This song wasn’t intended to be an unconventional string quartet but quarantine had me in a creative space. Since this was only my second time writing out a string arrangement, I took inspiration from one of my favourite artists, Dodie Clark to see how the string worked for her songs. Dodie’s song “When” is a personal favourite of mine and includes a cello and violin alongside piano and vocals. I struggled to take notes about the arrangement as I struggled to find a transcript of the actual score. So I directly contacted the arranger, Elana Abad, via her music page https://www.facebook.com/elenaabadmusic/ and she gave me a pdf of the score as well as notes of what they changed when recording it! (Safe to say, I was a little star struck). The arrangement is beautiful and I annotated the score for the cello and violin as I was curious to see how they interacted with each other and with the vocalist (e.g. when they supported the piano and when they actively harmonised with the vocals). I failed to write out an accurate guitar and vocal part because this score was mostly for the musicians I managed to wrangle into helping me record the song. They were all incredibly generous with their time and are all excited about potentially performing it live when students start to study on campus again. I sure as hell would love to see it come together in a live setting, I reckon it would be beautiful. Bandcamp link: https://callmecharlie.bandcamp.com/track/close-for-comfort-demo Full Score and Parts PDF
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For the last semester, I have been working closely with the 2nd year WAAPA sound production students with live recordings in the sound studios. They needed to record and mix a song by a solo artist for their assignments. Since I'm old friends with one of the 2nd year students and worked in the studios last year, I was the lucky musician to get free recordings of my originals. Initially, I was helping my friend record one song for her assignment... which then turned into two as another soundie jumped on the band wagon. Ultimately, I recorded 3 songs for the sound students during 2 different sessions in the studio. Most of the time consisted of adjustments to the set up and levels of the recording. The only thing that took some time when actually recording, was layering the harmonies and the percussion. My inner perfectionist did kick in a few times as I asked again and again to re-record the guide track. However, I was fairly chuffed with how the recordings turned out and knew that the standard was suitable enough to fit the criteria for their assignments (which was the main thing). A picture of the set up can be seen above. The three songs we recorded were titled: 1. Melancholy Madness 2. Learn To Be Kind 3. Epiphany On A Friday Night All these songs I wrote within the last 6 months or so. The genre and aesthetic very much fit with the "Call Me Charlie" alias I have for my solo gigging work (which made recording much easier and less time consuming). To have a listen to the finished products, follow the link here. |
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Artist SummaryI'm a WA Fremantle based singer-songwriter / composer. Here, you can have a gawk at my studies, compositions and performances. Archives
August 2022
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