better than a sharp stick in the eye

We went into the studio Wednesday night and emerged with five songs from which to choose for our demo.

Generally, I DREAD the recording process. I hate the pressure of having to be perfect. I hate hearing precisely where and how much and how often I sing entirely wrong notes. I guess playing any instrument is equal parts physical and mental, and probably emotional too. I've always found my voice to be a rather unpredictable instrument. No matter how much I practice, I can't always depend 100% on what will come out of my mouth. Sometimes that's bad, sometimes good. I love hearing what I/we sound like, though, and it's handy to have a demo.

We did between 2-4 takes of each one; it wasn't too incredibly painful. God, the recording process is SO much easier with an experienced sound person. And laid back doesn't hurt either. I am ridiculously lucky to have access to this situation. What's more, Bob (friend and recording engineer extraordinaire) offered to do this for us; I didn't even have to beg. It took us less than three hours to record the songs, and then there were several hours of listening and commenting and mixing and cleaning up.

In general, the songs sound great. Our voices blend very well and there is so much potential there considering we've only be singing together for a few months. There is at least one mishap in each song, but the question is: does it matter? Onward.

We're going to post a few on MySpace soon. Stay tuned!

li'l roadie

Tessa, 4/8/06

I just love this photo. It was taken a month ago at our friends' very cool art gallery. I opened up for Steve's band. It was a fun, low-pressure gig.

fermata

Rehearsal wasn't incredibly productive today, but we did a fair amount of strategizing. There are a couple of open mic nights that we might try to do, and Alex and Mary both have upcoming shows in which we could appear as guests.

The most exciting news is that we have some studio time set up for next week. The plan is to record a 4-song demo and use that to get gigs. Hooray!

Also, while we're waiting for Mary to construct our website, she is going to set up a Birth of Venus page on MySpace. We recorded a song that doesn't sound too bad, so we can put that up there along with our photo likeness and voila. We're out there. [UPDATE: Here it is!!]

I'm really itching to work out some new stuff, and also to write something. We'll focus on the old stuff for next week's recording and then I've got to get a few charts written out so we'll have fresh material.

making love to the camera

Last night we had a little (translate: long, laborious, amateur) photo shoot in the hopes of getting an image or two for a Birth of Venus website.
Now. I hate being photographed. This is probably evident. It is a deep-seated phobia. It's not even that I think I'm bad-looking, but when a camera is pointed at me I just become someone else. Not myself. Completely unnatural.

These are some of the better shots. Although I don't think I could possibly feel more vulnerable and self-conscious about the whole thing, I would like your opinion. Which of these shots do you like? Or not?


Go here to view the whole set. Comments welcome!
(In case you're wondering, I'm the bighead with the glasses...)

and we have a name!

my favorite mug
Originally uploaded by tessa's mom.

Birth of Venus is the name we came up with for our group. It has all the associations I wanted: feminine power, divinity, love, beauty, creation. Yay! And this name will work for us whether we're playing a jazz club or a wedding or whatever venue comes along. At rehearsal Thursday night we learned an old song called Sentimental Gentleman from Georgia. Think Andrews Sisters. Alex fronts a small jazz ensemble and we are all going to perform it at her upcoming gig. A WEEK FROM MONDAY. I'm not too nervous about the performance as much as the fact that I have nothing to wear. I need a serious ambush makeover.

rather productive week

Today we had rehearsal #2, we singing girls. We are trying to come up with a name for ourselves, as my ensemble-mates are quite enthusiastic about taking our act on the road and we can't really call ourselves Singing Girls. It was a good rehearsal. I recorded it, which was GREAT because now we can hear what we sound like. You can't really hear what you sound like while singing. Not completely. I listened to the CD all the way home and liked what I heard, in general. nothing that can't be fixed with practice, practice, practice by ourselves and then intense rehearsal together. (Sounds fun, right? It is!) Some things I was hearing I positively swooned over, and at the other end of the spectrum, my classical voice sounds like a rusty old tin can. We are working on a Monteverdi madrigal, plus a gospel song (Note to Self: practice singing and clapping at the same time. A lot.), a sweet love song by Gillian Welch and Because by the Beatles. The girls want to sing somewhere publically in April. Yikes! (That's a happy yikes. Be careful what you wish for!)

