artist development Archives - CRAIG WESTWOOD

Vocals complete (I think)…

Craig — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 10:37:00 +0000

Audacity is finally completed. Had a great session over at Matthew’s last Friday afternoon, and the final double-tracked vocals slotted into place after our usual warm-up beforehand.

We had a bit of time to review a couple of the other songs too, in particular I wanted to add more seriousness and weight to the arrangement on Daytime. I’m concerned that because I’d chopped it and speeded it up slightly (to make it shorter, on Matthew’s advice, and more commercial) that it’s lost it’s impact. My original ‘demo’ version, recorded at Rick’s (Rooster’s) used a droning synth bass (Rick’s Yamaha TX81Z), that I’d like to try and recapture somehow. I have a TX81Z, so I’ve asked Matthew to send me a mix track without acoustic bass to try out the TX with the new arrangement.

Reviewing all the mixed material at home, I’m still wanting to tweak the backing vocals on Nonsense Song. Again I’ve asked Matthew to send over a mix with an isolated track of the backing vocal so I can try some ideas out over here.

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Still recording…

Craig — Fri, 11 Aug 2017 16:50:00 +0000

I was over at Matthew’s yesterday, putting the backing vocals onto Audacity. I had elected to multi-track the backing vocals, a three-part harmony that I’d worked out, but to double-up each vocal to add some fullness to the backing, and to add more potential for a wider stereo spread in the final mix.

We got most of these done in the hour-long session, though my voice was straining a bit towards the end, and I’ve had to defer the last harmony to another session next week, as my throat was getting really raspy by the end of the hour. Seems I’d left the hardest part till last, the middle harmony, which just touches upon that part in my range where it begins to go into falsetto.

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Shocking News…

Craig — Fri, 05 May 2017 14:37:00 +0000

Mixing course

A couple of weeks ago I tried logging onto the mixing course website to complete my final module of the course. The site returned a 404 (site not there) error. I texted Matthew to get the reply that that part of the business has closed. Anyway, after messaging back my disappointment that day, Matthew, some 3 days later, did send me the assignment files so I could at least complete the final assessment mix. I’ve not had chance yet, with having to re-arrange my studio-space recently, but I will do this as soon as the audio equipment is re-wired.

Performance

I have also been chasing Andrew all week about getting one more live coaching session before the Batley Taproom night in June. I sent him a text requesting a meeting with both him and Matthew, to find out what was going on. Within a few minutes he rang me to tell me that his partnership with Matthew has dissolved, and that Matthew is now running 360 on his own. This was quite a shock. I had some slight vibe that things weren’t right here, you know, just a few little things that had cropped up in conversation, but the lack of communication was obvious. Andrew now is still working with 360, but as a subcontractor, so all bookings now are handled by Matthew.

This is a relief, as I was thinking for a while that the whole company had ceased.

So – now that my year’s contract has come to it’s end, I was perhaps fearing the worst, that I wasn’t going to have anything to show for the year’s investment.

While the experience gained this last year has been life-changing, until the major part of the contract is fulfilled, i.e. the five tracks, then I have no reason to renew my contract with 360, as their commitment is still incomplete.

I have since spoken with Matthew, and he still seems determined to complete the mixes and mastering as soon as possible. He is building a new studio, and though it’s possibly a month or two away from completion, and it would be a benefit to have final mixes done in it, I would rather be in possession of my five tracks now to market and progress the music further and have something to show for my efforts. We’ve also talked about getting a photographer to do some promo shots.

The story continues…

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Studio Session

Craig — Mon, 17 Apr 2017 20:55:00 +0000

Had a longer than usual session in Matthew’s studio today… In particular, I wanted to tackle the horns section in Nonsense Song which, once the instrumentation had been swapped in favour of Matthew’s superb horns set, the dynamics had altered, and I needed to tweak nearly every phrase. Although Matthew had done a stirling job of trying to interpret my crude instructions, it was more efficient to give me hands-on and let me tweak the piano roll, as I just knew the ‘feel’ of the track, and it was something I just couldn’t articulate, much as I tried. Anyway, he took this photo (above) of me getting my hands on Cubase, for the first time in many years.

We also went through this, and the other four tracks, and Matthew made notes as we played them through and commented on overall sound, and corrections to be made to the mix. They are all coming together I feel, and the changes needed now are fairly minor.

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Daytime – Studio Session

Craig — Fri, 03 Mar 2017 10:14:00 +0000

Another really good session at Matthew’s yesterday. Hampered a little by the traffic getting across, and it was an interesting detour getting there and avoiding the tailbacks on the M62. Anyway, we got two takes of guitar (pictured) and two vocal takes also in the time that remained. There’s nothing like a bit of time pressure to bring out a tight performance!

We’re doing a new version of Daytime, almost 30 years old (for me), but a murder story, quite dark really. I’m looking forward to hearing it come together, with some real drums (360’s guy in Nashville again), and bass.

