For a Coast-based singer and music educator whose playful songs use language to build connections, it was still a struggle to find a word that described her upcoming performance geared for children aged three to 10 years.
Jill Shatford — a retired pediatric speech language pathologist and singer-songwriter — finally settled on the term “musical experience.” For its title, she seized a linking metaphor: “I Am a Bridge.” The point, she explained, is shaping songs with others about the most important things in life.
Her current musical project even spans chapters of her own life: Shatford was originally a children’s entertainer in the mid-1990s. When she more recently approached her guitarist neighbour Cliff Simon to propose collaborative songwriting, the first tune they developed was one she sketched out three decades ago. Now a supporter of a global campaign that promotes regenerative agriculture, her song Hello Ladybug became a tale of a worm whose wellbeing depends on nutrient-rich soil.
“To come together and weave community has always been one of my visions for how I can bridge my skillset with community,” said Shatford, “from the time that I was a children’s entertainer, through my own spiritual journey, through a health crisis, through letting go of my career, through coming back to teaching [to use] skills as a teacher and a facilitator with music.”
Already a longtime guitarist, she learned the ukulele and founded the 4 Strings Ukulele School. Her youngest pupils quickly became songwriting collaborators. After teaching a two-chord melody to a nine-year-old, she revealed an empowering secret: they could update the lyrics to anything they wanted. Shatford asked the girl what she thought was the best part of life.
“Ice cream,” was the immediate response. The Ice Cream Song was born, complete with a verse about an ice cream fan vexed by lactose intolerance.
Building bridges through music comes naturally to Shatford, whether as herself or in her clown persona Truly Wigglebottoms (she studied clowning technique under master theatre educator David MacMurray Smith).
She regularly seeks out creative partnerships with people with diverse life experiences. Her group of collaborative “Jilly Bears” now includes Xwechtaal (Dennis Joseph), a traditional knowledge keeper and harmonica blues artist from the Skwxwu7mesh Nation, and 98-year-old jazz artist Nicky Weber.
Although Shatford was already familiar with ukulele rudiments, she wanted to befriend the nonagenarian impresario, whom she described as a “brilliant human being,” by joining Weber’s group Ukulele Madness.
“When you’re my age, every day it’s another ding-dang thing,” Weber told Shatford during a ukulele lesson. “Today my pinky won’t bend and I can’t even put on my shoes. Life is just a zigzag line.” Shatford immediately recognized the lyricism of the phrase. Life Is Just a Zigzag Line is on her setlist for the May 4 interactive concert.
Another friendship — with a young woman whom she first met as a nonverbal four-year-old — gave rise to more original music. As Shatford taught her to strum the ukulele, her student mused, “I think the universe needs a new rainbow song.” Together, the two brainstormed qualities of the prismatic apparitions. The result was Rainbows are Awesome, a lilting homage to celestial colour.
“It’s just endless,” said Shatford. “Each one of those songs has an endless story behind it. And while the songs and actions are set [for May 4th], I’ll be watching and feeling in case people are shy. If they aren’t participating yet, I’ll step into that moment. What people need is to feel safe and that it’s okay to have live music in 3-D [instead of on screens].”
Shatford is currently applying to the Canada Council for the Arts for a grant that would enable her to take her show on tour to Squamish, Gibsons and Sechelt — and incorporate oscilloscope-like visualizations of sound.
“That would be the pinnacle,” she added, “coming together with the experience of unity and walking people through familiarity, connection, and joyfulness into quiet moments with lullabies, even into silence.”
Jill Shatford’s I Am A Bridge musical experience for families and children takes place at Roberts Creek Hall on May 4 from 3 to 4 p.m. Tickets (available on a sliding scale from $15 to $20) are available for sale at Melomania in Roberts Creek or Little Brit of Heaven in Sechelt.
