A quick hello...
Just to reassure you all (if 'all' is the appropriate word) that I'm still here, and,nominally at least, still running this blog! Sorry for the lengthy silence, which I can only attribute to extreme busy-ness in general, and a few other more specific things (like my daughter's chickenpox). I'll try and post more in detail shortly about how we've been, but I'll just mention in passing that I've been working to finish recording and mixing for a CD of children's songs (as mentioned before around here), and where time (infrequently) allows, laying down tracks towards the solo/"concept" album I've promised I'm going to finish during 2008. Anyway, this has been a post from my mobile phone, so more will appear here as soon as I can write it.
Labels: childrenssongs, conceptalbum, life
Interregnum
(or "here's a post while I wait for something worthwhile to happen that I can post about")!
Well, I sent in the OU assignment a few days ago (one more to go, and if all goes well, I'll have gained the qualification I'm working towards :-) ), so I allow myself a brief breather before heading back to the books. Well, to be truthful, a more sedentary period was forced on me the last couple of days, by what Robert Fripp in his diary might term a "Devil Bug" (high temperature, coughing up icky stuff, etc.), though I'm pleased to report it seems to have got bored and is probably looking for someone else to move on to.
Perhaps as a result, life feels as if it is taking a pause for breath itself right now—it's rather on the uneventful side this weekend, but I may as well fill you in on a couple of things while I'm here:
- My ongoing project to produce a set of backing tracks for Joy's children's musical educational activity sessions, is... well, ongoing. Joy needed two more songs for this weekend which weren't among the ones we demoed with my sister-in-law just before Christmas, so when I finished the OU assignment I went to the studio and quickly laid down the tracks. "Old MacDonald Had A Farm" ended up with an apt (albeit somewhat predictable) country-ish vibe, whilst "Cows In The Kitchen" developed a life of its own in the hour or so that I was laying it down—imagine Roger McGuinn jamming with Queen on "'39", and you have an idea of the direction it took...
- As you may guess, I have made no progress on any of my own material since writing about my intentions the other week, and it's probably time I just got the ball rolling. I could make a start by making a demo of the "title" track of the concept album, which has been pretty well complete in the writing sense for some time now (though I may change the final couple of lines to lead into one of my older songs, should I add it to the album sequence—maybe I'll record both versions and choose the appropriate one at the end). Watch this space.
- Time is also running out to commit to disk the first of my "cover-per-month" project songs, so the first one might need to be a "start of February" song instead of "January"! Unfortunately, for copyright reasons I don't think I'll be able to make these recordings generally available, but... well, if you really want to hear them, "where there's a will, there's a way"...
And the first song? It will be "Six String Orchestra", originally written by Harry Chapin (of "Cat's In The Cradle" fame), but probably better known for its inclusion in an episode of "The Muppet Show" (sung by Scooter in character as the song's eager student rock star). The challenge here will be playing the acoustic guitar and singing deliberately poorly (well, the second part should be easier ;-) ), as Chapin famously did when he played the song in concert (look on YouTube for video clips of this). Anyway, it's quite a fun song, and I think I'll enjoy playing the rest of the "phantom band" in the choruses!
Labels: childrenssongs, demos, life, music, recording, studio
Fun with a Futurama
Fear not—I'm still here! I've been submerged in my latest OU course assignment (which I'll be getting back to in a few moments), and have barely done any recording since the last post here nearly two weeks ago, so there's not a great deal to report.
OK, I have laid down a couple of tracks for Joy's children's musical activity sessions—for one, I added some electric guitar and bass guitar to one of Joy and Charlotte's keyboard-and-vocal tracks ("I'm A Little Teapot", if you must know :-) ) about a week ago. During this session, I plugged in a wonderful early-60s Hofner Futurama bass, which I've borrowed from a friend to play on a few tracks. It has real flatwound strings (instead of the roundwound ones you get on almost all guitars and basses nowadays) and a single neck pickup, and it is a joy to play, compared to "The Beast" (my Squier Precision Special 5-string). I should also add that my Christmas present is turning out very useful for my bass tracks!
Best of all, and partly because of the strings and pickup, the Hofner has this woolly, thuddy, slightly honky sound which you normally associate with mid-60s beat groups and Paul McCartney's basslines with the Beatles—-exactly why I wanted to borrow this bass for these particular tracks I've had in mind. It was perfect for my version of "The Wheels On The Bus" for Joy (as I mentioned last time, I was going for a Monkees-kind of "Last Train To Clarksville" approach), and I'm hoping to use it on a few more tracks before I have to give it back ;-)
Right, and now I really do have to get back to the study. See you next time...
