Farm Girl's Fascination With Musical Fantasy

In last week's blog, I introduced you to my "Kansas" — the one-red-light-town of Newville, Pennsylvania. If you go another three miles past the red light, you'll come to the farmhouse where I was raised. 

I can still picture my mother's brown Wurlitzer piano sitting in the living room. It was a treasure to her because as a young woman she purchased it with her own money in the 1940's. It was the centerpiece of my life.

I have no first memory of the piano...just a collage of memories. In fact, it feels as if the piano and I were womb mates and we grew up as playmates. 

According to my mother, I started playing by ear when I was two or three years old. In her opinion, one thing that separated me from other children was my approach to it. While others would bang on it, I'd touch the keys very gently, one note at a time. I later learned that there is a time and place to play fortissimo (very loud) but I had to come out of my shell before that ever happened. 

Together, we [the piano and I] would put on little shows for my "Auntie Em and Uncle Henry." I must have had a thing for shows because in the winter, I'd perform little dances on our farm pond—ice skating to music and creating lovely choreographed movements. I tried to be just like the Olympic skaters I saw on our black and white TV. I'm sure I was just like them. LOL! 

Sometimes, I'd create a little choir with the chess pieces from our chess set and of course, I always lined them up according to their height. The piano, the shows, the skating...these were all indicators of the creative path I would choose in the future. A convergence of skill and desire.

Angie — after her bath.

In addition to musical fantasies, I suppose every farm girl needs a dog and we had many. My personal favorite was Angie; a lovely apricot-colored poodle. Sorry Toto, nothing against Terriers. My mother liked poodles and picked Angel from a December litter—a Christmas dog. She followed me around the farm and sometimes she'd sit on my lap when I practiced the piano. Yes, I was one of those odd children who loved to practice. 

It's pretty clear that my fascination with performing started with living room shows around the piano, skating to music and arranging plastic chess choirs. Once I began writing music and recording albums, I started getting invitations to sing at various churches and events. 

About fourteen years after my first album, Under The Big Blue Sky, I began to dream of doing a big annual Christmas concert and in 2014, I started Portraits of White.

This week's video:

What is a CD Release Party?

So what's the big deal about a CD release party and exactly what can you expect when you go to one?

I don't know what other people do, but I can tell you what I'm planning.....minus the surprises. (I don't want to reveal too much and spoil the fun for those who will come). 

By the way, everyone is invited.

Basically, it's like a baby shower, AFTER the baby has been born. You invite all your friends and family so you can show off the baby pictures and eat cake. People may get tired of seeing all the posts about the new music and invites to the party, but from the mother's perspective, you are over-the-top-excited because your baby is finally out of the womb and ready to start growing up. But for a short moment in time, everyone will pause, ooh and aah over the dear-to-you but maybe not-so-much-to-others creation you hold in your arms.

Since the music has no printed sheet music anywhere, these musicians pictured above have learned the music from the CD and simple charts. The project "Brand New Me" was recorded in Nashville, but these local musicians have come together to play it live and we range in age from early 20's to late 50's. We've had a lot of fun preparing.

Instrumental chart for "Out of My Box".

A party gives the artist a chance to share some behind-the-scenes trivia that you might not normally hear any other time and I've worked very hard to make this special. There is quite a story behind the title track and new theme of my life, "Brand New Me" and though only a book could reveal it all, here's some excerpts from a press release that went out recently.

"Musician Frances Drost had never had a figure skating lesson in her life when in 2014, at age 47, a serious case of debilitating depression landed her on the ice. Drost’s latest CD, Brand New Me, is a celebration of overcoming obstacles, learning to fly when life has tried to clip your wings and living on the edge — in a good way. She will be sharing her new music on April 29, 2017, at 6:30 p.m. at Christ Community Church in Camp Hill, Pa., to celebrate the CD’s release and her 50th birthday — though she just turned 51 on April 26, 2017.

