Half-way point review

Actually, it’s a little more than half-way now on the Artist Development Course, but I felt as if  Matthew, Andrew and I needed to get our heads together and plan the next period and be a bit more productive. Anyway, I called a meeting…

Where we are right now: Recording Course complete; Watching the Rain in progress; The Nonsense Song in progress; Mixing course is now underway on week one after some delays.

General feedback from my close friends on hearing the new version of Watching the Rain has meant that we need to take some practical steps to improve the song. Last week I’d sent across a list of changes, which, I understand, Matthew’s worked on.

The coaching so far has been an enjoyable and liberating process. Who would have thought that I would even be able to get up on a stage and perform my work six months ago? Certainly not me. Big praise for Andrew particularly here, but also for Matthew, who has equipped me with vocal warm-ups and a way of pulling a bit more out of the vocal chords than I ever expected. Credit also for Matthew, who has shown me tips and tracks in recording and mixing during the recording sessions we’ve had, and some tips as to which plugins he uses in his DAW.

I thought it was necessary for the meeting to re-focus on my goals and aims here, and so I mentioned that although we are looking to produce five songs to mastered level here, my aim is beyond that…. to an album. I’ve chosen to put more into performance coaching now, moving forward, as it’s the live side of things that needs to improve and grow.

I also wanted to discuss which five tracks to record… The fact is, since beginning this process my songwriting has become more frequent, to the point now where I’d say I’m writing at least one song a week. My enthusiasm is always for the newer stuff, but, as Matthew rightly pointed out as we spoke, to everyone else, ALL of my songs are new! That is, except perhaps for my ‘inner circle’ of friends who have been good enough to listen to the older stuff and give me feedback and encouragement.

Anyway – I’m tasked this week with providing a third song for Matthew to begin work on. I’ve chosen Get Out of This, perhaps one of my favourite of the ‘old set’. Lastly, we’ve still to decide on the remainder, but there are a couple of songs I’d like to explore which maybe weren’t on the list of five to begin with.