I’ve been a busy little bee working on the new album, which is almost finished (YAY!)… I have also been working on ideas to do something wonderful for the planet, too! Those that know me, understand my love and passion for nature and all things Earthy. Wouldn’t it be awesome if that could somehow co-incide with my music?! Without giving too much away, there’s a theme with the title of my new album, the movement of positivity behind it and the idea of connecting us all with all the wonderful gifts that mother nature has to offer us! Oh, and of course, with power MUSIC!
I pitched my idea to a wonderful global environmental charity called “Earthwatch” and from thousands of applications I’ve been selected to the final round, where I could win £5,000 to make this dream of mine come true… Next week I pitch to a team of Dragon’s (eek!) and an audience made up of the public. If you want to know more you can come along (and be the sixth dragon!) and watch me give my pitch in London next Thursday 15th at 7pm at The Royal Geographical Centre – limited space available! http://earthwatchevents.org.uk
I’m nervous! I’m excited! But most of all I’m looking forward to letting music take me back “To my Roots” …
Thrilled to announce that my fundraising story be on BBC South Today between 6:30 and 7pm.
As some of you may know already, I went to as many local infant schools as I could possibly fit into one day and played my song “Give a Little Bit”, danced with Pudsey bear and generally tried to spread awareness to the children about the charity!
We raised a lot of money and hopefully spread a bit of love and positivity at the same time. Full blog of the day is on my website, and here’s the link to watch me this evening!
Well, it may not have been a 12 hour buskathon, but it was certainly a challenge!
The first school I visited was Onslow Infant School. I had no idea what to expect as it was the first school on the list! We went in for the beginning of the day assembly and they were absolutely amazing!! All clapping along and dancing with Pudsey – it was great! Here are a few of them with Pudsey before we left for the next school
We then went on to St Nicholas Infant School. This school is particularly close to my heart because it was where my Mum taught. It was an amazing feeling to be able to go back there and play for the children. They were so sweet and really enthusiastic. I was overwhelmed by the amount of generous donations that they all made to Children in Need.
It was special to see that the memorial they’d made for my Mum was still there. Here’s a photo of it in all its glory. I walked out of there feeling truly touched. :o)
I decided that as the crew had all been up since the early hours we’d make a quick stop off for a cup of tea. Sadly I ended up spilling mine all over me, so I had to nip out and buy a new pair of trousers!! Total FAIL!
Next on the list was Wood Street Infant School, Merrow Infant School and Clandon Infant School. The kids were so sweet and generous in spirit. It was a totally blessing to play for them and see their faces each time Pudsey walked in.
We finished the School Sprint with Moss Lane Infant School. I was blown away – this year two class had learnt my song! I couldn’t believe it! It was wonderful to play “Give a Little Bit” and here them singing the chorus along with hand movements, too! I handed out an EP to each of them at the end as a special thank you for all learning my song and singing so well.
The cameraman Paul was amazing and got some incredible shots. Sam Rommer played cajon and did ALL the setting up – a dream man to have by my side! And Jo “Pudsey” Luckman did a terrific job dancing and waving and getting the kids going… I tell you.. she was VERY HOT by the end of the day!!
I would like to say a special thanks to all the schools involved today and to all the children who participated and made a donation to Children in Need. It was a fantastic day! The footage for this is due to go out on BBC South THIS FRIDAY! – I will let you know when and post a link! You can still donate by clicking here www.justgiving.com/estevensmusic
Lots of Love
Emma xx
What an amazing evening. Firstly, I want to say a huge thank you to Eagle 3, and Eagle FM for being such a wonderful radio station! It’s so amazing to have their continued support, especially as they’re my local station!
For those of you who don’t know… G-Live has always been my dream venue to play. It’s a huge local venue to me, and ever since being built I’ve had aspirations of playing it.
When I was asked to headline the Local Showcase for Eagle FM at G-Live I was completely blown away…
It was an amazing night. I played Riptide, Once, Anywhere, Helium, So Stop the World and I even managed to silence 500+ people for “Sunflower” which I performed on my own.
Here are some pictures:
Here’s a video of Sunflower taken by Stuart (eagle3 founder) from back stage:
I have no words for how much that meant to me. I felt my Mum with me at that moment and it made me quite emotional after the gig.
I would also like to thank our incredible sandman, my amazing band and all the other acts who played that night who were AWESOME!
