Tomorrow is my solo show as part of the Galway Fringe festival. There is an awful lot of brilliant events going on around Galway this week between the Fringe events and the Galway Arts Festival itself, but if you drop in to Rouge on Saturday afternoon you will be treated to some songs from my album, and some newer material. They have a lovely grand piano in the venue, which I’m looking forward to trying out.
The string players I’d been hoping to use have an event that clashes with my gig, which is a pity, but there will be some beautiful additional vocals from some of the singers who sang with me at the launch nights, including the very talented Deirbhile Ni Bhrolchain, who sings with Cois Claddaigh as well as being a sean nóssolo performer herself too.
My brother Kevin Brett will also be singing, and adding guitar to some of the songs. You’ll be able to catch the Athenry Guitar Orchestra he co-directs performing as part of the Fringe programme too in a lunchtime recital on Friday 27th in St. Nick’s. I’m interested to hear how well the string parts I had in mind will adapt for classical guitar instead, even if it’s just for a few of the songs.
I mean that quite seriously. I’m not a tech wizard like Imogen Heap, or a genius at fanbase engagement like Amanda Palmer, but the way I work now is so heavily influenced by technology.
I still write words on paper, and write music notes on music manuscript, but then I use the Soundcloud app on my phone when I’m demo-ing something quickly or to record some improvs. The recordings are stored online for me to check out again when I’m back home, or working on that piece again. Of course, I also share the finished recordings of my work on Soundcloud too.
I use the free notation software MuseScore to put together my arrangement ideas that I’d sketched out on manuscript, and edit and fine tune the arrangements using the software. I send parts to other singers, or performers, by exporting the parts from Musescore and emailing them. Or I share the score on musescore.com.
I test out early demos of songs by posting them to a web forum community I’ve been a part of for over a decade that has always been an honest sound board and a very helpful support for creative artists of all kinds.
I funded half the costs of my record by using fundit.ie to crowdfund the cash from friends, acquaintances, fans, supporters, family, and well intentioned strangers who just wanted to help art get made. What I discovered was that the people funding me online were a mix of folk I knew from back when I was hanging out online on Fortunecity.com from the late 90’s, through to ones I interacted with a lot in my years on Livejournal, or music fan forums, as well as people I interact with through the current batch of popular social networking sites.
Most of my music sales are through my bandcamp store, or other digital music stores like iTunes and Amazon. I get it on to those other stores using Tunecore, an online music distribution service. People discover my music by streaming it on Deezer, Spotify or Earbits or somewhere similar. I do little hangout concerts on Google+ for strangers and familiar faces all over the world, and my music videos go up on youtube and vimeo.
Basically, I’m saying that I love you internet, and I’d be lost and lonely without you, playing to the wall in my room or a handful of people in a local venue. The internet has changed the music industry a lot, that’s pretty obvious, but I like the change. It suits me a lot more.
It manages to combine not only some beautiful orchestral and choral music, but also the joy of a good flash mob that is well planned, executed, and filmed. If the music itself wasn’t making me smile so much already, seeing the little kids conducting would certainly have done the job.
Sarah Slean is a musician I’d heard friends talking about online a lot before I finally checked her music out. I think one of those friends may have given me a copy of two of her albums to start me on my path of discovery, but they were certainly right in their guess that her music would be right up my street. Piano? Check. Classical background? Check. Musical theatre influence? Check. Literate, clever, witty, and wry? Check.
Although Lucky Me was the song that grabbed me and pulled me in, it was the album Night Bugs that I took hold of and fell for utterly. Before long two of her songs started appearing as covers in my sets – the wonderful Sweet Ones, and the more dramatic The Score.
The latter was one of the songs that I did with the girl group trio I played with for a while. Their three part harmonies in that song really were something else, and playing around with harmonies with those singers was one of the big influences on the vocal layering on my debut record. We
Her most recent album, Land & Sea, is an absolute treat – particularly the second disc, which centers around voice, piano and strings, which is one of my favourite combinations of instruments. Despite the fact that it was her more pop leaning songs that I initally was drawn in by, it’s this disc that I find myself turning to.
I mean, check out this live performance of “Napoleon” performed with a string ensemble.
The album was finished off in a hut in Newfoundland, which features in the video for the song The Devil And The Dove:
It was here, in a little shack by the sea with a grand piano, a bed, a table, chair and kettle (little else), Sarah completed composing the songs and four orchestral scores for this incredible collection. “…one of the most inspiring places on Earth…. It’s impossible to be distracted from the powerful presence of Life itself here – the rugged land, the ever-changing weather, the magnificent, powerful ocean…it’s a place to ponder the vast expanse of time before and beyond us, to ponder the wondrous marvel of being.”
One of the songs from that latest record is one of those little inspiration touchstones you turn to at times. I’m always a music first, lyrics later, kinda listener when it comes to songs, and indeed sometimes it’ll be months before I realise exactly what the words of a song I love actually are. However, with The Right Words, it was the words that grabbed me along with that beautiful vocal melody in the chorus.
“throw your heart into the ocean, throw your heart into the sea
you will find that all the right words
will come out naturally”
The Galway Fringe festival had its inaugural programme launch last Friday, which I was very pleased to have been asked to perform at. The festival itself runs alongside the Galway Arts festival from the 12th to the 30th of July. I have a solo show in the Fringe programme, which has been moved to Saturday the 21st of July in Rouge at 3pm, instead of the 22nd as I’d previously posted. There’s a small discrepancy between the printed programme and the programme on the website at the moment, but that’ll be sorted pretty soon.
Unfortunately, the date change means some of the string players I’d hoped to use are no longer available, but I will work something out, and the show will go ahead as planned regardless. I’m quite looking forward to playing the grand piano in Rouge, to be honest. So often I’m playing my live gigs standing behind my trusty Roland stage piano, but this gig will be a lot different from my usual gigs as I get to really be much more expressive with a proper acoustic piano. I’m really looking forward to it. It’s free! Come along. [facebook event]
The wonderful Off Beaten Path dancers have their own show running for three days from the 25th of July also as part of the Fringe festival. They’re presenting two dance pieces, one of which uses my song Codail Sámh, and I will be doing some additional music as part of their show too, but the main focus are their two dance pieces. I’m quite excited to see their work, as I was lucky enough to sit in one some of their rehearsals, and it looks like it’ll be a really beautiful piece. Their other piece is using a track by The Chromatics, which will be a great contrast to the piece using my music. Definitely a show to try and catch, and their show is free too!
If you’re not going to be in Galway during July (honestly though, where else would you be but here for this month? Galway is amazing in July) then keep an eye out for other gigs around the country later in the year. If you don’t catch the dance show, we will be shooting a video of the dance piece itself, so you’ll be able to see their work in a slightly different format, but it will be even more thrilling to see in person.
