Tag Archives: female vocalist

Keva Album Update

Here’s the situation on the album Keva & I are releasing.  You can hear the first song “Time Will Tell” without paying for it.  But you can only hear it three times for free.  To download it, you have to pay $3 USD for it.

If you download it, you will also receive full lyrics to each song, as well as a brief history of the songs — when they were written, who else has performed them, and so forth.

You can click on the thumbnail to get the entire album.   

Right now there are five tunes on it, all for $10.  Ultimately, there will be ten songs on it.  If you buy it now, you get all ten songs for the same ten bucks.  If you wait until all the songs are on it, you may have to pay more than ten bucks.

Finally, if you wish to pay more than $3/song and $10/album, feel free. Many of us are strapped these days, however, so I can understand if you don’t. But I hope you will kindly consider supporting this endeavor at this time.

New Album (Me & Keva)

If anyone wants to support us, click here and take it from there. For $10+ USD, you’re not only getting the five tunes currently on the album, you get the next five for free. Or $3+ per song.

I wrote all five of these songs in the 70’s except for “Daylight” whose music I wrote in 1982 with lyrics added in 2018. Histories of each song are included with the album, along with lyrics to all songs.

The next five songs will consist of stuff I wrote between 2013 and 2016 in Berkeley. It will be a month or more before they are released. So you’re getting a sneak preview.

I’ve removed all free versions from everywhere, except for one YouTube of “Time Will Tell” that’s been widely distributed and well-received.

Please consider supporting this endeavor at this time.

Please donate to Eden in Babylon.

Awake the Dawn

Hey I realize I’ve been MIA as far as the blogosphere’s concerned.  I’ve been in the process of creating a midi-convertible piano score to replicate all the temp changes and other nuances just like I played it on the recording you hear below.  Then all kinds of voices will be heard singing overhead.   But this is going to take some more time.  Here’s how it sounds with piano alone:   –

Voices are in the domain of the Sound Designer and will be revealed pending further communication with him.  In the meantime, there is so much else I could share — mostly along the lines of Keva and I having met to learn a new song Time Will Tell.  That clip is about the third time she had tried to sing it with me on the first day of rehearsal.  She’s a very quick study, and grasps the entire concepts of songs, right off the bat.

Otherwise, I’m still out and about.  I told Dave I’d get this midi-convertible score turned in soon, so I do need to attend to this.  Not sure when anything more will be happening, officially.   Andy Pope · Awake the Dawn

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Gratitude List 1568

(1) Both sessions recording “Awake the Dawn” with full chorus went well on Tuesday and Wednesday nights respectively, though Wednesday’s was by far the most productive.   There was a positive spirit about the whole team, and the performance on the part of the Kids was outstanding.

(2) I’ve been engrossed in the first-in-a-lifetime task of creating a midi-convertible piano score based on exactly how I happened to play a certain piece (“Awake the Dawn”) on a certain night.   This is something needed by Dave, the new sound designer, and which I agreed to get done for him by Friday.  What’s nice is that, not only have I made substantial progress, but much of the experience of originally composing this piece years ago — of recreating the early pre-dawn moments, with the high female harmonies likened to the chirping of the night birds — is being rekindled.  So it’s a creative experience, as well as technically challenging.   This makes it much easier to stay grateful.

(3) PTSD therapy went well again this morning, though it continues to be very challenging.  I like the therapist.  She’s very dedicated, but also very light of heart, and easy to engage.

(4) Keva finished her job at the day school on Friday and has also decided to stay in the area and enroll at a nearby University.  I asked her about exploring the work-in-progress-album further and she responded excitedly that she is very eager to pursue this.   I’ve also thought of another older song of mine, “Time Will Tell,” to add to the four clips on the playlist, and also of a newer song I wrote in Berkeley that can be transformed for Keva’s voice.   This is a very meaningful musical connection — and it appears to be ongoing.

(5) Had a really nice time playing at a memorial service at the United Church on Saturday.  I was also paid in cash by the family (and paid well) but aside from that, it was a heartwarming occasion commemorating the life of one of the older theologians in town, a retired Disciples of Christ pastor with a Doctor in Divinity.  I stayed for fellowship afterwards, and once again sensed the feeling of everybody knowing me as “Andy,” though whoever they are, I have no idea.   Life in a small town can be warm.

“An arch consists of two weaknesses which, leaning on each other, become a strength.”  — Leonardo da Vinci

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Daylight

This is from Sunday the 14th, when Liam Marchant brought all his sound equipment to rehearsal. Among other events, Keva and I were able to make this new recording of “Daylight.”

