, and making installations of every room I could call my own.

I wake up panicked sometimes thinking about all of the things I’d like to do before I die and, since I don’t know when that’s going to be, I’m worried that I’m running out of time. I really want to finish the sweater I started knitting last year and the diorama I’m building out of driftwood. And I’ve got a song brewing in my head about my Dad. I really should do my taxes. And I have straps to make for the accordion that I can barely play, but I really love. I just want to play it well enough to write a song on it.

That’s what’s in my mind about instruments most of the time; what songs might be in them.

In concert, I sew during one of my songs and I don't just sew randomly (though that would be fun, too). I make a simple gift to hand to an audience member at the end of the song. A man in Virginia who’d just come to my concert from doing a magic show at a children’s birthday party said to me at the CD table, “It was like a magic trick. I know magic and that was magic. I mean, not just that sewing machine song, but the whole show.” I could live on that compliment forever.

I am a performer of a particular kind who is made up of my own layers of dance lessons, glee club, obsession with sounds, obsession with words, and love of costumes, laughter, and applause. I love the communication and transformation that happens between me and an audience. I don’t foresee that my route to people’s hearts and imaginations will be through playing a solo on the guitar – it’s a really cool route, but just not the one I travel. I have other waypoints like a story, an image, a rhythm, a catch in my voice, the sweep of my foot, or the squint in my eye.

Even though sometimes I still feel like I’m not doing enough because I’m not a champion finger-style guitarist, I still can’t make myself give up my sewing machine or my paints. My Dad always said that I was a little too hard on myself. This is one of those odd artistic mental battles I fight sometimes daily, sometimes weekly, and I just felt like sharing it with you today.

I’m glad that I go to museums and sew and take Stanley Bear down to the beach to pick up litter. Life is too short to miss out on things we LOVE. But it can take strength to turn off voices that say “You should be doing MORE stuff of a different kind.”

So, I’m going to work on a quilt, read my book, and sing my latest song. And when I’m singing, I’ll hum through the place where the the instrumental solo could go and that space will represent me walking on the Lancaster canal, melting in front of a Vanessa Bell painting, or drawing needle and thread through calico. I hope you can hear the sound of calico in my music.

This month, I have been really lucky to go to a bunch of exhibitions in London.

Designs for fabric by Hammer Prints in the 1950s. The design on the left is called “Coalface.” How wonderful is that!? The one on the right is called “Sgraffito.” I saw these at the Barbican Centre’s exhibition on Postwar Modern British Art.

I’ve finished hand-stitching six pillows which you can see in my shop. They are full of color! And I’ve been learning to play a finger-style guitar part for a children’s song about marmalade I’ve written for Stanley Bear. 

I’m also listening to the re-masters of the records I made last fall because I am having them factory printed later this month! Martin Stansbury of Cacophony Cottage is mastering all three records for me. Thank you to everyone who bought my pillows, and my hand-printed, self-mastered records, and who sent donations. You’ve made it possible for me to get these new records finely-mastered and factory-made now! There are a few limited edition, hand-printed CDs left if you’d like to get them before they are gone. They are: I Fell Into the Fire, A Body is a Delicate House, and The Wondarium: Songs for Kids.

Beatrix Potter’s farming clogs. Beatrix Potter originally began selling her illustrations for greeting cards in order to achieve some financial independence from her parents. Eventually, through the sale of her famous books and the charm of Peter Rabbit, she was able to buy sixteen working farms, save more than 4000 acres of farmland, and preserve Herdwick as a breed of sheep for the British people and the world. The Lake District National Park wouldn’t exist without her. Not bad for a girl who loved bunnies.

Love and kindness to you, friends. And peace.

Jeni

www.jenihankins.com

jenihankins.bandcamp.com

www.facebook.com/jenihankinssinger

www.instagram.com/jenihankins

www.youtube.com/c/jenihankins

Treat me to a cup of tea or a spool of thread.

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I have exciting news to share: You can now read Letters from Jeni Hankins in the new Substack app for iPhone.

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