Sarah continues to work on her films and music and is planning on continuing her education in that arena. Her kind and loving heart is an inspiration to me as a person. Through out her life she has been one to reach out and extend kindness and express caring from whatever place on the planet she has happened to be. She is a deep soul. Sara's also working on a resume for the studio to coordinate our efforts in video, photography and music. She has also tasked me with completing scratch tracks for a Bosa Nova CD by the end of March. Go girl!
Here we are in late May and I am still not done with recording the scratch Bosa Nova tracks. What are you going to do. It seems like music is the last thing on my daily agenda and all too often it falls by the wayside. Sarah, however, perseveres at her work and has already had casting calls for her movie.
Happy April birthday Sarah. You are the greatest!
April 19, 2005
We had a scare last night in the studio and I think some songs have been lost. I have so many backups of this new project but several of the recent versions seem to be missing. I felt a bit discouraged there for a minute. I did find the copy of where can I find love and love wears your name but they were premixed versions.
Mike came over to help engineer but I was too pooped from the long weekend. Maybe tonight we can get something done. We will see.
Freedom
my son's poetry is profound. I have spent the last few days immersed in his last CD. What a weaver of words is he. He played a great show at the Jet Deck and we did get to enjoy his company. We got to see Josh play in the band as well. It was a fine event. He is back in Sedona again where he is having success with a new trade. I have spent the last week with his CD Bloom and it is a powerful piece of work.
3-14-05
Mike and I laid down the foundation for recording a new version of Caribbean Islands. We played with Groove Agent from Steinberg and watched the wonders of bizarre computer tales and strange unexplainable things began to happen in the software. Gremlins are alive and well in my server. It is a path of much opportunity to turn stress into a positive thing. I can't tell you how much I enjoy dealing with the Twilight Zone that is my computer.3-3-05
I spent last night with 501 Blues doing that track by track edit thing. It takes so much time to mix a song. When you break each track down and listen for continuity and tempo and blend. It is still fun. I think it is a great job for some one who can stand endless repetition. So we continue to plug away at this day after day until we get this one of many done.
3-2-05
Sarah Maria has tasked me with putting together some demo tracks from Silent T Studio and also of changing my CD page. All those CD's are limited addition and I am planning to take them all of the market shortly and replace them with new CD's. I think just one or two would be a good idea. I have such a huge catalogue of songs and Sarah pointed out that I cycle my songs in live performances and since most of those recordings were done in a brief time period, they contain many of the same songs. Since I have enough strong material to make a dozen or more CD's that is kind of silly. Good point Sarah.
Chani seems to still be loving Alaska and fits right into that cold cold climate. It was good to see her for a minute. She continues to amaze me with her incredible ability to paint, draw, sculpt and now tattoo. She prefers the beauty of the snow and ice to the climate here in the Northwest and seems to thrive in below zero temperatures. Where does she get that? She is an amazing talent and she is the most disciplined of all the artists in the family.
Josh played lead guitar with his brother, Freedom, at a show last month opening up for Flow Motion in Portland Oregon. He also played with Freedom and the band at the Jet Deck and I was lucky enough to do a song with both Josh and Freedom. Josh is a talented young man with a good heart and a future that is open wide. I hope all his dreams come true. I look forward to him getting to know the joy of being a father. I hope he will always play, sing and write music.
3-6-05
I worked in the studio all weekend on dialing in 6 songs. I am really happy with how Lost is coming along. I had a hard time engineering and singing and Liz stuck her head in the door, sat down at the console and proceeded to coach me on how to sing the song Naturally. I got it in one take with her help. She actually sat at the controls until I was done singing the song. Her keen ears also picked up a grunt I made while playing lead guitar to Lost. She said, "I don't like that sound." "What sound?" "That sound." She said as she pointed out the obnoxious noise. I could probably sell samples of the sounds I make between singing phrases to the makers of horror films and make a lot of money. The sounds are frightening and funny at the same time. Everyone who records themselves, upon hearing their recorded voice for the first time, denies ownership of the sound of their voice. That is how I feel about the sounds I make in the vocal booth. It is kind of like hmm eh nya nnnum aak nit. I still go "What the heck is that?" I am practicing noble silence and I need a lot of practice.
