working away feverishly!!!

I have spent this weekend working on M U S I C .

- re-working 'I'm Gonna Survive' for the upcoming EP. I recorded a rythm acoustic guitar track, doctored the live drum track provided by my friend Vic Bonner, am editing an electric guitar rythm track & lead g track done by Ron Woods, recorded the lead & harmony vocals, and worked on sequencing some midi horns, piano & petal steelish stuff. It's come a long way but I still have some editing/tweaking to do. Hope to have it ready to play for my co-writer, Michael K., on Thursday am.

- recorded the lead vocal for a rock version of Ave Maria (Gounod)... took me a few tries as it is set too low for me so the low notes were graveley & harsh and the high notes too hot. But I got something fairly decent laid down. Sent it off to Johnnie Jones, he seemed to think it was alright :)

- I'd recorded a student singing 'What Child is This' last week, I built the back-up with midi & live guitar, and recorded some harmony vocals & mixed it the best I could. She picked it up yesterday - just two copies, one for Mom, and one for Dad :)

- also did a quick midi setting for Natalie Cole's 'Angel on My Shoulder' for a student who wants to sing it in church & wanted a recording with melody to help learn it effectively.

- been working on Bob Lazzar-Atwood's song, 'One Tear at a Time'. I've been working on developing the chorus - I like what he has but you can sing the verse to the chorus melody, and I've learned that's not good. Trouble is it sounds real nice just the way he has it. So I've been struggling to get the chorus with a different meter & chord progression to establish some contrast. It's coming along.

- I also provided a piano track & back-up vocals for Cliff Hitchcock's song, "Go for a Ride". It was a project of "The Collaborators" - you can listen to it at: http://www.soundclick.com/thecollaborators

- The Collabs are workin' on a new piece by Vonee Rose now, I'll probably do keyboards & back-up vocals for that too

- I also worked a bit on resetting my song, 'Wilted Heart'. It's not working the way I want it to. I'll put it aside for now.

I have 3 or 4 other collabs that need attention, especially the Dean Taylor/Lucian Blaga song, "I Could Dream". I have to admit, what with sickness, trips, holidays, my Dad being ill, etc... my voice has gotten out of shape and I've been scared to try it. But now I got 'Ave Maria' happening maybe 'I Could Dream' won't be as bad as I think.

I hope to work away at this until I get all my o/s stuff done!!! Hopefully by the end of the coming weekend!! :) :)