Category: Updates

Live video demos

I’m currently going through a bunch of little live video demos of some of my songs that I have on my computer, and posting a few on my youtube channel for people to see.

They give another side to some of the songs that ended up on the album – though the ones that work best in demo form are the ones that ended up pretty much with just piano and voice on the record itself.

They’re pretty low res quality, as they’re just stuff that’s recorded with the webcam and a little home recording setup I use to get songs down when I’m working on them so I have something to reference again later. I’ve been using it again lately to demo some of the very new songs I’ve been working on.

I Wish You Were Here
It’s an old song that wasn’t meant to end up on the album, but did a take of it on the last day of the piano and vocal tracking, and liked how it came out, so it ended up on the record.

Wet Feet

I think this video shows just how lazy I can be at the piano sometimes. And also how much I move when I play – it’s something piano teachers always pointed out to me but that I never really noticed until watching back little clips like this. They really tried to get me to stop moving my upper body so much when I played, but it’s a habit I’ve never broken, and something I still do whenever I play. I just move a lot at the piano when I’m playing.

The version on the album is pretty pared down too – there’s some lovely cello on it that I miss now whenever I’m playing the song solo again. Same with this next video, actually:

Restless

I do plan to have some proper videos up on my youtube channel soon, along with these wonderfully webcam home demos too.

Listen or buy the album: [itunes] [amazon mp3] [bandcamp]

Cds have finally arrived.

Cds arrived.

If you have already sent me your address, then thank you very much – I have your address on file. I know mailouts don’t have the best chance with some spam filters, so I figured I’d best remind people through the website too.

But, the CDs have finally arrived back from the manufacturer, and this weekend the print artist is making her handmade covers which will be a the limited edition just for Fundit Funders, and won’t be available in any shop. So, all things going to plan the CDs should start being posted out from early next week. But yes, please do email ebby [at] misterebby [dot] com with your postal address for me if you are one of the wonderful people who helped fund my record and thus are on my list. And check your emails to see if my mailing list for you funders is getting through to you as some people have had issues with that it seems.

Other folk, stay tuned as the record should be available in some of the fantastic little indie music stores around Ireland very soon, and then the physical cd itself will be on sale through bandcamp too.

Feedback makes it worth it.

I started a post doing a “2011 in review” sort of post, but quickly realised that my entire focus for all of last year was in getting the album recorded and released. So, in lieu of a rather repetitive reflection on the past year, instead I’m going to look at the effect that all that work has had on other people by posting some of the rather lovely things folks have said to me about my record.

Gathered together like this, it really makes me smile when I get worked up about trying to make a living from music work. Getting these unsolicited little messages really makes my day, and they come from the various corners of the internet that I hang out in. Some are friends, some are long time internet acquaintances, some are newer connections struck up on twitter, others are complete strangers. These are just some of the ones that I saved and stuck in a little document that I open up and peek at when things are stressful. I didn’t put all the messages in this, just a few random ones that made me smile tonight.

So, thank you for listening and for supporting my music last year, and thank you so much any of you who took the time to send me a message like this. <3

Some of the Feedback from friends, strangers, unfers and others:
Read More

O Holy Night: The Good, The Bad, and the Bombastic

“O Holy Night” is one of those carols that is unavoidable in the run up to Christmas, and it certainly is one of the most beautiful of the most popular carols. My own favourite for many years has been “In The Bleak Midwinter” – Both different settings, by Gustav Holst and by Harold Darke, have their own beauty, but Darke’s is definitely a nicer setting of that text in my opinion. Just listen to it:

But, the potential to show off vocally seems to draw singers to “O Holy Night”. When I was in university, there was fierce competition to get chosen as one of the soloists for that carol at the annual carol services. These carol services were one of the highlights of the university calendar, and while I was there a CD was recorded of the choral performances which I still pull out every year to listen to. For my final year in uni, I was one of the tenors chosen to sing the solo, though I’ve never trained as a classical singer. I’ve loved that carol since I was a child, and I’ve been hearing it every year in the local church choir that my dad sings with.

Perhaps it’s this early exposure that has defined my taste around this piece of music, as that soprano has a beautifully clear, baroque-style soprano voice, and to this day I prefer to hear “O Holy Night” sung by such a soprano voice, or by a young soprano chorister. There’s something about that melody being sung by such a clear voice that makes the carol even more effective than 5 minutes of bombastic vocal virtuosity. This version from the King College Choir of Cambridge, arranged by John Rutter is as lovely as you’d imagine, but just makes me wish there was a soloist along with that gorgeous choir. The second soloist in this video has a particularly gorgeous tone:

One year around this time, myself and some friends spent a very long evening youtubing loads of different versions of this carol – something we’ve also done with The Star-Spangled Banner. Try it some time, and you’ll pass through bewilderment, admiration, and sheer hilarity as you journey through the multiple different versions you can find. It was on one such youtube crawl that we came across the most bombastic version of “O Holy Night” that I’ve heard yet. If Disney did fervent christian christmas carols and got Celine Dion to sing the solos, it would still pale in terms of just how over-the-top this arrangement gets. It’s also oddly one of my favourites as a result – if you’re going for bombast, you really have to go full throttle.

Trust me, if you listen to no other video I post, you should listen to this. It’s like each line was arranged individually, separate from the rest. The opening sounds like the most epic film score ever, and then it just gets more overblown. It makes me so happy that someone managed to this overwrought a version of this carol. It’s alternately astounds me, and makes me laugh uncontrollably. The musical arrangement is astonishing. There’s even a mid-verse key change. Beat that X-Factor. I just have no words. It’s either the greatest, or the worst version of this carol ever recorded. But it’s definitely the most bombastic.

Read More

1 … 5 6 7 8 9 … 32