Hi!
It's been so incredibly long since I've hammered away at my keyboard on this blog, describing barely intelligible accounts of music happenings in my life. Today, though, I came home and finally had a night without a rehearsal, so I thought I'd pick up the loose ends and start blogging again on a strict schedule of whenever I feel like it. Hopefully it won't be another 3 months. That was a pretty intense drought of babble.
I've been incredibly busy music-wise. Since I obtained a condenser microphone and a beautiful new ukulele in mid-October, the quality of my home recordings has become much better. I haven't had time to record much, but I've done a few covers of Akon songs. It's a bit of a strange concept, as my style and his are about as similar as pudding and nachos, but I had a lot of fun with it. Perhaps I'll find a way to post one of them.
With Malcolm I've been working on a few new projects. The one I'm focused on at the moment is an untitled song in which I delve into the frightening world of falsetto. I'm really happy about how it's turning out, and I'll post it as soon as it's finished.
I have become far more involved with school-related music activities this year as well. So far, I am in the musical, the glee club, the men's a cappella ensemble, chamber singers, and district 3 chorus. They've all been fun and/or challenging, but perhaps my favorite and the most exciting one has been glee. This year, Camden Hills Regional High School put together a glee club for a competition by the Fox23 news station. The "Glee For All" contest is a statewide competition (plus some of New Hampshire) that picked five video submissions of songs done in the style of glee to be broadcast live on TV. CHRHS' choral teacher recruited ten of us to sing "Pressure" by David Bowie and Queen and we got in! Our video was superbly done, and we've gotten a bunch of press from it (from Village Soup and the Bangor Daily News). This has been a thrilling experience and I can't wait to go live on TV! We perform around 8:30 am this Wednesday (the 10th) so watch and vote! Voting will open the 12th.
Vote on the 12th!
Also, this coming weekend will be the second and last weekend of CHRHS' performance of "Once Upon A Mattress". Come see us at the Strom on Friday or Saturday. The show starts at 7 pm both nights!
So that's a highly-abbreviated, advertisement-heavy account of my musical doings these past few months.
See ya.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Friday, August 6, 2010
Camp, finishing touches, and backup vocals
Aloha Universe!
My utmost apologies for not having posted in (can it be?) almost an entire month. I've been having adventure after adventure, with this summer careening by like a train... that... careens. Okay, so bad analogy, but this I've been up to a lot.
For starters, I went to a Village Harmony Teen Residential camp for the second year in a row. The camp consists of nine days of almost constant singing, including two concerts. By "almost constant" I mean that we rehearsed for seven to eight hours every day. I didn't calculate this year, but last year I found that we sang for an approximate fifty hours over the course of the week (excluding two two-and-a-half-hour concerts). Our group consisted of 25 teens under the age of 19, and we focused on two very different genres: Georgian (high energy music that is very different from western music) and Americana (folk and country). For a relatively small group, we had quite a powerful sound. The bass section, which mostly consisted of veteran VH singers, had a great sound. We were very synchronized and the timbres of our voices matched beautifully. In short, it was an intense experience, although for the most part it was incredibly fun as well.
Once I got back from camp, I came back to "It's Not You That I Want" with Clio. In the past couple weeks, we've cleaned most of it up and given it more "life". When recording in a studio with a few people, all playing different instruments at different times on different tracks, the biggest goal is to try to accurately play ones part. This can mean leaving out nuances and details, moments that make a song move. After coming back, we added some of these "moments" and changed some timing issues. Additionally, a tremolo string part was added by myself on the last verse to accentuate the stressfulness of the mood. If this is incomprehensible now, it should (hopefully) become clear once the song is out. We may release it for streaming next week or so!
