So you are the Flauting Harper?

'So you are the Flauting Harper?'

'Yes, yes, that would be me...'

'And you still sing?'

An innocent enough question...or is it?

I have a degree in music and logged a harp on foot across Europe... I've played in some of the finest venues Ireland has to offer, and I practice my craft daily and work in many different genres... yes, I have a weak nervous system and am often tense, intense...not easy to deal with...but I'm no amateur...and I have a few questions of my own.

How come that I can't live off what I do?

As in... do I really need to have a teaching degree to make money in music?

When I was young my father used to say: 'Music isn't something you do as a job.'

I believed him. I explored the good, the sane and the ugly to try and get away from the notion that I could be a musician. In the end I failed and ended up where I begun: in music.

I finished my degree in 2008 and have been working on and off on different projects. A bit of conducting, a concert for Amnesty International, winning a competition here and there, running a choir, singing a little Jazz, playing harp on the Country Markets... until I decided to confront the question what to do with my life, by going on my walk in 2010. 'From Here to Santiago' brought me on foot from Clonakilty in West Cork, through Ireland, France and Spain to the North West of Spain... I played and sang every day and felt as if I had cracked what I needed to do: music.

Today the first day of 2013 it has been some two and a half years since I started walking and I feel like I am back where I began, with one notable difference: I've already done my wake-up walk and know where I want to go next: another trek, to Jerusalem this time; recording; writing; new repertoire... But this is not going to be if I don't actually use my wake-up-ness to create the finances to make it all happen.

So. Yes, I am the Flauting Harper and I hereby commit this year to becoming financially independent through music. I want to be able to live off what I do and not feel the need to apologize for being the musician I am.

I have a few arrows on my bow... poets, performance poetry, sessions, and a drum n bass inspired band, first draft of a book about my walk and enough repertoire...

With a bit of elbow grease a big adventure awaits...