I have always loved music. One of my earliest memories of music comes from Canada's 100th birthday celebrations in 1967, with a 6 year old me joyfully dancing around my parents' coffee table to a '45 recording of the song "Canada". In music, one's soul finds a home where words often fail us, and I believe a deeper part of me has always found a home in music.

And so it was that the steppingstones began: I begged my parents to let me take tap dancing lessons. I sang in elementary school musicals. After dutifully practising scales and songs for my weekly piano lesson with "Miss Kasper", I learned to love tinkering around on the piano, performing with zeal on my imaginary stage all the pop hits of the day. My adolescent heart may have been tied up with hormonal turbulence, but music always brought temperance and balance.

One day at an assembly in school, a senior student named Cathy performed a folk song with guitar and voice. I remember being completely taken by the song, and the day marked the beginning of my love of folk music. In those days, the folk circle in Winnipeg held these Sunday evening concerts call "Back Porch Swinging", where local musicians sang. It was as though the vibrations of the guitar strings resonated on corresponding strings in my heart, loosening a place of imagination and contemplation. Just like poetry, a deeper reality was expressed in the lyrical stories and truths these folks sang and strummed about.

Of all the instruments to this day, acoustic guitar remains my favorite. I've even learned to pluck out a few tunes myself, including some of my own. Click here if you dare to read the first song I ever wrote.

My favorite musicians include Brooks Williams (tops in my book), Harvey Reid, Eric Clapton, Bruce Cockburn, Winnipeg's own Crash Test Dummies, The Rankins, Nanci Griffith, The Indigo Girls, and two other Canadian artists, James Keelaghan and Steven Fearing.