In my last post I mentioned a friend, Will, doing a cover of Billy Joel's "River Of Dreams" that I was helping with. Last week, with the piano, bass, guitar, percussion, and lead vocals down, Will decided we would sing backup vocals. Although I had made some a capella songs on my own in garageband, I had never done it with Malcolm. I had also never done it with someone else. That was the really cool part. It sounded pretty bare at first. We laid down a track or two, and it wasn't much to hear. But after recording three harmony tracks each, it really started to sound like a choir. So exciting! The one point of frustration was when Will put down a very original, cool ending and I had to sing a weird harmony to it. My choral music training has kind of wired me to sing things a certain way, so that was incredibly hard. I spent a good fifteen minutes to a half hour trying to get it. In the end I managed to get something down, but it was quite a wake-up call to how closed-minded I am in some ways about music.
Thanks for reading and I hope summer's treating you like it should!
My utmost apologies for not having posted in (can it be?) almost an entire month. I've been having adventure after adventure, with this summer careening by like a train... that... careens. Okay, so bad analogy, but this I've been up to a lot.
For starters, I went to a Village Harmony Teen Residential camp for the second year in a row. The camp consists of nine days of almost constant singing, including two concerts. By "almost constant" I mean that we rehearsed for seven to eight hours every day. I didn't calculate this year, but last year I found that we sang for an approximate fifty hours over the course of the week (excluding two two-and-a-half-hour concerts). Our group consisted of 25 teens under the age of 19, and we focused on two very different genres: Georgian (high energy music that is very different from western music) and Americana (folk and country). For a relatively small group, we had quite a powerful sound. The bass section, which mostly consisted of veteran VH singers, had a great sound. We were very synchronized and the timbres of our voices matched beautifully. In short, it was an intense experience, although for the most part it was incredibly fun as well.
Once I got back from camp, I came back to "It's Not You That I Want" with Clio. In the past couple weeks, we've cleaned most of it up and given it more "life". When recording in a studio with a few people, all playing different instruments at different times on different tracks, the biggest goal is to try to accurately play ones part. This can mean leaving out nuances and details, moments that make a song move. After coming back, we added some of these "moments" and changed some timing issues. Additionally, a tremolo string part was added by myself on the last verse to accentuate the stressfulness of the mood. If this is incomprehensible now, it should (hopefully) become clear once the song is out. We may release it for streaming next week or so!
In my last post I mentioned a friend, Will, doing a cover of Billy Joel's "River Of Dreams" that I was helping with. Last week, with the piano, bass, guitar, percussion, and lead vocals down, Will decided we would sing backup vocals. Although I had made some a capella songs on my own in garageband, I had never done it with Malcolm. I had also never done it with someone else. That was the really cool part. It sounded pretty bare at first. We laid down a track or two, and it wasn't much to hear. But after recording three harmony tracks each, it really started to sound like a choir. So exciting! The one point of frustration was when Will put down a very original, cool ending and I had to sing a weird harmony to it. My choral music training has kind of wired me to sing things a certain way, so that was incredibly hard. I spent a good fifteen minutes to a half hour trying to get it. In the end I managed to get something down, but it was quite a wake-up call to how closed-minded I am in some ways about music.
Thanks for reading and I hope summer's treating you like it should!
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Near finished and Billy Joel
Hi!
I realized it's been a good two weeks since I posted anything. I know! You look like you grew a couple inches as well! I've been doing some work since the last time I checked in. Some, at least. I admit to doing a lot of sailing and playing quite a bit of badminton as well.
Anyway, the past two lessons with Clio have been productive. We've really pulled most of it together. Today we mostly worked with correcting notes on the vocal track using Melodyne software. This is a process that has a byproduct of insanity. Once a note is found that needs correcting, one can correct it to various degrees using two sliding bars: one corrects pitch and another decreases drifting. This seems easy, but there are usually three different notes that come up on the screen for every one note you sing (something to do with harmonics; I'm not sure I understand it myself) and hence one must perform the correction process thrice. In addition, the correction of a note doesn't necessarily mean it will sound good, so sometimes we had to correct multiple tracks and then undo them and whatnot. Thus, insanity was created. By the end I no longer had any idea what was right and what was wrong. Then we had to do the mix.
