Weekend Edition Saturday, March 8, 2008 - Four years after a serious
car accident, Melody Gardot used the experience as a springboard to
musical success she might never have achieved otherwise.
The singer, now 23, was hit by an SUV while riding her bicycle. Her
injuries were serious and left her unable to sit up for more than 10
minutes. She suffered short-term memory loss and acute sensitivity to
light and sound.
Gardot had played the piano before the accident, and a doctor suggested
that she use music as a kind of recovery therapy. Since she couldn't
sit comfortably at the piano, she picked up a guitar. Now, she's a
professional musician, and her debut full-length album is called
Worrisome Heart.
Scott Simon spoke with Gardot from the studios of WHYY in Philadelphia.
She says that, prior to the accident, she was more interested in visual
art than music. But once she started music therapy, the focus of her
music-making changed rapidly.
Worrisome Heart is filled with sultry, jazz-inflected ballads. Though
she lacked training in jazz, Gardot says she picked up the idiom
intuitively. She credits her backing musicians for buoying her along
the way.
"My way of explaining things is in an art form," Gardot says. "So I'm
like, you know, 'Go to the next frame.' And they're like, 'You mean the
next bar?' I'm like, 'Yeah, the next bar.'"
Since the accident, Gardot has struggled with short-term memory loss,
which forces her to write and record compositions before she forgets
them. Furthermore, her heightened sensitivity to light and sound —
which, despite hearing devices and sunglasses — makes performing
somewhat difficult. But she says she still finds it enjoyable.
"To be honest with you, being on stage and performing is the 30, 40, 50
minutes of the most pleasurable experience that I have," Gardot says.
"Because it's during that time that I don't really feel any pain. I
think it's transcendental, and I also think it's kind of like when you
have a headache, and someone punches you in the stomach, you forget all
about your head."
She hasn't forgotten about her good fortune, though.
"I'm not one to wake up in the morning and forget that," Gardot says. "I forget a lot of things, but I don't forget that."
Tuesday, Mar 18, 2008 11:27AM /
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i just learned that "ovenable" is an actual word. (i didn't know!)
i saw it today on food packaging and thought it was a mistake. to my
surprise, the word is in online dictionaries. i don't have a large
english vocab so i have to kind of look up the words and learn as i go.
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