Mel Farrimond

Stay tuned for upcoming shows and news!

Well, I've had a busy few months, filled with music and magical experiences! In April, me and my Baby Taylor guitar headed to Nashville for an incredible 3-day songwriting workshop with one of my favourite songwriters, Emily Saliers, of the Indigo Girls. This was a bucket list experience for me. So nice to re-connect with some songwriters I met at a previous workshop with Mary Gauthier, and make some new musical friends. I'm hoping some of them will come and do some shows in Nova Scotia soon. Check out Ruth Hill (ruthhillmusic.com) and David Robert King (davidrobertking.com)for starters. In June I kicked off a string of shows with a house concert along with another of my favourites, Ann Fearon. I always love performing with Ann. She's a self-described harmony slut (!) with a beautiful, warm voice and great songs. Next up I attended the Road to Stanfest Songwriting Camp in Sherbrooke Village. What a perfect setting to get inspired and to spend time with fellow songwriters. It was so great to catch up with old musical friends and get to know some new ones too. The instructors - Susan Crowe, Thom Swift, Steven McClintock, Kim Dunn and Doris Mason  -  were all great fun and amazing to learn from. A highlight for me was singing Kim Dunn's 'Inspiration' at the gala concert. Love that song. After the camp, I headed over to Canso to the Stan Rogers Folk Festival, where a bunch of us got to sing! What a treat that was! And I finally made it to The (legendary) Marina for some late night jam sessions. In July I went to the Acoustic Maritime Music Festival at Kempt Shore for the first time. Loved that too. Great line-up and awesome jam sessions. I played a show in beautiful St. Peters, Cape Breton and got to play at the Lunenburg Folk Festival in August! And on top of everything else, I sang my way to PEI and back three times over the summer on the ferry! So, all in all, it was a music-filled summer. As for the Fall, I'll do a few more shows and hunker down a bit and finish some songs for my next recording. Thanks for checking in! See you out there!  

I'm off to Nashville shortly for a songwriting workshop with one of my favourite songwriters, Emily Saliers of The Indigo Girls. Can't wait!!

Very happy to say that my song, 'Don't Break Your Heart' will be featured in Episode 4 of the new season (season 7) of the Hope for Wildlife Documentary Series on the Love Nature channel. The episode is called 'Stepping Up' and my song is near the end when the baby seal... I can't say it... sniff...

Well, another fun Bluebird North took place on July 11. We had a stellar line-up of Tom Terrell, Susan Crowe and Lynn Miles. The wonderful Rachel Sermanni was in town and joined Tom for a song. And legendary Ian Tamblyn joined Susan on stage to perform 'The Angel's Share.' These shows are always a treat, but this one was especially mesmerizing. A big thank you to those of you who support this series and regularly attend. If you haven't caught a Bluebird North yet, we hope to see you at the next one. Stay tuned!

Hi! Mel Farrimond here. I made it to the finish line! Somebody bring me some water...

The hardest part of the challenge for me was the recording/production part. Though I have recorded in a studio, I have never tried home recording...other than when I was a kid and would record my voice to cassette, play it back and sing a harmony while recording the whole thing on another cassette. Those were the days! So I finally got a Mac and introduced myself to Garageband. I figured it's a start, and this challenge got me to that start line.

I most enjoyed the fact that this challenge made me be as disciplined as I could be, time-wise. My schedule is very full. I'm a university prof and it's a busy time of term. And when not teaching, I've been shoveling... but I did my best to write and record the songs in the time I had.

I learned that my songwriting can be pretty same-y. The challenge helped me explore different genres and gave me snippets of ideas I will pursue in future songs. I also learned that a bit of pressure helps me focus. I think I actually knew that already, but this was a reminder.

I would definitely do this type of challenge again. I'm all for anything that gets me in the songwriting groove.

So thank you to the wonderful SAC, to Lily, Debra and the adorable James (we go way back...). I have learned a lot in the past 6 weeks and it was a wonderful escape from the winter blahs!