After much compressing, normalizing, adding reverberation, etc., we finally came out with something we thought was half-decent. It was then sent to the home emails of Clio and I as an mp3. I started a checklist on a scrap of paper for what needs to be done:
Basically, although there are a few more adjustments to be made before "She's What I Need" is posted (vocal volume adjustment and track work, and bass revision and addition) as illustrated by the fuzzy cell phone photo, the song should be out soon! Sadly, due to travel, a lesson will not be held next week so it will be a fortnight at least. :-(
In other news, I had the privilege of working with my neighbor, Will, on a song he's covering last Friday. The song is Billy Joel's "River Of Dreams" and he asked me to do a piano part for it. At first I was apprehensive (for who can imitate such a legend?) but I practiced a bit beforehand and we laid down a fairly solid - if simple - track. It was very easy to play to because he had created a really great track behind that with guitar, bass, and all sorts of percussion. After the piano track was down, we fiddled with percussion rhythms to clean up the sound and the end result was really quite something. I'm extremely excited to see how that comes out.
So I think I better wrap this up, having rambled about two events for much longer than seemingly possible. I hope everyone who's reading this is having an awesome summer (hopefully music-filled!)
May the force be with all of you.
I realized it's been a good two weeks since I posted anything. I know! You look like you grew a couple inches as well! I've been doing some work since the last time I checked in. Some, at least. I admit to doing a lot of sailing and playing quite a bit of badminton as well.
Anyway, the past two lessons with Clio have been productive. We've really pulled most of it together. Today we mostly worked with correcting notes on the vocal track using Melodyne software. This is a process that has a byproduct of insanity. Once a note is found that needs correcting, one can correct it to various degrees using two sliding bars: one corrects pitch and another decreases drifting. This seems easy, but there are usually three different notes that come up on the screen for every one note you sing (something to do with harmonics; I'm not sure I understand it myself) and hence one must perform the correction process thrice. In addition, the correction of a note doesn't necessarily mean it will sound good, so sometimes we had to correct multiple tracks and then undo them and whatnot. Thus, insanity was created. By the end I no longer had any idea what was right and what was wrong. Then we had to do the mix.
After much compressing, normalizing, adding reverberation, etc., we finally came out with something we thought was half-decent. It was then sent to the home emails of Clio and I as an mp3. I started a checklist on a scrap of paper for what needs to be done:
Basically, although there are a few more adjustments to be made before "She's What I Need" is posted (vocal volume adjustment and track work, and bass revision and addition) as illustrated by the fuzzy cell phone photo, the song should be out soon! Sadly, due to travel, a lesson will not be held next week so it will be a fortnight at least. :-(In other news, I had the privilege of working with my neighbor, Will, on a song he's covering last Friday. The song is Billy Joel's "River Of Dreams" and he asked me to do a piano part for it. At first I was apprehensive (for who can imitate such a legend?) but I practiced a bit beforehand and we laid down a fairly solid - if simple - track. It was very easy to play to because he had created a really great track behind that with guitar, bass, and all sorts of percussion. After the piano track was down, we fiddled with percussion rhythms to clean up the sound and the end result was really quite something. I'm extremely excited to see how that comes out.
So I think I better wrap this up, having rambled about two events for much longer than seemingly possible. I hope everyone who's reading this is having an awesome summer (hopefully music-filled!)
May the force be with all of you.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
A Side Project
elloHay orldWay!
Today, I attended a somewhat last-minute-scheduled lesson with Malcolm. However, the song I've been working on with Clio, "It's Not You That I Want", was not the one worked on because she's off in some far-away state or something. Instead, I started recording a song I wrote a while back entitled "But We Don't Talk" (I'm considering leaving out the "But" in the title). I had shown it to Malcolm at a prior date, but we had dismissed it because of its descending A-minor chord progression and piano part. This may not seem like a reason to shun something to an outsider, but if one looks through my compositions, one will surely find numerous instances of this A-minor pattern. It is not my wish to be predictable or repetitive, but I needed something to record for today and I had been toying with the song for quite some time prior to this. As a sort of compromise, I decided to play it on ukulele instead of piano. I thought it lost depth, but Malcolm said it was "plaintive", so I kept it. I certainly hope he's right. In our hour together, we got the uke part down as well as a vocal track. The song also obtained a solo in that time along with a second chorus at the end. I found it much more exciting after that.
