The social media ...good and bad!

I joined instagram (Here is my account) at the beginning of the year and I'm quite enjoying to share the moments of my day and life in Berlin, living with other 5 people in a huge flat....

I discovered how much i like to share my living spaces with lots of other people and always finding someone in the kitchen. Which is the one in the pictures above!


But then, as for other social media...I'm seriously frustrated with youtube...
I mean I used to love the place and back in 2007 and 2008 I used to post videos ( LIKE THIS VIDEO, NO SHAME!!!) but i have grown wry of their changes and now, when i visit, my login is split in two profiles and it's so confusing, why did they ever do that???I mean connecting youtube to googlemail was and is the most annoying thing on earth!!!
So just a few weeks ago i found out that...i have tons of comments on the videos that are awaiting my approval, why did I never receive a notification? some are from 4 years ago!!!!
Oh yeah sorry but today I am angry.....
By the way when I don't rant out my anger with blog posts or SONGS I watch some videos of this guy, Bart Baker who definitely understands better than me how to use youtube, because he makes amazing and hilarious videos, and the lyrics of the songs he makes up, are pretty well written and well thought too!
He also has a funny face and that helps.Actually i was shooting a new video ( will appear soon, on...possibly youtube (If I manage to elevate my IQ to understand their damned settings ie)and i realized i am not very well trained to appear like most pop singers do when they sing in their videos,
that's very delicate movements of the face, basically as if you had sprayed your face with some kind of wax. So actually my grimaces are more similar to Bart's and what does that mean? Well mostly that my vanity makes me dislike 80% of the pics where I'm singing live. Because all I'm singing it's expressed on my face! Maybe i should turn into an actress. Uhm right.

But anyway i will soon put some new videos on youtube, especially of my latest concerts...stay tuned!

London street and Italian meat.....in pictures

Berlin is so intense that the pictures i have accumulated on my mobile phone are demanding to be published.


 So while i update you with the things of life,you will have images from my daily Berlin experience.
Last week i was at a few events of the #BerlinFashionweek and it was flamboyant, inspiring and very worth it!   Here for example is images i took with my mobile at the Sameheads event in Neukolln,
＼⁄⁄＼⁄⁄ indowlicker # 10: "London Street & Italian Meat" - Berlin Fashion Week Special 



A huge package of candies that even Willy Wonka would want to hang on his ceiling the same way>>>

Amazing creations by young designers like Magpie

Then going down in the basement..
the old underground/cellar of a building....

Several rooms open up, like little grotto's carved in the rocks..we find re-purposed and repainted tv-sets ....










And an amazing village made with dolls and other items....such a kitsch but beautiful creation!

 

Decorative motifs  on the walls...

And a poetry performance by artists from Rome and Albania,

Acchiappashpirt - *Live Noise concert

And that's all for this week in pictures.

I am lately trying to practice more social media skills and hey! I have even joined instagram...check that out: http://instagram.com/deborahdinauta

And i have 3 concerts scheduled for the next period, one this coming Thursday here.....

and on February 13th @Hotel Pfefferbett  and on June 6th @ Arcanoa

I was in the recording studio several days since the beginning of January, recording my latest 4 Italian songs and I want to tell you...some videos are coming in the next few weeks.....

And last but not least...this week end I have moved to a new place, more central in the Kreuzberg area and Ich freue mich as the Germans say, " I am happy about it".

Berlin life, i've been two months here

Ola!
A post before the end of the year, this was necessary. Amidst all my delays this year I should direct my intention more to write consistently and regularly instead of scattered in periods.
But I don't know how active you reader are on the social media, but I am active in twitter/facebook/reverbnation/blogger/myspace/soundcloud/bandcamp and lots of others and that takes so much time!
It approximates to 5hours a week...so this is the hard truth. If you want to reach high you have to work hard. And in the music business this means even harder actually.
In these two months here in Berlin, I have indeed played live and met a lot of musicians. This is just the beginning,because I can see there are many more places where music is made that I have visited so I know the next few months are going to be full of happy surprises.
So, after moving here just before Halloween and quickly found a very very sweet room, which looks like a Barbie room I started to work as a volunteer for the Berlin Music Video Awards, which is a cool event that will take place in May. Through the meetings I met there a very nice group of people and we hang out also out of the meetings.
So yesterday for example I worked in the recording studio of Lunakid, on 4new songs ( In Italian) that I will present in the next few months to record labels but that I have already performed live.

