Verity's Blog

Lize's song gets wings...

We have been hard at work editing the video of our 2 days with Lize last week so make sure that she has a fantastic way to remember her experience of learning & recording it. I can't wait to post a video of it when it is all done - she is such a sweetie!  Below are some emails from her Mum and Genevieve from Reach For A Dream with their feedback on 'Song for Julie' and the exciting news that it will be played at their AGM at the end of the month to 320 guests! I am thrilled!!!

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"Hi Verity,

The song is beautiful!!! I can't believe it is Lize singing. She is really a popstar!!! She was very excited yesterday when I played it for her. It sounds so nice. We also played it for some of her friends & in the office and everybody was so excited! They say is is very beautiful and such a innocent and beautiful song. Brought a lot of tears to peoples eyes. Lize is still very excited and just wants to sing!!!

Genevieve asked whether they may play the song at their gala evening before 300 people and I told Lize that she really is a popstar now. Thanks a lot for making this dream come true. July is also excited about the song! Everytime we play it she comes running to Lize.

Regards
Lorette "

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"Hi Lorette

Verity just sent me the final version of Lize’s song.  It sounds fantastic! It is absolutely amazing.  I know they are working hard to complete the music video too. I played the song for our ladies in the office and they LOVED it.  My branch manager said it would be truly special if we could play the song at our gala evening coming up on the 24th of October? She certainly is a pop star in the making so please tell her we would be honoured to play her song for the 320 guests!

Sending all you lovely ladies a big hug and wishing you a beautiful day.

Kind regards

Genevieve Rossouw
Marketing Coordinator"

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"Song for Julie" - helping Lize Reach her Dream

A week ago I was a bundle of nerves waiting for Lize and her mum and sister to arrive at my home so that I could teach her the song I had written for her for Reach For A Dream. After chatting to her mum Lorette, we decided that I would suprise her with a song about her best friend - her jack russell 'Julie'.  Now - of the over 300 songs I have written - one for a dog was going to be a first for me! I got Lorette to send me pics of Julie & Lize as well as ancedotes about their relationship. Before I knew it I had a song coming together that was so catchy that my poor boyfriend and a friend visiting from the UK couldn't stop singing the chorus!

But... the true test was going to be Lize. Her whole family along with Julie arrived last Monday and after we had broken the ice with juice & biscuits I sat down and sang the song to her.

She was very shy and nervous but seemed to really like it, and finally joined me at the piano to sit on my lap and learn to sing it herself. It was a pretty emotional experience to hear this little 8 year old girl start singing a song to her puppy, and everytime the chorus "Oh Julie..." kicked in we had Julie at our feet wondering why we were calling her!!! By the end of the afternoon we were all thick as thieves and she was ready to go home and practice for the recording studio the next day.

     

Tuesday saw me arriving at Selwyn Shandel's studio in Seapoint nice and early and the two of us got started on recording the backing music for the song. He is a wizard in the studio and before I knew it "Song for Julie" had piano, guitar, bass & drums laid down and we were ready for Lize. She and her sister Estelle had decided to sing together on the choruses and the girls arrived ready to tackle it. I think they were overwhelmed to be in a studio with gold & platimum records on the wall and to hear the backing track now complete. My sister had brought her studio manager Terence along to film the day and he did a stirling job getting it all on tape (a video will follow soon)!

There wasn't a dry eye in the house when Lize started singing & I kept her company in the studio to help her get her pitching right etc. She is a very brave little girl and just got on with singing into a mic for the first time in her life really well! Estelle joined us for the choruses and it was so cute to hear the two of them singing together. It was an incredible experience and now we are editing all the footage to be able to give her the song and a video to remember the day by. 

  

What a priviledge to be able to use my songwriting in such a rewarding way!  

Meet Mimi...

When I was shooting with Journey to the Core they were keen to film an interview with Mimi who was my first Live Your Dreams artist. As luck would have it I needed to be in Jozi for a wedding and the JTTC team made a plan to meet Mimi and myself at Toneworks Studios in Bryanstan to get footage of us hanging out and doing our thing. It was awesome to see her again and to hear how well her career and album is doing. I am so stoked I took a risk and funded her first demo without even having heard her sing! Just goes to show that it pays to go gut instinct!

Here we are holding her album Essence of my Soul (that the demo Live Your Dreams paid for made possible) and won her best Jazz newcomer at the Metro FM Awards last year. Talk about musical dreams coming true!

Thoughts on how to start living a dream...

Since all the coverage in the media lately I have had lots of emails from artists wanting to live their dreams and asking for advise on how I went about following mine. Since I am still in the middle of this journey I can only talk about what I have learned so far, so thought I would share an excerpt from an email I sent to a singer the other day...

There is no easy way to making a dream come true and the biggest step is the one where you say I am going to do this and see what happens.

The only way to build confidence is to take action and be prepared to fall and fail and then get up and do it better next time. As daunting as performing is, everytime you face your fear you grow and learn and come back better and more accomplished the next time. I think getting very clear on why you want to sing, what you want to share and who will you be if this all works out, is vital. Once you know your motivations it becomes clearer on how to go about achieving your dream.