Keep watching this space…

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Acoustic Circus Session

Craig — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 17:08:00 +0000

Nice pic from Andrew’s perspective… Me with Purple Hair!

Acoustic Circus Session is the title of the Open Mic event run regularly at the Taproom in Batley. Hosted by guitarist and singer Pete Long, the Taproom is a great little venue with nice acoustics which will hold about 80 when full. I was impressed with the sound quality when listening to the other acts singing and performing, though I had a couple of issues on the last bit of my second set when a dirty volume ‘pot’ on the P.A. started to crackle out. I just soldiered on and kept playing while Pete did his best to sort things out, which was done fairly quickly, but it definitely needs a clean up for next time.

Feedback from Andrew was very good. He was pleased with the way which I coped, even with the technical issues, and he had no complaints with my playing or my confidence on stage. I have a couple of things to work on in terms of the dynamics of one or two of the songs, which we can work on over the next few weeks. But as we’re coming to the end of our contract, I am now mindful of the fact that we still have 5 songs to complete, mix and master by April.

Lots to do. Watch this space…

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Recording Session

Craig — Mon, 13 Feb 2017 18:22:00 +0000

Went across to Matthew’s today for the first time since early December, being ill for most of December, and since my recovery he’s been away most of January on holiday.

We played and reviewed all the tracks so far: Watching the Rain, Nonsense Song, Get Out of This and a bit of Audacity.

First was Nonsense Song. In general I thought the vocals were too harsh, and I had to tell Matthew how unhappy I was with my performance of it. I think it was at the beginnings of my throat virus, and it showed in the performance. Hard to put my finger on it, but anyway, we’ve re-recorded the main vocal again, and I think it is sounding a bit ‘sweeter’, and doesn’t detract from the light-heartedness of the song.

I sat with Matthew while he mixed Watching the Rain. There were certain parts that were clashing for me, and these I’ve just made sure that he was aware of these parts in the production. Not huge changes, but a couple of subtle things that weren’t sitting right. He didn’t go on to complete the mix, but just saved the changes, so I’ve yet to hear the completed mix with those changes in place.

Lastly, we recorded the vocal and backing vocal for Get Out of This. We’ve recorded three ‘takes’ of the main vocal, so that Matthew has three performances he can select to get the best out of the performance. Then we did a couple of overdubs, recording short phrases that allowed me to experiment and vary the phrasing on these, and then the little backing vocal phrase to finish. It’s now up to Matthew to come up with his ‘best cuts’.

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Adding ‘live’ drums to your tracks…

Craig — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 17:53:00 +0000

It’s been a while since I last posted. Many things going off in my life at the moment, and the music being just a part of it. Anyway, the story so far…

We’ve recorded Watching the Rain. The mix is progressing, but it’s not quite there yet. There’s a couple of little bits that I’d like to improve, so Matthew’s letting me sit with him in the studio to go through the parts I’m not happy with.

We’ve recorded Nonsense Song. The vocal is too harsh on it, this is because I recorded it at a point in time when I was coming down with a throat virus, that ended up taking me out for 4 weeks or more (and right over Christmas too…). The throaty vocals have made it sound to me like it’s an attempt at a punk record. I’m not sure at this point what we can do with it.

We’ve begun recording Get Out of This, and one of two new songs: Audacity.

For both of these we’ve recorded guitar at Andrew’s place this time, while Matthew was away, and then afterwards Andrew has commissioned a drummer who’s got a drum-studio setup in Nashville. He’s put a number of tracks down now for Get Out of This. We’ve had to go to 3 takes over this one, and that’s more due to my having a 30 year old song. When you’ve had 30 years to think about it, it kind of goes a certain way in your head, and it’s difficult to imagine a different drum pattern. I wanted real drums on the track, but the ‘virtual drums’ I had were pretty much what I wanted to be played; I just wanted the ‘robotic’ element (that all drum machines have) to be removed.

There is no doubt to me that, despite the repeats and the re-work, having a real drummer really adds something to the mix. I can’t wait to hear the track completed. We still have vocals and keyboard instrumentation to do yet.

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Performance Session

Craig — Wed, 16 Nov 2016 23:11:00 +0000

A really great session today with Andrew. I’ve introduced another three songs to the set: Taken to Another, and new songs Waiting on the World and Till the Day is Done, the latter having literally been written last week. I’ve suggested a slide guitar approach with this last one to Andrew. The improvised accompaniment he’s done today really works, I think, and it’s down to formalising this in the next few weeks before we perform it. Thanks Andrew for the pic.

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Half-way point review

Craig — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 22:53:00 +0000

Actually, it’s a little more than half-way now on the Artist Development Course, but I felt as if Matthew, Andrew and I needed to get our heads together and plan the next period and be a bit more productive. Anyway, I called a meeting…

Where we are right now: Recording Course complete; Watching the Rain in progress; The Nonsense Song in progress; Mixing course is now underway on week one after some delays.