I am very happy of how my songwriting has evolved in this 2013 and how lately I have managed more to make lyrics in my native language Italian, as well as express myself by singing more in Italian. The language you sing in, changes the atmosphere, changes the flavour of the song. No matter how exactly the same the words pronounced are, the sounds of a language and the way the voice comes out makes a different aroma. 
I love that. It is my fascination with languages, sound and music together.
And this last year 2013, started for me in Australia, with a swim at 2am Byron Bay time in New South Wales in the ocean, at the bottom of the world, thousands and thousands of airmiles from
where I was born. In 2013 I made one of my dreams come true: smell a gum-tree leaf while standing on australian soil. I did it. Then I challenged myself by leaving for another unknown continent to me: Asia. Travelling by myself for 5months and staying, volunteering and growing, for 3 months in the North of Thailand, in the town of Chiang Rai. A special place, because it's called " the golden triangle" for its position, a triangle between Thailand, Burma and Laos. A place which was famous for  opium trafficking and drug smuggling. Tropical weather for 5 months, sweet spicy Asian food for 5 months, looking like a foreigner no matter how local you want to sound for 5 months, meeting hundred of travellers and smart people from all over the world for 5 months.
I am a different person, I have played, improvised,cried, opened up, listened with love, cherished, hugged people that from strangers and citizens of parts of the world to me unknown, have become friends, like brothers and sisters. I feel different, i can welcome people even when we don't agree.
I see the value and worth in every leaf of the nature, a meaning in every tear of a kid, even the hurt and pain of others, I do feel it very strongly, but I let go realizing it too will pass and just leave a lesson to all of us, that will enrich us.

In 2013 I have finally realized how me and my songs could be of great service and use to the world, for its betterment, for our goodness, for real peace.
And I'm optimist, that this 2014 will bring betterment for everyone in the world, because I meet more and more loving persons and i feel this is the direction we are going!

WELCOME and HAPPY 2014!!!!

What I left

5 weeks ago I moved to Berlin, leaving my old friends, my dog and the town i had called home for the past 3 years: Amsterdam.

And i left behind things that i don't need anymore, because i am downsizing and appreciating more and more living life with LESS and MORE space.
In a charming neighbourhood in the south east of Amsterdam, i discovered some time ago this:

A shelf organized on the wall of a block of apartments, on the sidewalk.
A shelf for every one to donate or bring home.
Imagine my surprise when cycling one day i found this little " treasure" and i left a lot of things behind: cds ( YES BOUGHT CDs ...there was a time) that i used to listen to, pencils that coloured my agendas, some clothes, some art books that are enriching some one else's life with beauty.
Then i packed all the rest, took my car and came to Berlin:

Berlin has got lots of cool things, abandoned buildings, huge green parks, vast lakes and...lots of music venues and events.
I immediately jumped into the open stage on Thursday night at KUSSKUSS ( meaning: kiss kiss) in Nogatstrasse and loved the cosy small stage with custom built arena style seats:

So in the next few weeks i plan to explore Berlin more and more, I know i will stay here until end of April 2014 for sure because of the project i have started to collaborate with the BERLIN MUSIC VIDEO AWARDS and it is such a cool project! Soon i'll post about it so you know too!

What i learnt from South-East Asia

I learnt that a smile is a better tool for navigation than a map.

And that you don't need to achieve something to enjoy the feeling of happiness.

I learnt to stop thinking about doing but just jump in the moment and do it.

I learnt to stop and just enjoy the landscape around.

RE- Discoveries: meditation

Also said: re-discovery. My blog posts are seriously challenged at the moment since my pc seems to be infected by a virus and my permanent internet connection is down....
So i'll speak quickly and with images:

(>>>>delicious fruit longan)
Those are instances from my vipassana meditation silent retreat for 9 days in Chiang Mai, Thailand, a few weeks ago.

My weeks of.....I'm the queen of blog delays!

I realized lately  my blog posts always start with mentioning that i haven’t written for a while…and this was, seriously going to start with the same…with the difference that I have made a record this time…. 6 Weeks without a post….! I can be crowned the queen of bad blog administration….or of blog delays...
If you follow my twitter account www.twitter.com/debbje or facebook page www.facebook.com/deborahdinauta ( that I do update more frequently….lol!) you would know that I spent some time in a recording studio in Chiang Mai and recorded a cd with 4 of my original songs, just me playing my guitar and singing. I have chosen 4 tracks for the cd: Not afraid, Children of the sun, Raise your love and “Hundred things”. Being a perfectionist I  took my time before I was satisfied of the final result…but the experience of recording in a studio for the first time was not only super exciting( I was there, I was really doing it!>> that’s what I was thinking) but also a very important learning experience. 