Christopher Nichols and Mike Daily came over on Saturday and Chris ended up singing some harmonies on Find Love. We had a good visit and I am looking forward to more. He has a great ear. Rob Peebler came by on Sunday and so did Jim McLaughlin, voted the best harmonica player in the world in 1992. He gave me a Honner Harp with his name printed on it. What a treasure. Rob, hopefully will be coming by this week to do some mixing. Steady as she goes.
Scott MacGougan busy adding tracks to the Murat CD
3-1-05
Now we are into March and nearly every day of last month was spent working on the recordings we are doing. Some of the songs seem to take on a direction and life of their own that is different from the way we have played them live. As we arrange to play and rehearse the songs we have done, I am sure the same will be true of the next group of songs we record. So much of the live performances has been based on spontaneity. That is good. We have that down. I need work on the refinement, the practice and the arranging. Getting everyone together is proving to be a very large challenge though. We will make it happen, one way or another.
Liz has grown up into a very beautiful young lady with a flair for music, dancing and interior design. She remodels her room every few months from top to bottom and it is a wonder how many different ways she can make it look great. She has brought a lot of joy to my life and also taught me a great deal about unselfishness. She has begun to learn the art of engineering in the studio.
We continue to work on the new CD's. Mike & Rob has been coming over to Silent T to help engineer the vocals. We are doing all the other tracks at Studio 04. We have almost completed City of Angels. Well, almost is stretching it because we need major harmonies on this song and that is going to take a lot of work. I suck at harmony. Oh well, we have a lot of ears who hear better than mine to help with that part.
Scott MacGougan spent a ten hour day with me in February in the studio adding strings and world music sounds to some of the songs. We had a blast with You Wear A Mask. We played two djimbe parts and were in our own little drum circle but we forgot to arm the tracks and we missed the whole performance. Our second take was somewhat winded for two guys not used to wailing on drums. As in the past, Scott puts his heart and soul and musical knowledge into the process of recording. It is good to have so many ideas come together and get stirred into the pot.
Casey Garland came over to the studio on Sunday February and in March with his friend Alex. Alex is a young singer song writer with a voice that is a cross between Garth Brooks and Randy Travis. It is amazing to hear that big mature voice come out of such a young man. They worked on a practice CD to get Alex ready to record some of Casey's songs. It was nice to see Casey working on his project again.
March notes:
2-27-05
It was a great 8 hours Scott MacGougan and I spent on Saturday working on the new CD project. We played everything from percussion to keyboards. We managed to work our way through about 5 songs. The bad news is two or three songs really just need to be restarted from scratch. The good news is Find Love has a new groove and it is pretty funky and fun. Mask is still evolving and teetering between rock and world music. We need more Manolito in there. We added some pads to Lost and made notes on about 6 of the 12 songs on the A list. I am looking forward to the next get together.2-25-05
We may have a completely new version of Find Love after last night. I think we stumbled on to a funky version. Mike keeps cracking the whip to keep us on task. It is difficult since I have yet to take the reins. Jimmy and I talked about that last night. It is more easy to come up with ideas when there is a producer tossing them on the table. Last night when I was alone in the studio, I started to produce. Something clicked and I said "Kick into gear Murat" and I will.
2-22-05
I finished a power edit of the live recording some Saturday night at Provinces. Jimmy and Jamie stopped by for a few minutes. Jimmy and I talked about the nuances of reggae drumming and bass playing. It was a low key night. I spent it editing and playing guitar loops with Ron's Boss pedal. Sarah sent me an e-mail about submitting our work as composers together to some film companies. We are in the early stages of talking about Sarah producing a recording of me playing and singing Bosa Nova tunes. That is very exciting to me. I would love to send that recording to Japan. We will see..
2-20-05
Jimmy and his son Jameson, and Mike were over on Wednesday night, the 16th of February to do some editing and go over the chords to Naturally. Mike is tightening up the drums on that tune and a Hamilton Murat song called Where Can I Find Love. Jameson had fun playing the piano and he also played my guitar in the vocal booth. He liked that a lot. After many hours of mixing and listening we are going to start over on Find Love. It is just too darned slow. Fix it now and leave it later.
Andie has embarked on a new business as a distributor a product called Juice Plus +, an all natural whole food based supplement. It comes from the juice of fresh fruits and vegetables. She has both of us taking it. She also has Faith on it. I can really feel a difference. It has taken about three weeks but I am sleeping through the night and that is an adventure in itself. I haven't been able to do that for many years now. She will have a web site to promote her new venture shortly. I give it a hearty two thumbs up. For more information or to order juice plus send her an e-mail.