Music and world oceans day

There is so much music in the waters. Oceans,bays, lakes, streams. rivers, and rain are sources that artists of all sorts have drawn on across time and place.

Ireland is a very sea born land, and so is Scotland, as well as many of the other places whose music you find here along the music road.

We’ve just been talking about the floods in Nashville. There are healing aspects to waters too, and that is what is celebrated on World Oceans Day, which is June 8th each year.


















These are photos of the Irish Sea, and here is music to consider as you think about this day
Music Road: Oceans & Journeys: Road Trip in Maryland
Music Road: thinking about Cape Breton: music and landscape
Music Road: cathie ryan: the farthest wave
Music Road: Dual: Julie Fowlis & Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh

other interesting insights on World Oceans Day, and the oceans in our lives
What you can do to help the oceans, and photos of the seas at Cape Cod, from Alexandra Grabbe of Chez Sven B&B in Wellfleet
Ways to celebrate and help the oceans from travel expert Donna Hull
thanks to Gretchen Peters for the heads up on the Hands Across the Sand project, where you can learn more about ocean ecology, offshore drilling, and an event coming up 26th June
a review of the movie Oceans


you may also wish to see
Delicious Baby's Photo Friday, where travelers offer new insights to the world each Friday

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

World Ocean Day: music of the waters

Climate, commerce, culture, and myth all converge at water’s edge. Even if you’ve never seen an ocean, the world’s waters play a big part in your life.

Monday, 8 June, is World Ocean Day. On that day, the organizers of the event suggest that you wear blue and tell two in honor of the oceans of the world . The tell two part means tell someone two things they don’t know about the world’s waters.

Perhaps you’ll learn about and share music of the oceans. Work songs and love songs, songs of regret and songs of celebration, the oceans and those who work on them and live by them continue to inspire music of all sorts. From Gloucester to the Apalachee Bay, from North Uist in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland to the China Sea to the Straits of Magellan to Galway Bay and back again, and all seashores and waters in between, there’s great music and inspiration for music in and on the water.

Explore a bit of that water based music at the links below, and find out more about World Ocean Day here.


saltwater music: Del Suggs

Jennifer Cutting and the Ocean Orchestra

Souls of the Sea

Cathie Ryan: The Farthest Wave

Dual: Julie Fowlis & Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh

-->If you'd like to support my creative work,
here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.

creative practice: lighthouses

A company which makes windows wants to demonstrate its expertise by giving a landmark light house new windows.
You may vote for your favorite lighthouse, from a selection of ten. That's one of my top favorite lights to the left, but it's not on the list, which is fine, doesn't need the windows anyway.

Launching out in the deep, finding your way past rocks and currents that would wreck you and take you off track, finding a welcoming light -- all sorts of parallels to creative practice there. Also the fact that you may not actually recognize the light or know where it is exactly until you are close up on it.

Those who work the water have an uncertain life, as do artists. Music to go along with this idea could be this CD from the BBC series Voice of the People. You can hear the sea in these men's voices.


My Ship Shall Sail the Ocean





you may also want to see these posts
Music Road: now playing: Jennifer Cutting & the Ocean Orchestra

Music Road: now playing: Cathie Ryan: The Farthest Wave

Music Road: now playing: Souls of the Sea

-->If you'd like to support my creative work,
here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.

now playing: Souls of the Sea

Souls of the Sea




The sea has its own music, both the music of the waters themselves and of those who live and work along its borders. Gloucester, Massachusetts, is a town whose heart beats with the sea. Allen Estes and Frank Tedesco have heard that beat and transformed it into song (and more recently, a stage play as well). Those who work out on the waters, those who wait for them, those who face the sea's challenges and dangers and survive, those who don’t, and those who wait for them, love them, sometimes lose them, and survive, are all part of the music here. Not With Your Hands is hearty and optimistic, for example, while Anchor Blues is funny and sarcastic, and East of the Sunrise is graceful and thoughtful. Souls of the Sea comprises a dozen original songs which draw from country, folk, and blues sounds and always, the work, and the life, and the love of the sea. Part of the proceeds from the project go to organizations which assist fishermen and their families. If you are planning to go down to the seas this summer, this is one to listen to, before and after.


Another original and very different look at the sea through music
now playing: Jennifer Cutting & the Ocean Orchestra