I've really had fun in the past few weeks coming to Malcolm's and simply getting stuff done. In the past there's been a lot of writing and brainstorming that goes on in the sessions, but recently it's been a lot more structured. The songs that we're doing are already almost fully developed. This definitely started with Clio and I coming in to do "It's Not You", as we had already written and performed it. Even with "But We Don't Talk" I made a demo on garageband so I know what I want it to sound like (although the demo was piano-based.)
On a completely different topic, I'm starting to think this blog would be more fun to read if it had pictures. I mean, we all know that picture books are far superior to those stuffy chapter books. The same seems like it would apply to blogs. I'll bring a camera to the next session if I remember. Gosh, I could also make videos of songs. That would be intense. The cool thing is that I have so much free time (I'm far to lazy to get a job) that I can probably do that.
Summer has definitely set in. All productivity is lost. I find myself going to bed way too late, watching lame movies, and swimming obsessively. I should start getting to bed earlier...
...he typed at 1:00 am.
Ah, well. Such is life.
Happy (somewhat late) solstice!
Today, I attended a somewhat last-minute-scheduled lesson with Malcolm. However, the song I've been working on with Clio, "It's Not You That I Want", was not the one worked on because she's off in some far-away state or something. Instead, I started recording a song I wrote a while back entitled "But We Don't Talk" (I'm considering leaving out the "But" in the title). I had shown it to Malcolm at a prior date, but we had dismissed it because of its descending A-minor chord progression and piano part. This may not seem like a reason to shun something to an outsider, but if one looks through my compositions, one will surely find numerous instances of this A-minor pattern. It is not my wish to be predictable or repetitive, but I needed something to record for today and I had been toying with the song for quite some time prior to this. As a sort of compromise, I decided to play it on ukulele instead of piano. I thought it lost depth, but Malcolm said it was "plaintive", so I kept it. I certainly hope he's right. In our hour together, we got the uke part down as well as a vocal track. The song also obtained a solo in that time along with a second chorus at the end. I found it much more exciting after that.
I've really had fun in the past few weeks coming to Malcolm's and simply getting stuff done. In the past there's been a lot of writing and brainstorming that goes on in the sessions, but recently it's been a lot more structured. The songs that we're doing are already almost fully developed. This definitely started with Clio and I coming in to do "It's Not You", as we had already written and performed it. Even with "But We Don't Talk" I made a demo on garageband so I know what I want it to sound like (although the demo was piano-based.)
On a completely different topic, I'm starting to think this blog would be more fun to read if it had pictures. I mean, we all know that picture books are far superior to those stuffy chapter books. The same seems like it would apply to blogs. I'll bring a camera to the next session if I remember. Gosh, I could also make videos of songs. That would be intense. The cool thing is that I have so much free time (I'm far to lazy to get a job) that I can probably do that.
Summer has definitely set in. All productivity is lost. I find myself going to bed way too late, watching lame movies, and swimming obsessively. I should start getting to bed earlier...
...he typed at 1:00 am.
Ah, well. Such is life.
Happy (somewhat late) solstice!
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
The Song is Coming Along
Howdy Y'all,
"It's Not You That I Want" has made leaps and bounds since the rough cut of last week. Even after the first two-hour session it was sounding like everything I do sounds after a few months. This time, Clio and I redid the vocals, rearranged a high piano part, added guitar (played by the virtuosic Malcolm himself), and put in high strings in the last verse. It was very productive.