I wrote songs for 7 years before I would sing them to anyone so I know all about the fear that can stop us. My question is - when you look back on your life will you regret not giving it a shot? Even if it doesn't work, won't it be great to know you tried?

On The Road to ending poverty in Africa...

I have just come across the most phenomenal story of a group of friends cycling from Cairo to Cape Town to raise money for an organisation called MILLENNIUM PROMISE and after looking through the site, the pics of their epic journey and the villages they are helping throughout Africa, I was moved to make a donation to help them reach their $300,000 target and encourage everyone else to do the same. These are the kind of endeavours that make my soul sing - they prove how one small group of individuals can change the course of the world and make a huge impact by taking action and giving back.

Four reasons why you should support - a note from Didi - the girl on the road:

1. I’m breaking my back out here - You don’t cycle from Cairo to Cape Town everyday, particularl y if this means spending the next 6 months with 7 men and their combined sense of humour. I have cycled 5000km so far.

2. It’s for an awesome cause - The Economist magazine (June 2007) describes Millennium Promise’s results as “astonishing”. This initiative is not about endless giving and handouts. This is a research-based plan that has an end in sight for each village within the program. After 5 years of funding, a village is sustainable and 5000 people are free of extreme poverty.

3. I hate bikes - No really. Like all my team mates, I know very little about bikes, have not really done much cycling before, and until recently didn’t know how to change a tyre… I’m learning.

If you feel that one of these is reason enough to join my cause, please make a donation of any size. Your support means the world to me, and more importantly, will make a dramatic impact on the ground.

Please follow our journey via our website - MILLENNIUM CYCLE FOR CHANGE  and see if you can donate something towards the cause.

And I WILL see you in Cape Town!

Introducing my next Live Your Dreams Artist...

As the album has been coming to an end it felt right to help my next Live Your Dreams Artist take a step in their career. So, the day after I finished in studio with Paul, a lovely young singer Beverly spent the day with him working on two demos. I managed to pop in on my way to the airport and get this quick clip of her to let all my Future Owners see another person they have helped!

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Ask and it is given...

In August I spoke at the UCT Graduate School of Business – Women in Business Conference, and during my presentation I mentioned that as a result of starting the Lucky Packet Project I was made an ambassador of education for www.intec.edu.za and get to award R5000 bursaries to people I meet through my work. A couple of weeks back I received an email from an MBA student who had heard my speech and he sent through an application to study Textile Design. I was blown away by how much he has achieved already and as an MBA is hugely expensive, it felt right to help him further his studies even more so that he can go into the fashion industry when he graduates.

We met for coffee at Melissa's in GreenPoint where I handed over the bursary and it was awesome to meet someone who took the chance to ask for the support they need in reaching their dreams. I look forward to Zameer keeping me posted of how is course goes. It truly is a priveledge to be able to assist people in this way!

When a gut feeling pays off...

A few weeks back I was called back for the final auditions for a lead role in an MNET mini series. The character needed to be played at 19 and 40 years old, so they were looking for an actress they could age both ways. It was a juicy role and I had a lot of fun preparing for it.

While I was doing the scene for the 19 year old role, the character kept reminding me of Nina Milner– one of the girls who acted in Ella Blue with me. She is 19, very quirky and very talented. I walked out the audition having really enjoyed it but couldn't shake that they should see Nina for the role as well. I phoned her immediately and told her to phone her agent and see if they could get into the callback in Cape Town that afternoon (a very tricky thing to do)! They agreed to see her and she only had two hours to prepare her audition.

I completely forgot about it all until she phoned me to say that she got the role! I was in flood of tears I was so excited – it was mindblowing to know that my intuition had been so spot on! She will be shooting up in Jozi so is taking me out to dinner to celebrate and say thank you. I am stoked that I acted on a feeling and it worked out and that she will be able to continue to be a very busy and working actress with an incredibly bright future!

Their voices...

Here are some pics from the documentary "Our Stories, Own Voices" that I worked on with film maker Lungiswa Sithole for the SABC2 series Our Nation In Colour. The song I wrote with the four teenage girls from Atlantis was featured on the program including footage of them coming to Cape Town to record the track the live their dream of being in a recording studio. Their local radio station picked up "Our Voices" for their playlist which has made the girls celebrities in Atlantis and given them a voice against drugs in their community.  I really hope to work on more projects like this, where I get to use my music to make a significant difference in people's lives - I love it!

Eden Campus... worth a visit

I often write about Eden Campus at Karatara near Knysna and the profound impact this free 'university' has had on me. It is a shining example of the magic being worked in our country to uplift and empower people. The students blow me away with their innovation and drive to succeed and I am honoured that Shine is their school song! 

Check out their website to see if you can get involved somehow, and if you are driving up the Garden Route you wont regret the detour to go and see the campus for yourself. A miracle in progress!