He then texted me Thursday to say he would drop off a CD and I waited in a mixture of fear and anticipation as I wondered what it would sound like.

Well, as I blog this I am listening to the track “Turn Your Eyes”, and I can truly say I am pleased with what we have done.

It’s all about getting it into the hands of somebody now, and at least one somebody is saying he’ll be giving them away like hotcakes  so watch this space.

As a sidenote, the cold type whatever it was that wanted to land on me on our first day of recording, seems to have now taken hold. – Not impressed, but thankful that it was kept at bay so we could do what we had to do.

Night!

My good intentions were delayed by my body demanding a power nap – one minute I was looking at the laptop, next minute I was waking up

It was a looooooooooong day yesterday, but it was really cool, touching, and humbling to see how both Bishop and my brother put in hours of work, and are preparing to put in even more when they begin mixing the tracks – Oh Yeah, we have done all five!

I also need to shout out to Doug who was in the studio till 2am  Wednesday night/Thursday morning laying down the bass.

Sidenote: The rest of this post is a day out due to sleep deprivation and having to get back home and straight into some meetings yesterday (Fri 17th) 

So how did it all end?

My brother didn’t get any sleep, I had half an hour, – our combinded total of sleep can’t have been more than 10 hours – Bishop and G began mixing the tracks at around 8am, and we jumped into the car at around 10.30am in order to get back for planned appointments. – Needless to say, the stereo was blaring on the way back, and I am thankful to God that we got back safely!

Some mixing still needs to be done, so a trip back up to Wales may happen later today – I love my brother!

Hope you’ve enjoyed hearing about some of my showreel experience, look out for some samples of the tracks once they are mixed!

Bye-Bye Wales

I didn’t think we’d be able to do all the tracks and suggested we drop one of them. But, my brother – who at around 3am Thursday morning went to bed for the first time since waking up Tuesday morning- was adamant that we should stick to the plan.

His determination (pigheadedness) has reaped rewards. All the tracks are now done vocal wise, two have almost full instrumentation, and according to some friends who dropped by – it’s all sounding very nice.

I must say that these past 2/3 days have been challenging, sometimes frustrating, and confirmed that I definitely prefer live gigs to studio work, but I am feeling very rewarded by the experience. I am also excited to see what may happen next as I step out once again into the world of music, session singing and explore seriously my song writing.

It’s amazing what a chain of events a simple question can lead to.

Recording vocals can be hard work, and there is really no getting around the fact that it generally takes up a considerable amount of time. Yet, it is very rewarding when you hear what you have done. There is an art to studio work which some singers can find easier to master than others, and the same is true of  singing live.

Of course you have to able to sing in both situations but that’s where the similarity can end.  If you make a mistake in a live performance, often nobody, but the most musical of people will notice. In a good live performance, those performing and the audience can see and hear each other and feed off of the energy in the room. This dynamic is often great for adding to the real emotion that one gets in a live performance, and can be hard to create in the rather more sterile setting of a studio.

In the studio you can hear every sound you make, every missed pitch, every slide to a note, every breath you take. – I proved this point in a big way as we listened back to a vocal I had just done and found ourselves hearing an unmistakable loud gulp I had taken in between two notes.

There can also be a sense of pressure in the studio. Generally it is just you and the engineer and possibly a producer, and when you as the singer stand in the vocal booth, you can feel as  if you are under a microscope. Whenever I have done studio work I have felt so conscious of wanting to get it right as quickly as possibly. This can lead to not feeling relaxed, and probably making more mistakes than is necessary. One of the ways in which to try to combat this  is to really know your songs well, put in the time to practice before you get there, and don’t bank on getting those golden ‘one-take wonders’. Even seasoned singers will often have to do more than 2 takes.

It should also be said that it isn’t a great idea to be recording vocals at 3am in the morning! But when needs must – we still have 3 tracks to do and as I type it is after 7 in the evening and we haven’t begun to vocal the 3rd track yet as drums and guitar are being recorded on the tracks from yesterday. Well, at least I have manged to write the 2nd verse for the 3rd track, and even come up with an outro which I tried to record on two phones in order to capture all the harmonies – can you picture it?!

So why make this mad trip?

Ans: A simple request for some singing sessions, followed by the question “do you have a showreel?”*, began a chain of events which started as a plan to do a simple recording at my brother’s and has become an ‘out of orbit’ plan to record 5 tracks of varying styles, with lead and backing vocals, drums, bass, keys, guitar and whatever else is inspired along the way, ready to take home early – first thing early – Friday morning!!!! – Whatever happened to pressing record on a tape recorder and if you had a mic you felt stush

Before heading for bed, we had a look at the studio, it’s looking good.  Bishop’s guitars are looking impressive on the walls, the desk looks ‘da business’ without being pretentious, and the vocal booth looks inviting. – I haven’t recorded vocals for a long time, so I hope I settle into my new home really quickly. ‘One take wonders all the way!’…

Tiredness began to set in, so instead of going to sleep, I started trying to figure out a 2nd verse for one of the songs. Needless to say, I fell asleep somewhere along the line, until awoken by birds chirping crazily outside my window at 5.34am.I couldn’t believe the sound of them. So loud and so many, definitely haven’t heard that in a long time and most definitely haven’t heard that in the city.  After my initial wonder, I really wanted them to pipe down! Umm, maybe they had a 2nd verse LOL.