Labels: childrenssongs, guitar, music
Kid's stuff
First off, it's looking like the covers recording project (from last time) may well end up being for immediate family and friends only (lucky them :-) ). I had an e-mail exchange with a singer-songwriter in the US who has done something similar, and he said that over there, if you record someone else's composition, you have to tell the organisation which collects songwriters' royalties, and cough up a fee for each copy which gets sold, downloaded, whatever. ("Well, duh!", comes the retort from the seasoned artists out there—hey, go easy on me, I'm new to this ;-) )
I imagine there's a similar arrangement here in the UK, and apparently it applies whether you're a million-selling artist or a dilletante bedroom musician, or whether you're offering it for free or charging for it. Methinks this will stay a little private project of mine, then—oh well, the practice will be good for me, and it might even spark a new song or two...
Anyway, I'm still doing some other recording at the moment: you may remember from a few weeks back, that Sidingsound Productions is busy on a set of children's songs for Joy's new programme of children's musical activity sessions. I now have a good number of tracks "in the can" (OK, on the disk) for that, and will probably be working on the others sporadically over the next couple of months. Ultimately, we think we'd like to try selling CDs of the songs, so the arrangements will need to be filled out and tidied up before then.
In the process, though, I must say I'm enjoying working on these tracks—even though these are children's songs, I'm approaching them not that differently from any other song I'd produce. Some songs are receiving a slightly different treatment than you might expect; I've arranged "The Wheels On The Bus" in a kind of Monkees style (sort of country-tinged folk-rock), and even borrowed a friend's wonderful old 60s Hofner Futurama bass guitar (with flatwound strings!) to get that "Last Train To Clarksville" sound.
Other songs are getting makeovers for these sessions, too: "The Ants Go Marching" has shades of Billy Bragg's "The Marching Song Of The Covert Battalions" (which nicks the "Ants" tune anyway :-) ), and "Johnny Works With One Hammer" dovetails two arrangements, inspired by Julia Plaut and The Wiggles' versions of the song.
I shall tantalise you with that glimpse of the future, and leave it at that for now...
Labels: childrenssongs, covers, music
Of children's songs and Santa
...I promise I'll be back before the festive season...
Well, I said that in my last post, and would like to keep my word after all :-)
A few moments of peace and quiet have descended on Walker Towers, affording me a brief window of opportunity to check back here before the Christmas festivities kick off in earnest. I hope you're all having a good run-up to the festive season, and that things are generally holding together for you.
The main things to report right now, are that Joy's students' piano CD project went well, and we've now begun our next recording endeavour: a bumper collection of backing tracks of children's songs, for a new activity of Joy's in the New Year. One motivation for doing this ourselves, was that we (OK, mainly I) didn't like the production values of many of the pre-school children's song CDs we've heard, and felt (correctly or otherwise) that we could do better ourselves. Whether or not this turns out to be true, we're going to give it our best shot...
The recording commenced last weekend, with me tracking Joy playing "guide" keyboard parts for around twenty-five songs (mostly nursery rhymes and other children's favourites). We did this so that my sister-in-law Charlotte could come up from her home ninety minutes or so away, and record lead vocals on as many of the songs as we could manage in the time, as we were assuming for various reasons that this would be the only chance we would get.
Ultimately, Charlotte was a real pro, and was able to sing on all but a couple of the tracks (and I even found time to double-track her voice on one song). We now have the basis for the rest of the recording work, and Joy and I plan to build the rest of the instrumentation around Charlotte's vocals, perhaps even replacing Joy's guide keyboards along the way. Joy's going to play piano and other keyboards, whilst I'll be contributing guitars, ukulele, recorders, bass, drums and anything else I can lay my hands on (!), plus probably contributing some extra vocals here and there.
I don't know how much we can get finished before the New Year, but I'm back to work pretty promptly after the 1st, so I'll really need to get my skates on and lay down as many tracks as I can whilst I have the time off. I will try and keep you in the loop as to how it's going, and what we're going to do with the recordings when they're ready.
Anyway, have a very happy Christmas Eve/Day/Boxing Day, and see you back here in the last few days of 2007...
Labels: childrenssongs, music, recording