Frances Drost — creator of the increasingly popular annual Portraits of White Winter Concert — began writing the title track, “Brand New Me,” while on the ice. “Every weekday morning I would get up at 4 a.m., pull myself together, jump in the van and drive for 45 minutes to skate from 6 to 8 a.m.,” Drost recalls. “I had done plenty of ice skating on our farm pond outside of Newville, but I had never had the opportunity to learn to figure skate. Now I was having the time of my life and subconsciously gaining some emotional ground as I glided across the ice.”

Finding inspiration from the intricacy of the art as she watched the young skaters whirl and fly around her, she began to fall in love with skating — in between falls. “But as I kept getting back up and trying again, a brand new me was emerging,” Drost says. “One day while skating and pondering the effects this childhood resurgence was having on me, I began composing ‘Brand New Me’:

Living on the verge of something just begun

I don’t have to do what I’ve always done

Feeling my heart pound a brand new theme

I’m pressing on to a bigger dream

I want to run to the edges

leap off of ledges

feel what it’s like to fly

I’m letting go of the old way

saying, hey, it’s a good day

look what I get to be

a brand new me

“I believe that no matter how hopeless a person might feel, there is always hope, and it often comes to us in the softest whispers, if we pay attention,” Drost says.

So if you're reading this and it's before April 29, 2017, you are more than welcome to come and see what it's like to release a CD.  Since we are serving birthday cake, please reserve a ticket.

You can get your free tickets here.

If you can't make it, but want to hear more about the project itself you can watch the electronic press kit here.

The Golden Piano

I don't remember where this piano came from but I do know this: I kept it in hopes that someday I'd have a real grand piano. They say that having a picture or some kind of visual of your dream is a good way to keep it alive. So I held on to this little golden piano.

Now, I'm parting with it. It's item # 30 on my list of "50 things to part with before I'm 50".  My dream has come true. I can part with the little metal replica of what I really longed for.

Another piano I will be parting with soon is the first piano I ever played. It was my Mother's first and only piano. She bought it as a young woman with her own money. It will be item # 50 and will be re-located to the home of my Mother's first daughter-in-law.  Nancy married my Mother's first-born son who was killed in a tragic farm accident when he was 26. I'm glad she can keep it.

I have to say that this has been one of the more difficult things to part with on my list, even though I thought I was ready.  Yesterday, I dusted it off to get it ready for it's new home and I was a bit emotional.

I don't know that I was actually playing the piano in this picture. LOL!
My Mother says I just wanted my picture taken!  So she dressed me up and curled my hair. 

I was happy as could be on this piano until one day my piano teacher bought a beautiful Yamaha baby grand and I was no longer content with our Wurlitzer.  From the first moment I laid eyes on that baby, I wanted one. I started praying for one and have kept on asking for over 30 years.

Playing a duet with Donna Houser - my piano teacher (on her baby grand).

Preparing for my senior recital on the Yamaha at Mrs. Houser's home.

On February 6, 2013, my very own baby grand arrived at my studio. It was my Mother's birthday and we had a frightful snow storm, but the piano movers braved the roads and came anyway.  My prayers had been answered.

My very own Yamaha baby grand.

My kitten loved the piano too.  She'd spend hours on the lid gazing out the window.
Bad kitten!

Finding the baby grand has a unique backstory.

After suffering from debilitating depression, I decided to see a counselor who encouraged me to do something I loved to do as child. Clearly, that was ice skating. "I want you to go ice skating", she said. That's not what I expected to hear from a professional therapist. But I took her advice to heart - about a year after she suggested it.  I know, I'm a little slow. What good could that possibly really do anyway, I wondered.

I had always loved ice skating, but this time, when I stepped onto the rink during a public skate session, something happened inside me. I could feel a new electricity and an idea was borne. A week later, I was at a rink in Harrisburg, at 6:00 a.m. with a new pair of skates and a determination to learn how to figure skate - for real!

