Work on the Bright Green Bough CD

February 2010

Things are going well. I wrote the last recorded tune and for this it took awhile, to write the melody, add some nice accompaniment and then to play everything the same way every time so that the recording is at its most solid. This is a challenge that is typical for folks who worked so hard to develop those improvisational skills! I wrote the tune for Jeremy and I hope that the heart and the playfulness will come across to listeners.

January 2010

As a stay at home mom, for the most part, I find it challenging to balance raising an energetic three year old boy, take good care of my sweet husband, be supportive of a close brother who is starting a new journey back to school, teach my wonderful harp students, organize the great SOPHIA harp group meetings and website, try cook meals and clean house with this latest CD project.

But it is a dear project to me and thus I will work on it until it is finished. I am hoping to have it done by this March. However, for those of you who know me personally, I am a lady of my word. If it is not done by March, it will be done soon thereafter and I'll be working hard on it until then. 

I have cleared my gig schedule until the work on this recording is complete as it was too difficult to make progress on the CD while preparing material for other events.

So how is it going and what has been done, you might ask?

It is moving forward. It was a tough learning curve as I am home recording. I have the best microphones and listening equipment I could afford and I am proud of the sound of the recordings so far. I have good software, more than I'll even need for the acoustic recording I am doing. I learned about microphone placement and damping some of the walls in the room and some simple editing techniques. Many thanks to Mark Robertson-Tessi. 

The CD artwork and notes are finished. Thank you Alison Stone for all of your help.

I know who to contact for royalties and where to send the checks for the most part. There is only a little more legwork to complete this task but I am not worried that I'll come through this part with any more frustration. I did have to cut one piece because I could not get ahold of the artist after many tries. I was sad, but in the end, it is a good thing, as I am working to compose my own piece in its place. I have the theme for the piece finished already.

I recorded for awhile in September and October and found I needed to learn some more editing techniques to speed up the progress. I got stuck. Thanks to Martha Gallagher's advice to getting me unstuck. November and December were too gig-heavy to make good progress. Now it is nearing the end of January and I'm getting it together again. I will write as I go along. Please feel free to visit this part of my site for more blog-like entries.

Hope everyone is having a good beginning of year and my best to you.

-Lorna Govier