Well it’s now 7.32am and I am well and truly up, so I have to get on with that 2nd verse and get ready for this day. – No hours to waste! I also have to hope and pray, this blocked nose feeling is going to go away!

I’ll update on progress tonight, and look out for some samples of the finished work come Friday…

*Here’s a link to some information about creating a showreel and why it is important. – It is geared towards composers for TV/Film, but the essential principles are the same. Showreel

Hungry to be Heard by Jarra McGrath (click on picture for full explanation)

I’d suggest that we spend our days trying to be heard in one way or another.

Some of us use writing, some music, art, dance, photography etc and even our silence can speak loudly for us.

I would also suggest that in our daily life our jobs speak for us, our relationships with family, friends, work colleagues and even the passerby speak for us, our choices etc. Sometimes not in the way we would like or intend, yet speaking for us nevertheless.

I started this post because I had been inspired by a young lady who has had problems with her throat for which she had to have an operation. Since late last year, she has literally not really had a voice. I think she may have sung before, but at present that is not an option for her. (I will hopefully include more about her in another post).

I can only attempt to imagine how frustrating that might be, and how it might feel to have your voice taken away.

So as I thought more about this post I decided to do a search online under: “finding your voice”. I was hoping to find some piece of research to include that talked about how important it is to be heard. The majority of the results were related to finding your voice as a writer, actor or artist, and also some related to organisations or efforts to help those who have no voice or need others to speak up for them.

I then decided to try another search: “need to be heard”. This produced a mix of results from those related to people, groups, causes, and countries where there is some injustice that needs speaking about, to personal blogs where people express their ‘need to be heard’. (It was during this search that I found the above image by Jarra McGrath ).

I eventually ended up clicking a link which referred to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need*, in particular the ‘ego need’ – original classification ‘esteem needs’ – stating that it involved ‘the need to be heard, to be appreciated, and to be wanted’.

I studied Maslow’s model at school, and this had me delving into different articles on his model and his work, and slightly sidetracked from the focus of the post.

So how can I tie this all together?

I repeat my opening line that I believe that everybody wants to be heard. Add to that our ‘dip’ into Maslow, and the suggestion one of our needs is to be heard… Also consider my google searches:

• ‘finding your voice’ 103,000 for “finding your voice“. (0.31 seconds)
• ‘need to be heard’ 4,060,000 for “need to be heard“. (0.17 seconds)

And finally, I’ll go back to the young lady who was mentioned earlier and the original inspiration for this post.

Unable to use her literal voice, she has taught herself a new craft – crossstitch. She is making works of art that are expressing something of her creativity, and I would suggest that she has found a new way to find her voice.

Have you found yours?

*Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) was an American Pschologist who developed this model (originally proposed in his paper ‘A Theory of Human Motivation’ and initially developed during 1943-1954). It’s aim was to look at, and provide an framework to understanding human motivation. His model was, and to a great extent is still widely accepted as a valid model and has been particularly used in the business world, for e.g. management training, workplace environment, enablement of employees to fulfil their potential.

If you want more information an online search will provide you with lots of links, or you could check out one of the articles I read here: http://www.businessballs.com/maslow.htm

They were celebrating International Women’s Day – a day previously unknown to me and from what I gather, not widely known in the UK. Well Kocoa and others from the EAN felt compelled to do something in honour of this day and last nights fusion of artists from different creative genres was the result.

I went along not only to enjoy and support the night, but to read some of my poetry.

This was a long time coming ‘stepping out’ for me. As a ‘writer-in-waiting’, writing poetry and writing in general has long been a part of my DNA – known only to a few, and very little shared (unless you have been the recipient of a card from me )

I am grateful for the opportunity that came my way and the hook up/push that came from my cousin. I am also grateful and encouraged by those in the audience who came up to me afterwards.

When stepping out into anything new, there is almost always a moment when one can turn back or ‘pike out’ as I would say. To ensure that moment didn’t happen for me, I told a few people that I would be reading poetry and having them say they were going to be there held me accountable for not letting fear or any other associated feelings ‘give me an out’.

I must say that as I got off the bus to walk to the venue in the pouring rain, I did think I could be home now but I’m very glad I wasn’t. As I could well look back on last night as when I really begun my move away from being ‘writer-in-waiting’.

*Eclectic Arts Network put on a number of events for creative people to be involved in and attend, so check out their events page. Also Kocoa is the front woman for the group KB Fusionnaires. This group has vibe, energy, artistic harmony and much more. Definitely to be checked out!