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My Son The Rock Star

March 25, 2014 By

It’s Juno Week in Canada! For those of you not in Canada, the Juno Awards are Canada’s music awards. They are kind of like the Grammys, only with colder weather and more Canadians. The awards are preceded by a week of celebrations and festivals, and they include the induction of a well-known Canadian band or artist into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.

The Junos are a big deal in my family, because my husband works in the Canadian music industry, designing and building sound systems for professional musicians. He also runs a non-profit recording studio for youth, and we have seen a lot of young talent pass through the doors. Several of my husband’s clients have gone on to win Juno awards, and we are confident that some of the young musicians who have used the studio will make it onto that stage at some point in their music careers. We always watch the Junos with interest, just to keep an eye out for anyone we might know.

This year, the Music Hall of Fame inductee is a band that made it big in the 70s – Bachman-Turner Overdrive, or BTO for short. They are known for the hit song Taking Care Of Business. When we heard that BTO was this year’s inductee, we decided to have a little fun with it, with the help of our very excited and willing eight-year-old son James.

Warning: the following video contains extreme cuteness…

James Doyle – BTO Tribute: Taking Care Of Business

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle.

Filed Under: Juno Awards, Music Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,
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Guest Post: You Never Know What Their Quirks Will Become

April 25, 2013 By

Today’s post started life as an email that my friend Jacquie sent to the autism parenting group that we both belong to.

Jacquie is the mom of two boys, aged 8 and 16, who both have special needs.

Her older son, Eric, has autism. He has his challenges, but as you will see in this post, he is finding his way in the world. I will not say any more – I will let you read for yourself.

8-year-old Justin has RAD (reactive attachment disorder), autism and intellectual delay. He is one of those unreasonably good-looking kids who you just know will be making girls swoon as soon as he (and the girls) hit puberty.

And Jacquie? Well, she’s just a fabulous friend and a fantastic mom. I am immensely grateful to her for allowing me to share this story of Eric. To special needs parents like myself, this is really a story of hope.

Without further ado… over to Jacquie.

Eric

Eric

 

When Eric was a baby, the only way you could soothe him was singing.

When Eric was a toddler, he used to stand in the windowsill of his bedroom’s gigantic window and listen to a cassette of kid’s songs sung by kids over and over.  When the tape ended, he would scream until someone came and turned it over and pressed ‘play’ again.  Then he’d scream until we got the hell out of the room.

When Eric was a preschooler, he’d sit in front of Windows Media Player and watch the visualizations you could choose to go along with the music that was playing.  He’s spend hours just watching these graphics move and change with the music.  God forbid you try to distract him.

When Eric was in kindergarten, he developed a musical crush on Shania Twain.  I still shudder to think of that year.

When Eric was in grade school, he started to make music using free music programs like garage band.  It was awful.  I didn’t have the heart to tell him he sucked.

When Eric got to high school, he asked for a professional-grade music-editing software suite, so we gave him that for Christmas. Subsequently we began seeing him only for meals and The Big Bang Theory.

When Eric had a little experience with production, he asked for a Mac, which has superior music production capabilities.  He was taking guitar lessons, piano lessons, and music classes at school, so we thought it was probably worth it.  Subsequently we began seeing him only for meals.  There are days’ worth of The Big Bang Theory episodes on the PVR that have never been watched.

When Eric was a week younger than he is right now, a Danish music promoter contacted him and, based on the free content Eric has put out on music sites and on the the contests he has won with his compositions, offered him a 6 month contract.

When Eric was 12 hours younger than he is right now, we signed.  Eric is now represented by a dance music label in Denmark.

His songs will go up for sale on iTunes, Spotify, Juno, and Amazon.  This company will help him design his logo, refine his sound, and establish a presence in the market.

When Eric was a little boy, we mourned the way music took him away from the world.  Now he’s bringing his music to the world.

(Photo used with permission of Jacquie VonHunnius).

Filed Under: autism, Guest Posts, Health Activist Writers Month Challenge, Hope, Jacquie VonHunnius, Music Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,
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Run With The Sound Of Music: Or Maybe Not

May 10, 2012 By

I am participating in the 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, which means one post every day for the month of May.

To run with music, or to run without music… that is the question. A surprisingly controversial question at that. While many runners are appropriately moderate in their stance about whether or not it is OK to block out the world with music during a run, there are those on both sides of the debate who can be astonishingly militant about their stance.

Those who are in favour of the tunes say that it counteracts the monotony of a long run, helps keep energy and motivation levels high, and simply offers the opportunity to enjoy some good music. They say the anti-music people are antisocial know-it-alls who think it’s OK to jostle a slower runner who happens to wearing earbuds.

Those against the music-and-running combination cite things like safety, being in tune with one’s body, and enjoyment of Mother Nature. They accuse the music-lovers of being antisocial plodders who cannot hear when they’re supposed to get out of the path of a faster runner coming from behind.

I am firmly in the middle of the road on this one. I listen to music on all of my training runs, but never on races.

I do my training on my own, partly by circumstance but largely by choice. I love the feeling of getting out on the open road early in the morning, when it’s just me. It allows me to escape from the “real world” of people and responsibilities, and to be beholden to no-one but myself.

Having said that, two hours can seem like a very long time when you don’t have the company of music. I never find running boring, but it can get lonely, and the music counteracts that. If I find songs with the right beat, it can also be a nifty training tool, and to be quite honest, it is refreshing to be able to listen to an entire song without hearing kids start World War III over a single piece of Lego.

I used to listen to music while racing as well, but the Energizer Night Race of 2011 cured me of that. I had no choice but to leave my music at home, because earbuds were banned from the course. A third of the way into the race I could understand why: the park that the race was run in was very, very dark, and although the headlights that came with the race kit helped light the way, all senses had to be on full alert.

The race went well – so well, in fact, that I started thinking that maybe the lack of music had been beneficial. I tested this theory in my next race two weeks later and set a new personal best time for the distance. And that was enough to convince me to run my races with nothing but the sound of the wind in my ears.

When I race, I’m not running to improve my form or experiment with speed. I’m not out there just for the joy of running. I’m running that race to get the best time I possibly can. I am racing – even though I have no hope of actually winning the race, I am trying to beat the most intense competition there is: myself.

While music is a pleasant distraction on training runs, I find it to be a hindrance on races. Without it, I can focus on paying attention to what my body is doing instead of trying to match my pace to the beat of the music. I can run according to how I feel, and for some strange reason, I am better able to manage my pacing to get a personal best time.

I have discovered that I don’t actually need the music when I’m racing. I get so buoyed up by the collective energy of the runners around me, and that is enough to keep me going. I enjoy engaging with spectators who cheer me on, and I like the feeling of getting pumped up by the entertainers along the course. Although I take my racing very seriously, leaving the music at home definitely helps me get more out of the experience and have fun.

In every single race I have run since I stopped racing with music, I have achieved a personal best time. There’s definitely something to that – at least, for me.

There is room for all runners on the road – the ones who listen to music and the ones who don’t. Watch this space next week for tips on how the two camps can coexist safely and peacefully.

(Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/karrienodalo/3227478067/. This picture has a creative commons attribution license.)

Filed Under: 2012 Wordcount Blogathon, Music, Night run, Race, running, Running without music Tagged With: , , , , ,