The image, taken from my iPhone, is a view from directly outside my door.  

Please donate to Eden in Babylon.

Secrets

I don’t have a piano piece for you tonight, or any clips from our current workshop. However, a stroll down memory lane unearthed this studio recording of my song “Secrets” as performed by people involved in a workshop of my previous musical, The Burden of Eden, in June of 2006. You’ll have to click twice to get full credits from my SoundCloud.  But I will say that the 18 year old woman named Lauren Mack who sang this solo learned it in San Jose while listening to the musicians from Marin County playing it on an mp3.   She then arrived in Berkeley and recorded this fairly dazzling rendition in a single take.  

Please donate to Eden in Babylon.

Heart of the Arts

No doubt you’re aware by now that I’ve resumed my search for singers for the Eden in Babylon demo wholeheartedly, after being discouraged at an earlier stage, and sinking into an unweildy period of deep depression that I am determined to demolish.  Well, I’ve got some encouraging news to share with you!

I think I’ve found a singer for the main female part on my song  The Very Same World.  She’s the new Choir director at my church, a young woman involved with the Lionel Hampton School of Music.   She sings very well — and the song is in her range, too.

In the clip below, she would come in solo at 1:44, where you may notice a key change.  Prior to that, she would have entered at 1:06 (the first hook) with myself and a second female vocalist of unknown identity.  I can sing the main male part from the start – for now – but I’ll need three more voices for the second hook, coming in at 2:32.  I faded this version at 3:02, but you probably get the point.  In the one minute and forty-two seconds that follow, it only gets bigger.  And it’s all scored on Finale: piano, six voices, and all other instruments.

I only told her that there “might” be money in it, since after all, I’m not sure.  If she didn’t mind doing this one for free, that would certainly be very kind of her.  However, as far as requesting she sing the other two songs on the demo, it doesn’t seem right not to be able to pay her something.  It would be good if I could just get a team of three men and three women together, including myself.  If would be great if I could rehearse three songs in three rehearsals adequately before we record — and then proceed to pay them what they’re worth.   If I really want to find talented singers who can help me create a demo of decent quality, I need to pay each of them at least $125 for the three songs I’d like to put on the demo.  Then I can at least begin to submit the show to theater companies — with or without a complete piano-vocal score — because they’ll at least have some idea what the music sounds like when they read the script.  

The words below are those of the second hook.  The complete lyrics may be found here.  I put a picture of the entrance way to my new and favorite city, just so you can get a grasp of how golden it is, for me.  If I can pull this thing off anywhere, I can pull it off in Moscow, Idaho – in the city I knew absolutely nothing about before I found my home here on July 27, 2016 — in the Very Same City where I was born.  

The Very Same World
That has seen tragedy
Will now see majesty
Stand at her door.
The Very Same World
That had been torn apart
Will show her golden heart –
Let her heart pour
All over the world,
And put an end to shame.
That world will bear the name:
World Beyond War.

The Very Same World

from the new musical Eden in Babylon,
exploring the effects of homelessness on the young people of 21st Century America.
Copyright © 2017 by Andrew Michael Pope
All Rights Reserved.

Please donate to Eden in Babylon.
Anything Helps – God Bless!

A World of Make Believe

If I can possibly give you an idea of how many times I had to delete a version of my song The Very Same World and replace it with a more evolved version, please know that I routinely save all previous versions of everything I compose or arrange, and that the version posted as of 11:20 last night was Version 2-G.

This means that, beginning with Version 1-A, I must have created 33 different versions of the piece before posting the one that remains.  Thirty-three equals twenty-six plus seven.  That is, I went from Version 1-A to 1-B all the way through the 26 letters of the alphabet, then added 7 more till I got to 2-G.

How do I know that it’s done now?   Because I started working on 2-H and burned out on the notion.  You see, I can always think of something to adjust, to make it better.  What I can’t always do is decide that it’s not worth it any more.  Once I make that decision, I am done.

a-art-10274-Leonardo-da-Vinci-Quote-Art-is-never-finished-only-abandoned

I actually did not know that this quote was first attributed to Leonardo before I ran a google search on it a while back.  I had heard it from Marcel Duchamp, and also from E.M. Forster.  Whatever its origin, the idea seems to find common credence among certain kinds of Artists, myself included.  While I may not always easily reach the point where further obsession on perfecting the piece is no longer interesting enough to motivate yet another revision, this is still easier than having to decide that the piece is ever good enough to be released for universal inspection by all eyes and ears.  In short, it’s easier for me to eventually burn out on making it any better, than it is for me to ever believe it’s good enough.

