Category: recording

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bardic Pennsic recording

New Song: “Pack Out Day”

Hi everyone! We just got home from Pennsic yesterday, and to my surprise, as we began packing out, I felt a song coming on, and I went with it. So, as my way of thanking all of you for being part of my SCA experience, I’m breaking all my normal “rules” and sharing it with you right now. This is a quick a Capella vocal cut of the song, and it captures my experience of Pennsic this year, which involved my stretching a bit and doing more things that weren’t necessarily Bardic. (No, I still didn’t actually drink, but since the vast majority of adults I hung out with did, it’s still an indelible part of my experience of the War.)

I will set up a standard song page for this later (along with the other new songs I brought to the war, and class notes, and video from the concert–I promise I’ll get to it). But for now…enjoy!

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Pennsic recording SCA

Catch-up, and Pennsic prep

Sorry the posting is still so sporadic. Some updates:

  • East Kingdom 50 Year was lovely–what I got to experience of it. As it happens, 30 minutes after I finished my Friday concert with Donal Artur and Bird (which was a blast), I was rushed to the ER for pain that turned out to be a kidney stone. By the next morning, it was clear that managing my discomfort was going to be difficult at the event, so we packed up and left early. I hated to miss the rest of it. (And yes, the stone passed a couple of days ago.)
  • Efenwealt Wystle has put the bardic sampler CD together for this Pennsic, and I’m excited to have my music and Juliana’s on it. Some major names on this thing, I feel very privileged.
  • I’ve put together Facebook events for my concert and my classes for this war. I will be posting my two new songs when I get back.
  • Rehearsals for The Mystery of Edwin Drood are eating up my evenings, as expected, but a promise is a promise, and I’m having a ton of fun.
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bardic recording songwriting

Keeping commitments

Checking in. After last K&Q Bardic, I made my traditional long in-depth post, and at the end, I made a number of pledges about actions I planned to take. I wanted to share that I have made progress on several of these:

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recording

Studio Day: “Tir Righ Rise”

Today was delightful, as I worked with Bird (that’s Juliana Bird with a Spanish J), recording tracks for “Tir Righ Rise” by Juliana la Badele (with an English J).

Bird is (unsurprisingly if you know her) my new go-to recording musician for brass, woodwinds, and harmonies. She is right: French horn is best horn.

Producing is so much fun, I don’t know how it’s legal.

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recording

My Producer Hat

Working day as producer/sound engineer for my friend Juliana la Badele’s (aka Jazzy McIntosh) recording. Need to get things in order so that we can record Bird the Bard’s horns and pipes against Juliana’s vocals, uke and harp. (Guitar, drums, and backing vocals forthcoming.)

Very psyched. Stay tuned for more details.

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lute recording

Studio Day: What If a Day

It’s Saturday morning, and Rosalind and I are up to no good. #luteselfie

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album recording

The Making of “We Are the East”

So…I went rather quiet for the past month. (Had to find a new day job, couldn’t be helped. Happily, it didn’t take long, but it required some focus.) Now it’s time to get ready for Pennsic, and as Jessa and I race to do that, I wanted to take a moment and reflect on Sing for the East in a little more depth.

My Laurel, Mistress Zsof, has invited me to do more in-depth blogs about what I am learning as I continue to explore bardic. I realize that the sorts of entries she is talking about are usually more A&S focused (meaning, on period and period-inspired works, like “I asked of thee a boon”). At the moment, though, my most recent project was an album, and my entry on that collection was an original kingdom anthem. I learned a great deal putting the track for “We Are the East” together, and applied a number of lessons I learned about music recording and production from my solo album Hidden Gold.

Continue reading “The Making of “We Are the East””
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album recording

Studio Day: Choral Sing!

Yesterday, I had eight performers at my secret basement lair, Studio Oranwood, to record vocal tracks for Sing for the East. (From left: Mistress Dorigen of the Grey Gate, Drake, Mistress Judith Fitzhenry the Uncertain, Master Arden of Icomb, Mistress Linette de Gallardon, Lord Jayme Hume of Berwyk, Lord Martyn de Halliwell, Cedar-San Barefoot, and Mistress Sabine de Kerbriant.)

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recording

Studio Day: Me with a guitar

No, there’s no picture. When I record myself these days, I do it alone. Mostly because logistically it’s so much easier. But I have finished recording the lead vocals and the guitar intro and outro for “We Are the East”, for the Sing for the East album.

This will be my first time I get to have an instrumental credit on one of my recordings. Or any recording, for that matter.  How did Red Riding Hood put it in Into the Woods? Oh, right. “Excited and scared…”

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recording

Studio Day: “We Are the East”, cont’d

Her Grace Caoilfhionn spent a few more hours laying down tracks with me for the forthcoming recording of “We Are the East”. I’m looking forward to doing some editing and mixing next week, because this piece is coming together and I think the end result will do all the contributors proud. 

The opportunity to work on music with Caoilfhionn, as always, is matched only by the joy of getting to geek out about our shared enthusiasms: the SCA, our kingdom, Hamilton, our families, this project and other things we’re working on, the fun of being able to use technology to do things that used to require the services of high-priced professionals. I savor the conversation when I get the chance. 

I’m particularly excited to get into the end game on this recording, because my last-minute performance of the song at K&Q the other week was met with enthusiasm. I’ve had some lovely and unexpected responses from people I had not had the chance to get to know before. So it’s feeling like an especially opportune time to be finishing this recording. 

All these months I’ve spent recording one song, though…makes you wonder, what else will be on this thing? Welllll…stay tuned. More information will start emerging before too much longer.