In the following weeks, my husband and I sat down and decided that if I was really going to pursue the dream of doing a big Christmas concert, I should have a grand piano to practice on. He would contact our local bank and start the process of borrowing the money to buy one. We prefer not to borrow money, but for some reason, my husband was open to this idea.

We decided together how much we could afford to borrow and went on with our day. I kept going to the rink as usual and he promised to make arrangements with the bank.

One morning, about two weeks into my skating endeavor, I walked into the rink and my coach began a conversation with me.

"Hey - you're a musician - do you know of anyone who might want a grand piano?"

"Well........I might.  What kind of piano?"

"It's a Yamaha, baby grand."

"What color is it?" (I had my heart set on a shiny black one just like my teacher's.)

"It's shiny black", he said in his adorable British accent.

The next morning after skating, I went to his house and played the piano. It was the perfect size for my little studio. It was everything I had wished for.

As it turns out, he and his family were moving back to England and didn't want to risk moving the piano across the ocean. This was a fact he couldn't tell me at the time when I asked why they were selling it. Due to privacy issues with a new job he was taking in the UK, he couldn't tell me anything.

The good news is, I got a piano and the bad news is, I lost my coach. But that's another story.
He took what we offered and it was such a great deal, we didn't have to borrow the money after all.

Do you have a dream?

Find a small replica or picture of that dream and keep it where you can see it often.

Don't give up on it. Enjoy the journey until it comes true. I know - that seems like an oxymoron when I've been suggesting we let go of things - but there is a time and place for holding on to something that represents a future dream or goal. Trust your instincts when evaluating your "stuff".

From the Wurlitzer, to the Yamaha at my teacher's home, to the golden piano to help me hold on to my dream, to the figure skating....it all ties together. It's the beauty of accumulating something and then being able to let go.

It's a beautiful thing to let go of old things and make room for the new. 

The Little Girl In Me

Skating on our farm pond as a little girl.

A few years ago, I sat in the counselor's office with tears that freely flowed down my face no matter how hard I tried to hold them back.  I was a mess and was desperate for any help she could give me.

"What kinds of things did you do for fun when you were a little girl?" she asked.

Music was certainly something that filled my life with joy when I was little.  But I have given my life to music as a profession and it can be difficult to go back to something just as a hobby once you've spent years honing the skill to share with audiences.  She encouraged me to just sit and play the piano for fun.

But there was something else I loved to do as a young girl.  I don't even remember how or when I started.

I loved to ice skate.

Growing up....

We had a pond on our farm and I would spend hours out there all by myself skating.  I'd take my tape player out and play music and make up dances on the ice.  It was a place where I could freely express myself to music.  The skates made it easy to twirl and spread my arms like eagles to fly.

It has been years since I have been able to skate.  We don't have a pond where we live now and though the neighbor invited me to skate on his pond, the Pennsylvania winters have not been cold enough long enough to freeze the water.  I set it aside and focused on music and I've enjoyed creating music.

She encouraged me to tap into that little girl again and go ice skating.  I did one day.  I felt so clumsy at first, but something ignited in me and a desire to skate returned.  But we don't live real close to a rink and the skates I have are not very good.  (I took them to a local shop and had them sharpened.  They sharpened them alright.  Cut the concave blade right off. Made it really easy to spin....right out of control).  Winter passed and I forgot about skating.  If I did think about it, I shrugged it off.  Impossible.

Dreams or Cold Eeze?

Two weeks ago I was unable to sleep one night and began pondering some creative ideas for my show. I'm not sure how it all transpired, maybe it was the Cold Eeze I was taking for my scratchy throat, but somewhere in the middle of the night I got an idea.  I started researching where to buy professional skates on-line.  After reading up on buying skates and finding places to purchase a good pair, I decided that I would take the money someone gave me at Christmas and invest in a new pair of skates.

