Hi everyone! I missed you so!
I hope you all had a happy holidays! It's been a long couple of months away from the blog. Some of you might be wondering where Reclinerland disappeared to during that stretch of time. Well, I needed to spend what little money I had on other things, I'm afraid, and Reclinerland had to relenquish its presence on the web. But now that the past is (happily) in the past, we can get on with things. I apologize to any of you who depended on me to make your work day go by faster. I flatter myself in thinking that I helped in any way to entertain you while the minute hand clunks along. If I let you down in any way, know that I'm deeply truly sorry. Now, to the news!
You will be happy to find out that, although I haven't been blogging, I've been writing songs like mad for the Ideal Home Music Library, Vol. 2. In fact, I'm one song away from being completely finished with the collection. When we left off, I was writing I'm Cookies For You. That was in August. Well, during my long break from blogging I wrote at least seven or eight more songs. That brings the collection total up to 11 so far. The lyrics and chords for the twelfth song are on my piano waiting for me. Once I finish that one, I'll be finished with the main writing. My goal, if you remember from past blogs, was to write 12 for the collection and finish them by the end of the year. Well, I came just shy of that goal. I'll hopefully have the 12th song done by the end of the first week of January. Yay!
I'm very excited for you to hear these songs. It's been oh so much work getting them written. Thanks to technology, I have a way to make a demo without having to practice all the songs and record them live, which could take years. The method is this: first, I record the songs really slowly into my KORG electric piano at 70bpm on the metronome. Then, I use the KORG to speed the songs up. This I record into garage band. Finally, I overdub the vocals. The first song I finished in this manner is called All Through The Morning. I had laryngitis when I sang it, but I hope you like it. Also, it's a little bit slow. But this demo gives you an idea of what the song will sound like. I submit it for your consideration and entertainment. Here is the sheet music so you can follow along.
As I make more demos I'll put them up for you to hear. The next step is to find someone to record the songs with me. I'm hoping my friend Jenny Conlee is free. She's one of the best piano players I know, and she's the first person I thought of when I started writing these songs. I even wrote the piano parts with her in mind. I hope she's available to work with me on the project. Keep your fingers crossed, because I'm going to call her after the first of the year. The nice thing about recording these songs is that all we'll need is a studio or a home with a really good piano to record in. Since the music on the CD will consist of it just be a piano player and a singer, we can concentrate on getting really good performances and not have to worry about overdubs and all those things that make recording pop music so time consuming and expensive. This will be a piece of cake once the piano player (Jenny!) has time to practice the piece. A nice thing about Jenny is that she's a great sight reader. So we'll be able to get through the songs pretty quickly. Ah, but I'm getting ahead of myself. I have to finish song 12 first.
I'll write a bit about that next song in my next post. For now, it's good to be back online. I really have missed you all. More later!
You will be happy to find out that, although I haven't been blogging, I've been writing songs like mad for the Ideal Home Music Library, Vol. 2. In fact, I'm one song away from being completely finished with the collection. When we left off, I was writing I'm Cookies For You. That was in August. Well, during my long break from blogging I wrote at least seven or eight more songs. That brings the collection total up to 11 so far. The lyrics and chords for the twelfth song are on my piano waiting for me. Once I finish that one, I'll be finished with the main writing. My goal, if you remember from past blogs, was to write 12 for the collection and finish them by the end of the year. Well, I came just shy of that goal. I'll hopefully have the 12th song done by the end of the first week of January. Yay!
I'm very excited for you to hear these songs. It's been oh so much work getting them written. Thanks to technology, I have a way to make a demo without having to practice all the songs and record them live, which could take years. The method is this: first, I record the songs really slowly into my KORG electric piano at 70bpm on the metronome. Then, I use the KORG to speed the songs up. This I record into garage band. Finally, I overdub the vocals. The first song I finished in this manner is called All Through The Morning. I had laryngitis when I sang it, but I hope you like it. Also, it's a little bit slow. But this demo gives you an idea of what the song will sound like. I submit it for your consideration and entertainment. Here is the sheet music so you can follow along.
As I make more demos I'll put them up for you to hear. The next step is to find someone to record the songs with me. I'm hoping my friend Jenny Conlee is free. She's one of the best piano players I know, and she's the first person I thought of when I started writing these songs. I even wrote the piano parts with her in mind. I hope she's available to work with me on the project. Keep your fingers crossed, because I'm going to call her after the first of the year. The nice thing about recording these songs is that all we'll need is a studio or a home with a really good piano to record in. Since the music on the CD will consist of it just be a piano player and a singer, we can concentrate on getting really good performances and not have to worry about overdubs and all those things that make recording pop music so time consuming and expensive. This will be a piece of cake once the piano player (Jenny!) has time to practice the piece. A nice thing about Jenny is that she's a great sight reader. So we'll be able to get through the songs pretty quickly. Ah, but I'm getting ahead of myself. I have to finish song 12 first.
I'll write a bit about that next song in my next post. For now, it's good to be back online. I really have missed you all. More later!