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2009-11-02T11:09:00.000-08:00

Walking into the unlocked house of the owner of a security alarm company, without knocking, to see dogs running around as if they are playing fetch, and an unseen girl yelling “MOM!” to a woman who is not her mom.

This is the norm for Virginia “Ginni” Jeglie, a colorful person, both in word choice and personality. For someone who makes her living installing security alarm systems (Allison Alarm Technologies), she is one of the most open people I have ever met. She is really easy to talk to, has a sense of humor that rivals most stand up comedians and no subject is off the record. She is an interviewer’s dream.

Constantly multitasking, with a cell phone that never stops ringing, and a house phone that is only one call behind the cell, she made time for the interviews...even though she was cooking dinner during them.

The 52-year-old single mother of three is a person who teenagers feel comfortable talking to about anything and everything. She is like that cool uncle you hear about; the one you can talk to about things you do not feel comfortable telling your parents.

She has obtained this reputation by always having an open door, both literally and metaphorically, and because of her no holds bard personality and sense of humor, which teenagers can relate to.

Jeglie just has a unique way of making people feel comfortable, welcomed and listens in a way that makes it feel like everything being said is of the utmost importance to her. This sounds like an amazing and envious quality to have, and why wouldn’t it be? But according to Jeglie and her family, it can become a problem.

Jeglie currently has a high school senior, who wished to remain anonymous, living with her because this girl’s family kicked her out of their house. This girl was told by her friend to call Jeglie. Jeglie, having never met this girl before, went and picked her up and offered to let her stay in her house.

It has now been over a month with this girl living at Jeglie’s house. What is the problem with this situation? Jeglie never asked her children how they felt about letting this girl stay with them, and if they were okay with it.

Jeglie has two boys, Travis and Jared, and one girl, Paige. Travis and Jared are both from Jeglie’s marriage that ended in 1996. Paige, the youngest at 12, is from a serious relationship Jeglie had, but she never married the father. Travis, 20, goes to school in Los Angeles, and, therefore, does not have to live with this new house guest. Jared and Paige do.

Jared, an 18-year-old college freshman, has been the most effected by this girl, and within the first minute of being at Jeglie’s house I completely understood where he was coming from. This girl is loud and makes everything seem twice as dramatic than it really is. Jared, who has his mother’s openness and humor, openly does not like his new housemate.

When asked how he feels about her, Jared said frankly, “I can’t stand her, she is the most annoying person on planet Earth.”

A couple weeks ago Jared and this girl had a huge confrontation where Jeglie took the side of the girl and not her son. Jared said he wanted to move out after this episode because he felt his mother was putting this girl before him.

This girl is not the first troubled teen Jeglie has taken in; however, with the previous one, Jeglie asked Jared if he was okay with it. Jeglie admits she made a mistake by not asking her children if they were okay with this girl staying with them.

“I never asked them how they [Jared and Paige] felt about it,” Jeglie said, “and that was my mistake because I never want them to feel I am putting anyone before them.”

This is just how Jeglie is and always has been. Jared knows that, and loves his mom for it no matter how annoyed he may get at times.

“In all honesty, it doesn’t really matter that my mom didn’t asked me if I was okay with her staying here because I would’ve have been,” Jared said. Jeglie’s helping hand must run in the family.

That helping hand reaches into Jeglie’s professional life as well, as she is the owner and founder of her own small business, Allison Alarm Technologies. Jeglie worked in the security alarms business for 10 years before taking the advice of her clients who encouraged her to start her own business.

With a clientele built solely on word of mouth, Jeglie has over 250 clients, each of which she proudly claims she knows by voice. However, with the economy being where it is she has suffered tremendously. She constantly worries about how she is going to be able to keep her house, support her family and keep her business running.

“I worry about it all day everyday,” Jeglie said.

So with all of her financial trouble, why would Jeglie bring more people in her house to support? If you ask her she will tell you it is because she is deranged, and yes, it may not have been the smartest decision, but it was the compassionate decision. She just wants to help.

Lynn Watanabe, Jeglie’s best friend of 20 plus years, summed up Jeglie, as a whole, the best. “She may not always make the right, or best decisions, but at the end of the day it’s always all about her kids,” Watanabe said.

Walking out of the unlocked house I began to realize the unlocked door was a perfect metaphor for Jeglie’s personality and heart. Open to anyone, and willing to help everyone. And as she stood in her driveway waving goodbye, I had to catch myself as I almost yelled “Goodbye MOM!”, to a woman who is not my mom.

How to Get Passed the Initial Idea

2009-10-19T09:17:00.000-07:00

From the legends Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix & Neil Young, to contemporaries John Mayer, Dave Matthews, Jason Mraz & Thom Yorke, each of these talented song writers all started from somewhere. At one point or another they were stumped about where to go next.