As you can see here, I AM SO EXCITED to announced that my very limited addition VIP Waves Deluxe CD’s are now available. I have an incredibly low amount of stock left so head over to my store HERE: http://emmastevens.bigcartel.com to get your copy QUICK! It has 22 tracks, including a voice memo of a very early stages “Helium” and a starting point version of “Make my Day”!
Once you have your copy, take a selfie of you with it and email it to me info@emma-stevens.com – I am putting together something really special and I need YOUR HELP to do it!
Thanks so much for your support, you guys are the best!! LOVE YOU!
This is a slightly different blog for me as it doesn’t involve MUSIC!!!! I still thought I’d share with you though as I had such an amazing weekend! For my birthday present Sam decided to take us on a bush craft weekend course. I had no idea what to expect…
When we arrived on Saturday with our huge back packs filled to the brim of torches, sleeping bags, spare pants(!) etc we immediately went out foraging for food.
After 3 hours of foraging we found ourselves with SO MUCH FOOD! It gave me a whole new appreciation for nature. Food is everywhere. In the trees, on the ground, by the rivers… We found beautiful watercress (which we later turned into watercress soup), jack by the hedge (looks like a weed by is actually part of the mustard family and GREAT for flavouring) plums, damsons, apples, black berry’s. We learnt that you can also plantain on bites or stings if you can’t find any dock leaves… It’s amazing!
When we got back to our site, we had to start thinking about building our shelter. we were all given saws and knives and sent off to find some wood to make tent pegs out of…
I found using a knife very hard at the beginning, I was so paranoid about it slipping and cutting off a finger! But we were taught three different and very safe ways to use it, so it was just a case of practising!
Once our pegs were ready we were taught three different types of knots to use to get our tarpaulins to stay up:
Evenk hitch knot
Taughtline hitch
Midshipman’s hitch
I am definitely doing to be practising these as by my first go I had forgotten them all!
I was rather proud of our coat hooks…
But we got there! We couldn’t find two trees within the right distance of each other so improvise with a small fallen tree. It made it harder, but very satisfying once built! This was our shelter for the night. If we had stayed there any longer than one night I’m sure we would have raised our “bed”… But it was forecast to be dry so we weren’t too worried. I was more scared about rolling over in the night and squashing a little hedgehog!!!
Then we went and sat around the camp fire that Aaron (our instructor) had got started for us.
It was VERY smokey. Especially cooking on an open fire. I found wearing contact lenses was a real bonus! Something about the way the smoke hits the light by the trees looks really beautiful though, almost dream like.
Sam and I cooked the first meal for everyone. Luckily they had some supplies other than the ones we foraged, so we cooked a vegetable and rice dish. We saved the watercress for watercress soup the next day.
We then went off to pick long nettles to make rope. It was pitch black now so by torch light we worked. We took the sting out of the nettles by passing them through the fire. We then battered them flat using the backs of our saws. We did this so we could pick out the pulp. Then, with the remaining strands we used a special techniques to braid then together, forming a surprisingly strong rope! I didn’t take any pictures because my battery had gone and it was VERY dark!
The time came for us to go to sleep… I have to say it was rather daunting being in the middle of the woods and sleeping like that. You could hear so much wildlife, so much rustling, so many noises… It was hard to settle and quite uncomfortable. It wasn’t the best night’s sleep I’ve ever had, but I think your body adapts quickly and after a few nights of it I’d probably sleep like a baby!
In the morning we got up and had breakfast around the fire and then… LEARNT TO MAKE FIRE! At first we were given one match and had to make an individual fire out of it. We all failed. Then, after being taught the correct way to lay a fire with the surrounding resources we were given a fire stick. with one spark I was amazed at how it took to my dried grass/twigs.
We took a break for lunch, and attempted watercress and jack by the hedge soup. It was pretty hard to get it to taste nice without stock/an onion/butter. We gave it a go!!
After this we learnt how to make spoons from a log!
I used my knife and a persuader (a big heavy piece of wood) to cut the log in half. To do this you place the knife on top, in the middle, and the hit it on the top with the persuader and keep hitting down on the knife until it splits…I then used some charcoal to draw myself a basic sketch of how I wanted my spoon to look. I then used the knife an persuader technique to get the ends off. After that stage was complete the real arduous work came into play. I used my knife to chisel away at the wood for about 2 hours until my spoon was done. Three different knife techniques were used to make THIS (mine is on the right)
It turns out I’m big spoon and Sam is little spoon!!
We were feeling very very tired by the time the course had finished. I learnt SO MUCH!! It’s amazing to learn these skills and I would recommend it to anyone!
