Green Mountain Festival Series

On November 21st, I will be returning to my high school auditorium to play a set during the Green Mountain Festival Series "A Reunion Night of Music". Sam Lloyd Jr., Brendon Thomas, Ida Mae Specker and Rusty Belle will all be featured artists of the evening and I feel fortunate enough to have grabbed a half hour spot amongst such talent!

Brendon has agreed to join me for Ask You which I think will be very powerful and emotional as a lot of my old friends and family members will be coming to see the performance and knew my mom personally. The last time I was on that high school stage, I think I was break-dancing to Michael Jackson's Thriller in a black t-shirt and tights. The only thing that made that somewhat bad-ass was having a glow in the dark painted rib cage across my chest and moon-walking to a strobe light. Don't expect to see any of that this time. haha

My set begins at 7pm but make sure to stick around for all these other amazing acts. Very excited to see Brendon play some of his new songs.

Hope to see you there!

Finding Your Voice.

We all have one. That instrument we use to express how we feel or what we're thinking, to stand up for what we believe in and to share love and stories with one another. Our voice. With it we set ourselves apart from everyone else and truly become who we are...or who we want to be.

During this year long project, I have not only worked on my songs to get them to where they need to be, but my own voice as well. I'm not talking about being able to hit that falsetto in Horizons, even though I have been working hard to find it, but more like who I am and what I have to say. My voice has always needed working on; for many years I have always had a hard time saying what I really feel and what is on my mind. Well, that's not entirely true. I've always been really open about what worries me or what scares me (been called a worry-wart all my life). It's when it comes to speaking my mind about what I truly believe to be right, wrong or unjustified is where I've had a problem. My mom had it in her, my grandfather surely did too..so it definitely is in my blood to be a bit bolder. Somewhere along the way, however, I decided it was more important for everyone to get along with me than it was to be real with them. Don't get me wrong, I am a nice person (I have been told) but I have "lacked a backbone" in my life; a heavy foot to put down when something isn't right or makes me feel threatened. It's not a good thing to have so many footprints all over you from years of being walked on. Somewhere along the way you have to stand up so that doesn't happen. After all, people can't walk up.

I'm not saying I'm a rude jerk or anything. But I think over the last year or so, I have found a different voice, perhaps the one that my mom would have handed down to me had she not passed away when I was too young to know any better. I'm proud to be more like her everyday though I know I have a long way to go. (She once stopped an elevator with a coworker in it to tell her to stop treating her the way she was. hahaha)

Now that was a voice to be reckoned with!

On the musical side of things, I'm working with some concepts for "my voice" to get it so it's not as strained sounding in certain songs. Horizons, for example, may not sound exactly like you have all heard in the demos. Dave has told me that it might be more effective to use my more softer, breathier voice like in Electric Candle and Bicycle on the Ice in some parts of Horizons, namely the verses. We'll see how it all works out but I'm excited to find out.

Feel free to voice your opinions on that ;) I'm all ears.

"..You're The Piano Man..."

and "we're all in the mood for a melody...."

On September 10th, Dave and I worked on cello parts for Electric Candle. It's in our interest to keep this song in its simplest form while fleshing it out a bit with some haunting cello parts and beautiful piano melodies. So Dave lead the way with his piano skills and we hashed out the cello parts in about three hours at the studio. Below are some photos and a clip of us discussing the bridge and the dynamics/rhythm of the cello verses the acoustic guitar.

9/11

Remembering.

:/

Return to the Studio!

September 1st, Recording Thirst!

I definitely drank up a huge cup of realization that I need to get some good vocal practice in! Reuniting with Dave on Tuesday was both a good and bad experience. While not a whole lot was accomplished as far as final recording, I did come to learn a lot myself and my vocal capabilities. During my struggle through Horizons, it dawned on me that I wrote a bunch of very challenging songs to sing. These days, I'm staying within my comfortable vocal range when I write songs but for some reason I pushed my limits back in my early/mid twenties with Horizons, Circles, City Lights and In The End, all of which are going to be a big challenge. I definitely need to step up some of my exercises if I want them to sound how I'm hoping. Dave had some great suggestions on perhaps changing melodies to avoid certain falsettos or to sing in more of a whispered, sentimental tone in the verses of Horizons. Aside from being easier on my voice, this actually is a good idea conceptually for the song and will definitely make the chorus stand out in a soaring kind of way. If I can pull it off...

Here are a couple photos from the session.

Thanks...Awesome...Great.............Yes!

It's funny if you're in the room or if you're the camera and cannot hear Dave on the other side of my headphones because you only get half of the conversation. I imagine he said something like..."good job....sounded nice....you're not sucking as bad as you were the first time......want to try again?"

haha no, no Dave definitely wasn't as hard on me as I was...

I need some work.