Saturday, March 12, 2011

FEBRUARY 2011 UPDATE

This month's post is a little late, but here it is.

Recommended Utah artists to check out:
Tim Pearce http://www.reverbnation.com/timpearce
Sons of Other Mothers http://www.reverbnation.com/alansanders
Karlie McKinnon http://www.reverbnation.com/karliemckinnon
Whitney Blayne http://www.reverbnation.com/whitneyblayne
Accidentally Involved http://www.reverbnation.com/accidentallyinvolved
Rock Frampton http://www.reverbnation.com/rockframpton
Mary Tebbs http://www.reverbnation.com/marytebbs

The highlight show for us this month was Sons of Other Mothers and Honey (Mary Tebbs and Leraine Horstmanshoff) at IAMA this month. Fantastic show! Mary and Leraine are amazing musicians and performers.This was the best Sons of Other Mothers set I've seen yet. Great entertainment.

Sony ACID Music Studio
I'm taking classes over at Highland High School taught by Steve Auerbach and just learning so much. ACID is Sony's offering against Pro Tools, Cubase, Garage Band, Adobe Audition, etc. They all are built on the same concepts and have interchangeable industry standard add-ons and sound libraries. The most popular professional versions can be very expensive. Sony offers an entry level module and I can expand as my knowledge and desire grows. It's more complicated than I anticipated, but I am beginning to get around quite well. This will not replace my TASCAM recording unit, but be an additional resource. I can transfer recorded tracks from TASCAM to ACID and vice-versa. ACID offers a lot more capabilities with effects processing and fine tuning a mix. It will replace the Voyetra sequencer software I was using which is no longer compatible with Windows 7. So I can trigger my drum machines, etc. from ACID. But I may not need the machines anymore with all of the fantastic drum and other instrument libraries available for the computer based programs.

South Jordan Singer-Songwriters Series
Nancy and I are organizing a concert series to be held at the South Jordan library. They have a great facility room that can hold up to 70. I plan to host rather than perform. We have reserved a date in April and are lining up a couple of performers. I've received a lot of response to play so we are hopeful it can take off. We aren't real sure of what we are doing lol! We hope to 1) provide some less experienced performers a place to get comfortable performing, 2) a place to share music with a "concert" audience rather than people that are having dinner or meeting friends, 3) create a regularly scheduled all-ages venue, 3) attract audiences that won't go to a "bar" or "club" but love live music. Let's see how it goes.

Recording
I recorded acoustic/vocal versions of several of my songs this month: 'Already There', 'Heaven Is You', and 'Where You Are'. I've been jamming along with 'Where You Are' experimenting and creating other guitar parts. I recorded cover acoustic demos of 'Born to Run', 'Take It Easy', and 'In Your Eyes'. I've put together a demo CD for potential shows with a mix of my songs and covers.

Collaboration
I'm still sharing ideas with a few friends on the internet. I shared some lyrics I was stuck on with John Revitte who gave me some excellent ideas (check John out at www.reverbnation.com/johnrevitte). The song is 'That's the Way it's Supposed to Be' and I will be recording it soon. Most of us are super busy and haven't had time to do much with collaboration. I jumped into the Sony ACID thing just as I was starting to meet others to work with.

Chuck Gilmore - Sing Voice Studio
I've started working with vocal coach Chuck Gilmore (www.SingUtah.com). I hope to regain some of the range I have lost over the years. I've whined about it before. I've had to rearrange the keys of some of my songs so I can still sing them. There are some I can't sing because the guitar parts cannot be rearranged. For instance, 'Not Enough Love' is built on a neat guitar lick based around the open E chord. It does not sound right if I drop tune to D and can't be rearranged to a different key because it needs the specific ringing of open strings in standard tuning. Anyway, it is frustrating and Chuck is going to help me get some of that back and maybe some better control.

Church Choir
The choir performed 'Lord, I Will Follow Thee' and did a wonderful job! It had good feeling and emotion. I have trouble keeping a consistent group together as various people rotate in and out depending on their schedules and other demands on their time. So I have opened it up to anyone who wants to perform whether they have practiced or not. We do have some excellent singers that can't practice and feel guilty to perform if they have not. I've been that person and felt it wasn't fair to those who have practice. Well, it’s really not fair to the congregation or anybody, because the performance deserves the best effort and voices we can bring together. We had a few people take me up on the offer and join us for performance. I took a few moments to point out areas in the music where I would do things different and stressed the importance of watching me for direction. It worked great! We are preparing 'Jesus, the very Thought of Thee' for March and 'God so Loved the World' for Easter. Our new pianist Jessica Hernandez is excellent and her husband Ruyman adds a beautiful tenor voice. There are about 10 regulars I can depend on. I'm very grateful for their time and work on the material and how they help cue those who perform but are not able to practice often