"It's Not You" is cool because of how different it is from anything else I've ever heard. I guess this is the magic of working with Clio. The style is hard to put into any genre (soft rock/acoustic/tango/whatever?), the lyrics are a bit out of the ordinary (key line: "It's not you that I want, It's those feelings I got"), and the setup of sections is a bit unconventional (there is no final chorus!). This has been unlike anything I've ever done and it's just so fun to do. I can't wait to finish and release it! (although this won't be in the very near future, as Clio is gone next week. Oh well!)
This is really quite exciting. If you've been terribly bored with this post, here's something you may find cool: Still Frame Animation
I did this and a few others a while back when I was obscenely bored. Hope you enjoy them!
By the way, my YouTube account is wildmanpete9, and although it has nothing pertaining to music on it, it's still really cool. I guess. See for yourself :D
Oh... and by the way...
SUMMER'S HERE!!!!!!!
Just thought I'd get that out.
Peace, love, respect, forever.
"It's Not You That I Want" has made leaps and bounds since the rough cut of last week. Even after the first two-hour session it was sounding like everything I do sounds after a few months. This time, Clio and I redid the vocals, rearranged a high piano part, added guitar (played by the virtuosic Malcolm himself), and put in high strings in the last verse. It was very productive.
"It's Not You" is cool because of how different it is from anything else I've ever heard. I guess this is the magic of working with Clio. The style is hard to put into any genre (soft rock/acoustic/tango/whatever?), the lyrics are a bit out of the ordinary (key line: "It's not you that I want, It's those feelings I got"), and the setup of sections is a bit unconventional (there is no final chorus!). This has been unlike anything I've ever done and it's just so fun to do. I can't wait to finish and release it! (although this won't be in the very near future, as Clio is gone next week. Oh well!)
This is really quite exciting. If you've been terribly bored with this post, here's something you may find cool: Still Frame Animation
I did this and a few others a while back when I was obscenely bored. Hope you enjoy them!
By the way, my YouTube account is wildmanpete9, and although it has nothing pertaining to music on it, it's still really cool. I guess. See for yourself :D
Oh... and by the way...
SUMMER'S HERE!!!!!!!
Just thought I'd get that out.
Peace, love, respect, forever.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Collaboration
Hello!
In an hour's time I will walk across the harbor to Malcolm's for a two-hour session with the most creative person I know, Clio B. We'll be recording/arranging a song we composed for a Watershed School coffeehouse, "It's Not You That I Want." Performing the song was a thrilling experience, with the small, packed room full of positive energy. I'm looking forward to recording it immensely. Hopefully we can capture that positive vibe and infuse it into the song.
Just an update, my apologies if I bored you. I'm currently sick, tired, sick and tired of being sick and tired, and tired of school. Hopefully this will all change when SCHOOL'S OUT IN A WEEK!!!! This is truly a joyful occasion.
Thanks for reading!
In an hour's time I will walk across the harbor to Malcolm's for a two-hour session with the most creative person I know, Clio B. We'll be recording/arranging a song we composed for a Watershed School coffeehouse, "It's Not You That I Want." Performing the song was a thrilling experience, with the small, packed room full of positive energy. I'm looking forward to recording it immensely. Hopefully we can capture that positive vibe and infuse it into the song.
Just an update, my apologies if I bored you. I'm currently sick, tired, sick and tired of being sick and tired, and tired of school. Hopefully this will all change when SCHOOL'S OUT IN A WEEK!!!! This is truly a joyful occasion.
Thanks for reading!
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
All State and a Poppy Rock Song
¡Hola, Gentes!
I'm terribly sorry for not posting immediately after posting after immediately posting my last posts. I have been incredibly busy lying around, soaking up the sun and swimming. I also participated in the Maine All State Chorus, which was the coolest thing since sliced bread. We sang five brilliantly fun pieces. I seem to be relying heavily on adverbs at the moment. Anyway, we did "Tota Pulchra Es," a piece by New York-based Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo. He is cool. Check him out. I apologize for the lack of coherence this makes to any future readers (because at the moment, I'm not sure anyone reads this), but give me a break, it's almost summer.