I actually got up (okay, it was accidentally) at 7am and went for a run this morning. It's so much easier to go on my own, although I have run pushing T in the stroller and it's totally do-able. It was sunny and cold this morning; really beautiful. I got a few cheers from neighborhood buddies who probably thought they needed new glasses to see the likes of me jogging around the corner! It felt good. :)

And the real highlight of the week: yesterday I submitted a piece of writing to an online magazine. I am trying to let go of any attachment to the outcome, but of course I am fantasizing about being published and what a rush that would be. I have to take to heart everything I'm sayng about how it is not necessary that I be published to be good, that my piece might be spectacular but not what they're looking for, that it might come in a close second to another piece that's completely brilliant and that's okay. Or the editor might say, uh, this is crap. And thats okay too because I'm not crap. I am just proud of myself for doing it. I added about 300 words to something I had previously written, and spent a few hours getting it just so. I had a wicked knot in my stomach as I was typing out the email, including my bio, which is so tiny you might miss it if you blink. Then I sent it. It was a high just to send it, to be perfectly honest. It's all good. I'll do it again, whatever happens here.

Tomorrow hubbie has a pretty major gig - his band is opening up for the one and only Ralph Stanley. This week has been the closest in a long time, if not ever, to what I want my life to look like. It's been a good week.

wings spreading

We had our first rehearsal Thursday night, this little threesome that has resulted from my call for singers. The two woman who have stuck it out through weeks of email coordination and informational meet-and-greets are pretty much exactly what I was looking for and more. I'm still shaking my head at the good fortune. We had prepared a few songs for rehearsal and blew through them, so we learned a few more on spot. We were all reeling over the sounds we were making. Yay chemistry! Lots of possibilities here. I'm so grateful to feel excited about singing again!

Wow!

I had a meeting today with two of the women who responded to my call for songbirds. It was pretty amazing. First, there's the fact that I stepped outside of myself and facilitated a meeting of total strangers. This is VERY unlike me! I can get very hung-up and nervous when it comes to being with people I don't know. So this was sort of like getting ready to jump into the ocean in winter: I was bracing myself, standing on the edge saying I don't wanna I don't wanna I don't wanna but I knew I had to and knew that it would probably be really invigorating once I got past the initial discomfort. And that it was!!

On first impression, the two women could not have been more different from each other and from me. They are both younger than I, one by 10 years (I'm 33, she's 23) and the other is probably in her late 20s. It was especially apparent that there was a generation's difference between us when I remarked (in context) that Eric Clapton was hot stuff - and I meant in his youth, although I still think he's pretty yummy -and they both shuddered and said "Ew, that's like talking about my dad." Uh, hehe...right...

But as we went on talking about what we liked and what form we wanted our musical dreams to take, I got very excited. It was a whole new conversation, with different people in a different language. It was as if I'd been eating cheeseburgers three meals a day, everyday for the past five years and then suddenly, I was eating Indian food. They had never heard of music that I consider essential - stuff I knew they HAD to hear - and they were introducing me to stuff I would ordinarily overlook or dismiss. From Imogen Heap to Bobby McFerrin (wicked cool website, btw) and more. Plus, there were a few artists we solidly bonded over, like Patty Griffin and Alanis. LOVE THIS: I noticed that there was no attitude over the hip-ness (or unhip-ness) of artists; any song or genre was fair game, whether maistream or ecclectic, big name or small, classical or Bjork-ish. It was all there for considering. As it should be.

They both sing and write songs like I do, but in totally different ways. And they both play piano, which I do not, and I'm sooo used to hanging out with all guitar players. Male guitar players. Women just have a different vibe when it comes to collaborating and sharing music. It was quite refreshing.

My agenda is to stir my musical pot by doing something that doesn't look anything like what I usually do musically. (What I usually do is sit around with my guitar and wait for a song to happen. It gets pretty boring after awhile. Then it gets torturous.) I haven't really done any singing, other than singing Tessa to sleep (which -Nerd alert!- gives me a venue for the showtunes I love), since I got pregnant. Eek! That was over a year ago.

I got this news flash from the universe yesterday: I've been looking at all these art blogs, wishing I were artistic, that I could draw, that I had a cool camera, that I had the money to buy batik supplies, whatever. Feeling inadequte and inferior. Totally forgetting about the fact that I SING REALLY WELL AND I LOVE DOING IT. Sorry to shout, but this statement needs to be drilled into my fool head. Being with these women today reminded me and inspired me.