Sometimes the inspiration is so strong the song just pours out of you and everything just works exactly as you imagined, and, at times, even better than you could have imagined; however, those are rare cases and are what I like to call “gifts”. More often than not, you will have that original idea and it stops there. You are then left wondering “where do I go from here?”. That is the question I will help answer.

Song writing is a process that can start at a number of different places, and by places I mean ideas. These ideas are usually melodic, instrumental, lyrical, a phrase or personal situation. Whatever your inspiration is, or wherever it comes from, it can lead to the development of a song.

There are three basic components to writing a song: melody, instrumentation and lyrics.

If you are starting with a melody there are a couple of ways to figure out how to get to the next step of the writing process and moving forward. First, figure out what key that melody is in. This can help expand the melody and provide a basic structure of what the possible chords, and chord progression could be.

If you came up with the melody vocally, meaning you started humming the melody, then try to write the melody on staff paper or try to play it on a piano or guitar. If you cannot read music or do not play an instrument try to find someone who can do at least one. Do not be afraid to ask for help. Most of the greatest songs resulted from collaborations.

Once the key has been established, the instrumentation will only be that much easier. The next step would be to put lyrics to your melody. Now some people are not lyricists and that is okay, but hopefully they know someone who is or else it will make song writing more difficult. But if you are a lyricist, then simply think of something or someone you want to talk about and see where it goes.

The definition of instrumentation for the purposes of this article is a guitar groove or a chord progression on whatever your instrument is. Again, after your original idea, find out what key you are playing in. Finding the key gives you some boundaries and also some freedom to explore more options musically and expand.

Another step is to play your guitar groove or progression of chords over and over, and really feel it. Then simply try to hum or freestyle lyrics to put together some semblance of a melody. For beginners this may be difficult because playing an instrument and singing can prove to take time to be able to do. If this is you do not be discouraged, with time and continued practice it will come. But for now, there are a couple options: record, or have someone else play your instrumentation and you sing over it.

Starting with a lyrical idea takes a different approach. For the musical side of it, think about what you are trying to say. Is it happy, or is it sad? More upbeat, or more melancholy? Also, think about how you want it to sound. If you want it brighter and happy, then try playing chords in a major key. If you are going for darker and a more melancholy vibe, try a minor key chord progression.

These tips have helped me get you over the hurdles that are inevitable in song writing, and will hopefully do the same for you so that one day you can be mentioned with the masters of the art.

How to Compose a Song

2009-10-05T09:09:00.000-07:00

Humming song melodies, whether it is a personal favorite, a recent overplayed radio hit or a bad 80s hit stuck in your head, we all do it; however, there are those interested in the mechanics of those melodies.

Song writing is a process that can start at a number of different places, and by places I mean ideas. These ideas are usually melodic, instrumentally, lyrically, a phrase or personal situation. Whatever your inspiration is, or wherever it comes from, it can lead to the development of a song.

Sometimes the inspiration is so strong the song just pours out of you and everything just works exactly as you imagined, and, at times, even better than you could have imagined; however, those are rare cases and are what I like to call “gifts”. More often than not, you will have that original idea and it stops there. You are then left wondering “where do I go from here?”. That is the question I will help you answer.

There are three basic components to writing a song that I will discuss as starting points: melody, instrumentation and lyrics.

If you are starting with a melody there are a couple of ways to figure out how to get to the next step of the writing process and moving forward. First, figure out what key that melody is in. This can help expand the melody and provide a basic structure of what the possible chords, and chord progression could be.

If you came up with the melody vocally, meaning you started humming the melody, then try to write the melody on staff paper or try to play it on a piano or guitar. If you cannot read music or do not play an instrument try to find someone who can do at least one. Do not be afraid to ask for help. Most of the greatest songs resulted from collaborations.

Once you have found the key, the instrumentation will only be that much easier. The next step would be to put lyrics to your melody. Now some people are not lyricists and that is okay, but hopefully they know someone who is or else it will make song writing more difficult. But if you are a lyricist, then simply think of something or someone you want to talk about and see where it goes.

The definition of instrumentation for the purposes of this article is a guitar groove or a chord progression on whatever your instrument is. Again, after your original idea, find out what key you are playing in. Finding the key gives you some boundaries and also some freedom to explore more options musically and expand.

Another step is to play your guitar groove or progression of chords over and over, and really feel it. Then simply try to hum or freestyle lyrics to put together some semblance of a melody. For beginners this may be difficult because playing an instrument and singing can prove to take time to be able to do. If this is you do not be discouraged, with time and continued practice it will come. But for now, there are a couple options: record, or have someone else play your instrumentation and you sing over it.

Starting with a lyrical idea takes a different approach. For the musical side of it, think about what you are trying to say. Is it happy, or is it sad? More upbeat, or more melancholy? Also, think about how you want it to sound. If you want it brighter and happy, then try playing chords in a major key. If you are going for darker and a more melancholy vibe, try a minor key chord progression.

These tips have helped me get you over the hurdles that are inevitable in song writing, and will hopefully do the same for you so that one day people have your songs stuck in their heads.