In other news, I've come up with a riff for a poppy rock song. I need lyrics and a more extensive chord progression, but it's getting there. Ever. So. Slowly. The poppy rock song idea comes from my recent obsession with the song "I Just Haven't Met You Yet" by Michael Bublé. I liked the riff and I realized one of my favorite songs ever, "Grace Kelly" by MIKA, is a similar style.
Does this seem like a good idea? What kind of song would you like to hear from me? Give me your thoughts.
Thanks!
I'm terribly sorry for not posting immediately after posting after immediately posting my last posts. I have been incredibly busy lying around, soaking up the sun and swimming. I also participated in the Maine All State Chorus, which was the coolest thing since sliced bread. We sang five brilliantly fun pieces. I seem to be relying heavily on adverbs at the moment. Anyway, we did "Tota Pulchra Es," a piece by New York-based Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo. He is cool. Check him out. I apologize for the lack of coherence this makes to any future readers (because at the moment, I'm not sure anyone reads this), but give me a break, it's almost summer.
In other news, I've come up with a riff for a poppy rock song. I need lyrics and a more extensive chord progression, but it's getting there. Ever. So. Slowly. The poppy rock song idea comes from my recent obsession with the song "I Just Haven't Met You Yet" by Michael Bublé. I liked the riff and I realized one of my favorite songs ever, "Grace Kelly" by MIKA, is a similar style.
Does this seem like a good idea? What kind of song would you like to hear from me? Give me your thoughts.
Thanks!
Monday, May 10, 2010
SONG IS FINISHED!!!!
So I finished my song about a week ago and just posted it because I'm lame like that. Still, as far as I know nobody reads this anyway, so you'll never know!! (muahahaha) Anyway, I hope all you peoples out there enjoy it. It took an amazing amount of time to complete. Cool story actually: It started out as two songs. The mopey part was one and then the chorus and bridge was another (surprise, surprise!) Anyway, I brought the two pieces to Malcolm and he helped me put 'em together. Really fun experience! Although it took countless takes and sometimes made for frustration, it was probably my favorite.
It was also really, really, extraordinarily fun to work with Clio Berta and Will Foote. They sang backup vocals on the choruses while Malcolm's son, Ian, laid down a really nice parallel harmony in the bridge. I've worked with Clio before, but as a part of a trio was a very cool thing indeed.
By the way, check out Clio's music. It rocks. Seriously.
Thank you for reading my ramblings. If you made it this far congratulations, have a cookie.
It was also really, really, extraordinarily fun to work with Clio Berta and Will Foote. They sang backup vocals on the choruses while Malcolm's son, Ian, laid down a really nice parallel harmony in the bridge. I've worked with Clio before, but as a part of a trio was a very cool thing indeed.
By the way, check out Clio's music. It rocks. Seriously.
Thank you for reading my ramblings. If you made it this far congratulations, have a cookie.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
I got a blog! and I'm finishing a song!
Yeah, so, sounds obvious, but it's still the cat's pajamas. This is all real new to me, so it may look like crap for a while. Plus I may never get the time to post anything, but I'll certainly try my utmost to update you with anything that strikes my fancy (musical projects for the most part.)
As of today, I've virtually finished the new song of mine. "She's What I Need" had some of the most unfortunate pops in the vocal track that you ever did hear, but Malcolm* and I got them smoothed out in no time (and by "no time" I mean "too much time"). Anyway, you should be able to find it on my facebook page in the next few weeks. :D
*my teacher, mentor, sound engineer, creative input, moral support, etc.
As of today, I've virtually finished the new song of mine. "She's What I Need" had some of the most unfortunate pops in the vocal track that you ever did hear, but Malcolm* and I got them smoothed out in no time (and by "no time" I mean "too much time"). Anyway, you should be able to find it on my facebook page in the next few weeks. :D
*my teacher, mentor, sound engineer, creative input, moral support, etc.
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