I prayed as I lay there on my couch that night and asked God to lead me to the right people who could coach me and help me pursue my idea, if possible.  If this idea was from Him, I would need His help.

I discovered there was a free skating lesson at a local rink on the next Saturday afternoon so I decided I would go and get my first lesson.  Something I've never experienced.  I asked the gentleman who was renting skates where I could buy a pro pair.  Turns out he has a shop where you can be fitted for skates.  "Wonderful" I said.

My first lesson

When I went to join the group of mostly children who had shown up for the free lesson, it was the same man who was leading the class.  After giving some instruction and watching us skate, he commented that it looked like I had skated before.  "I've never had a lesson before and I figured it wouldn't hurt to learn to do it right", I replied.

When we finished the lesson, I asked when I could go to his shop and be fitted for a new pair of skates.  "Three o'clock this afternoon is open" he said.  So at 3:00 I arrived at his shop in Harrisburg, PA ready to buy my first pair of good skates.

As I sat in his shop and learned more about skating and all the opportunities there are, I went ahead and shared the idea I had.  He was very encouraging.  When I asked about hiring a private coach, he advised me to come and skate for 2 weeks and then talk about a coach.  The best hours when I could go would have to be the morning hours....6:00 - 9:00 a.m.  He gave me his card and I left.  Turns out his name is Christian Newberry and he is the skating director at the rink.

My new skates.

4:00 a.m.?  I must be nuts?!?!

Since the rink where you can skate (with other serious skaters) is 45 minutes away, I realized that I had to either give up my morning devotional time and put it at a different time of the day (which never seems to work out real well for me) or I could get up earlier and spend that time before I go to the rink. Since I wake up at 4:00 a.m. so many mornings, I decided that I could get up then, have my quiet time and head to the rink.

It has been so invigorating I can't even begin to describe what takes place on the inside of me.

I have always tried to pay attention to the little voice inside me when it begins to whisper desires.  It takes years sometimes, but I have learned that if the desire doesn't go away, there is usually something to it and you should pay attention to it. After all, the scripture says "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart."  As we keep our hearts turned toward Him, I believe He places desires in there and He is capable of bringing them to pass if we diligently seek Him.

I don't know exactly where this will lead but I have a specific goal in mind.  My first set of goals?....

1)  Buy a pair of skates
2)  Learn more about hiring a coach
3)  Be faithful for 2 weeks as Christian suggested

As of today, I have completed those goals.  So I asked Christian yesterday morning if he thought I could pursue my next goal.  "Most adult skaters don't have the balance or speed to do this, but I have been watching you and you have both.  I think you can", he said.  "Your main problem is that you do everything on two feet".  Ah....YEAH!  I laughed.  "I'm still getting used to just skating again", I replied.  (2 hands, 2 ears, 2 eyes, a nose with 2 holes and 2 FEET - makes sense to me.)

I am usually one of the first ones there at the rink every week day which gives me time to skate all alone before the pros come and spin and jump around me.  I watch them with the eye of a hawk.  I learn quickly by watching what they do.  (I can tell you this, the jumps they do on TV sound much louder in real life).  Wow - the force of their landing on the ice is amazing.  I could either let it scare me, discourage me or inspire me.  I have chosen to be inspired by them and it fills my spirit with new vitality and joy.   It is now my new exercise routine.

I am on a new path and it feels so good.  The little girl in me has come to life.  It's as if I have completed Act I and am now getting ready for Act II.  I can't wait to see how this unfolds.  I believe that it will all somehow weave together eventually.

Oh and by the way - turns out the guy who rented me the skates, taught the lesson, sold me the skates, is in charge of the rink where I skate, also coaches many of the skaters.

He is now my personal coach.  He is also Britain's National Champion from 1989.  Guess what his wife is?  A music teacher.  How cool is that?

This is how we pursue the things of our soul.  (thank you Tom for giving me freedom to do this!)

One step at a time.  One goal at a time.  One day at a time.