So the criterion for completion has changed hands.  In lieu of my ever being motivated to come up with anything better,  the Thirty-Third Version is where it stands.

On perhaps a more progressive note, it looks as though I may have found a female singer for this demo project.  I’m not exactly certain yet, but a couple different people suggested I approach her.  She’s a barista at the local cafe.  I had asked the entertainment manager there if he knew of an easy way I could track down a decent female singer for a recording project that would involve little or no financial recompense, and he told me to talk to “Cooper” or to “Aubrey.”  Cooper being a musician might just know of a singer, and Aubrey?  Well, it turns out that she is herself a singer – and a rather good one, at that.

I knew it even before he said so.  You see, I had overheard her singing — in something akin to a musical theatre voice — when I came in for coffee the other morning.  But when I naturally queried about this intriguing activity, she merely brushed it off: “Oh! In the shower, maybe.  Just make believe.”

Then I quipped:

“But isn’t the whole genre of Musical Theatre founded on make-believe?”

That got a grin out of her, but I still wasn’t thinking of asking her to sing for the project. That didn’t happen until the other two other people suggested it, the one being the entertainment manager, the other being the young woman’s boyfriend.   Both of them characterized her singing as “fantastic.”  They both said she would be shy about a live performance, but probably down for a studio recording.  I myself am also shy about such things, as evidenced in the fact that I am even writing about it without having taken any pertinent prior action.  

Still, I never cease to revel in that I have somehow found myself in a community where the faith is high, and there’s a sense that Artistic projects will always find the support they need in order to get themselves to happen.  So all of this is a step in the right direction.   I’ll talk with her Aubrey soon; and I do have the young man, Josh, from downstairs as well.   If I can find one more female vocalist, I can probably just teach the parts and even use my own space here for the recording.  The hardwood floor provides good acoustics — I’ve already tested them.

Another Round of Fear

As you may or may not know, I have been without a computer for almost two months now.   Finally, two days ago there arrived my new Dell Latitude E6410 with 8gb RAM, a  500gb hard drive capacity, and an Intel 5 dual core 2.4ghz processor.   It’s a cute little computer with a 14 inch screen and DVD drive, very sturdy, with good speakers and internal microphone.  Perfect for my kind of work.  I’m running Windows 7 Professional, and I’ve successfully downloaded Finale 2014.5, Audacity, and Free Studio.

One of the first things I did was to open up the Finale file of the most recent piece I was working on before my last Dell Latitude had an unfortunate incident that led to its soon demise.  Be that as it may, I was honestly amazed at what I heard.  To be truthful, it surprised me how much I enjoyed what I was hearing.  It was as though the “feel” that is appropriate for this particular song, having been lost, was now regained.  For I remembered thinking that “Another Round of Fear” was hopeless, having no feel whatsoever.  The memory  of a former appreciation of the piece was dim and useless. Yet I knew that when I was first writing the song two years ago, I distinctly enjoyed its feel; and in fact I passed that same feel along to friends of mine who enjoyed it as well.  Thus a small but substantial audience had already verified for me that the song was worthwhile, and yet I was about to trash it, for I could no longer recall its feel.  So I dropped it, because I had come to hate it; and subsequently dropped the laptop itself hard upon the pavement, when I failed to zip up my backpack one day, and the laptop came flying right out of it as I swung round a corner at top speed — while walking, by the way.  Not even on my bicycle!

Only now have I been able to muster up a new laptop.  Thus, on the similar but noticeably improved new device, I have listened to the piece afresh.  Far from feeling empty or devoid of feel at all, it instantly conveyed a sense of honky-tonk frolic with a slight note of mockery, giving it an undue frivolity, and an almost gleeful irreverence.  That, I could rock with!  So I worked on it for three days incessantly.  Just last night, taking a walk in the midnight heat, I decided it was good enough to post on the Berkeley page of this website, since the notorious city of Berkeley, California, is the place where this all went down (no pun intended).  I’m going to forge forward to the next song in my 14-song project now, having been encouraged by this most promising start.

Oddly, I also received the bulk of the lyrics to this tune Friday night when I was merrily walking in the evening breeze.  I thought this odd because I had really hated the song.  Also, that was before the computer came, and before I had a chance to check out the file to find out, to my surprise, that I actually liked the song.  Somehow this is meaningful.