Before entering the studio in fact I spent 9days in a monastery, learning and practicing vipassana meditation, and one of the rules we had to attend to was: no music, no sound, no instruments, no mp3 players, no computers…nothing except meditating ( not even talking!).
( I am going to talk about my meditation retreat experience in the next blog post)
So these 9days of no-practice really had an impact on my preparation while in the studio….or I should say not-proper-preparation because I had to record the tracks many more times than I thought I would, before getting the accurate playing and singing. As a musician, ( lesson learnt) you cannot really afford long breaks in order to keep a good level of quality in your music.
For the cd that I have produced therefore, mastered and ready to be packed in nice sleeves, I have different plans. One is to use it as a demo to send to music publishers all over the planet, starting with Europe first, secondly I plan to sell it while busking/performing in the next few months and I am evaluating if I want to sell it online maybe on itunes.

My week of discoveries, on the go, My new life!

It's been more than a month since my last post but  i have not stopped once to do something, live or make music.
I have spent june at New Life Foundation in Chiang Rai until June 27th and then I have started to travel in South East Asia, starting from the North of Laos and I am now in the South of Laos, in a charming island called Don Det.
I wrote an a amazing new song just the day before my departure from New Life, the song is called "I am out of here"and it kind of summarizes my discoveries about the world/life and myself of the nearly 3months i spent at the foundation.

>>Me and Ashton in the making of "I am out of here"

I feel really blessed, lucky and grateful for the life that I am leading at the moment. Being able to see so much of the world, meet so many new personalities and see the world also from their eyes.
It is so true that in this world we are millions of people and these millions of people they all have different ways to live, and there is NOT one fixed, righteous way. This is one of the endless beauties of this planet, there is no fixed rule.
This is one of the biggest change that I have seen happened in me: months ago, before going to the New Life Foundation, the simple fact that there was not a fixed rule to follow in the world, seemed chaos to me, seemed imperfection, seemed WRONG in itself, was making me unhappy and unsure.
Now, the same thing, the fact that the world is made of so many different opinions, ideas, rules that there is no OBJECTIVITY, makes the world a fascinating creature in itself and the journey to discover it amusing,exciting and challenging. Welcome to my NEW LIFE!

My weeks of discoveries: jam sessions by the pool and photoshoot for album/website

Life continues in the North of Thailand where i have been for the past 2months.
New songs have seen the light here and last week i completed a new super cool song, for which really i am undecided on the name ( i struggle to find interesting titles for my songs)but which has 3different parts and a kind of MUSE-ish chorus, which was really what i wanted to do, creating a kind of Muse song, full of pathos and triumphant.
Also i have started to work on a song, whose chorus only i had made while in Brisbane, Australia, waiting for a bus at the bus station. The chorus idea was very catchy but i had no idea on how to develop the song itself or how the verses could be. So the melody of the chorus has been buzzing around my head from time to time for the past 5months, until last week, i picked it up and played it on the guitar and i am starting to figure out the rest...the title for this song may be easy to find instead, it may actually be "it seems to have gone away".
Many things here in Thailand have increased my creativity level: the mindfulness and meditation training of New Life Foundation has given me more energy, meeting other talented musicians, like Sinead from London

( here in the picture of one of the jam sessions i organized at the pool) and hearing many emotional stories from people around the world, and feeling more than ever connected to other's suffering or happiness and life. We are all one, so connected, connected because we have the same human nature, even if we try to cover it up with lots of things, we do come from the same place, go through the same issues/struggles and go towards the same place.
It is often so easy to feel isolated, our own ego make us feel different and really think the others do not know how hard certain things are for us, but it is all an illusion of our mind, we do are so much closer than we have ever realized.
The clarity given by meditation and mindfulness made me take the decision to record a debut album here in Asia, which i'll do in the next couple of months, while i am investigating on where the best place to do that will be. I am quite excited by the whole thing, i have now 16songs i can perform on guitar but i'll only choose the best 7 for the album.
Last week i was very lucky to have the help of a good photographer, guest of New Life, Mukhia from Nepal. We took 70 pictures in a great setting perfect for the concept of album and the atmosphere i want to give and i can't wait to see the final results.