General feedback from my close friends on hearing the new version of Watching the Rain has meant that we need to take some practical steps to improve the song. Last week I’d sent across a list of changes, which, I understand, Matthew’s worked on.

The coaching so far has been an enjoyable and liberating process. Who would have thought that I would even be able to get up on a stage and perform my work six months ago? Certainly not me. Big praise for Andrew particularly here, but also for Matthew, who has equipped me with vocal warm-ups and a way of pulling a bit more out of the vocal chords than I ever expected. Credit also for Matthew, who has shown me tips and tracks in recording and mixing during the recording sessions we’ve had, and some tips as to which plugins he uses in his DAW.

I thought it was necessary for the meeting to re-focus on my goals and aims here, and so I mentioned that although we are looking to produce five songs to mastered level here, my aim is beyond that…. to an album. I’ve chosen to put more into performance coaching now, moving forward, as it’s the live side of things that needs to improve and grow.

I also wanted to discuss which five tracks to record… The fact is, since beginning this process my songwriting has become more frequent, to the point now where I’d say I’m writing at least one song a week. My enthusiasm is always for the newer stuff, but, as Matthew rightly pointed out as we spoke, to everyone else, ALL of my songs are new! That is, except perhaps for my ‘inner circle’ of friends who have been good enough to listen to the older stuff and give me feedback and encouragement.

Anyway – I’m tasked this week with providing a third song for Matthew to begin work on. I’ve chosen Get Out of This, perhaps one of my favourite of the ‘old set’. Lastly, we’ve still to decide on the remainder, but there are a couple of songs I’d like to explore which maybe weren’t on the list of five to begin with.

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Recording Course

Craig — Wed, 07 Sep 2016 20:36:00 +0000

I haven’t really written anything about this yet, but I’ve just completed the final week 8 of the Songwriting School’s Recording Course. Now, I already have a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) in Apple’s Logic Pro, and I have a few key pieces of recording gear to go with this, but in light of previous feedback from Matthew and other music producers, there were real gaps in my knowledge and this needed addressing. Matthew thus recommended the course that he runs on the Songwriting School website.

Now I have to say, that the first three weeks of the course were very familiar to me, simply because they covered the basics: how to set up your studio for recording; speakers and microphones; and recording MIDI in particular. Anyway, I dutifully went through these weeks, and where there were testing questions, I answered them confidently…. and got a couple wrong, I admit. This is the disadvantage of being self-taught. So by the end of this I feel it filled in the gaps nicely. The real eye-opening part of the course for me was the guitar recording part, and this really got me thinking again about the way I’ve been recording my guitars up until now. The great advantage of having an acoustic guitar with transducing pick-ups is it’s immediacy in being able to just plug it in and record away; the disadvantage of this is the quality of sound it produces is limited to the quality of the pick-up, and this can never match the quality of a good high-end condenser microphone, placed correctly to get the whole spectrum of sound of the guitar, not just the electronic signal from the pick-up.

Week 7 was really the key part of the project: the practical. It was my chance to show what I’d learned and put my new skills and knowledge into practice. I decided it was worth doing a new piece, as there was no point in going over old ground and making it too easy for myself; these needed to be real problems and not things I’d faced before. This posed me a new set of challenges for every instrument I recorded. In the end I picked new song Waiting on the World to try and give it some of the new guitar recording techniques I’d been studying.

Here’s Matthew’s comments:

Final Project:

Craig, this is an outstanding effort and you should be very proud of what you have achieved.

You have a lovely use of stereo in the guitar recording and the guitars are full sounding and shows that your mic placement was well thought out and successful. There are no phase issues that I can hear. The drums come in musically and the use of cymbal is well placed. It is difficult to hear the drums generally and you may wish to consider whether the kick drum sound would benefit from layering, or some more compression to make it ‘kick’ better. You have followed the instructions of setting up the virtual instruments well.

The recording is clean and your fades are perfect.

The use of compression and reverb is appropriate for the musical style. Perhaps not for this track but generally speaking don’t be afraid to experiment with effects – sometimes you can do something crazy and get a really excellent effect from it and the more you use your plugins the more you will gain confidence at knowing exactly how to get the sound you have in your head each time.

Your backing vocals really lift the track at the right point and nicely compliment the main vocal.

This is the best final project I have had the pleasure of marking. Because I know how you have recorded in the past, I can hear that you have really taken on board everything from this course and put it into practise in a way that has vastly improved your recording skill. I thoroughly look forward to your work on the mixing course.

Anyway – I’m really encouraged by the feedback. It’s given me a real positive look forward to the mixing course coming next. Again, I think some of the knowledge will already be there, but again I’m feeling confident that the gaps in my knowledge and some of my inherited ‘bad habits’ will hopefully be addressed.

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Guitar Repairs

Craig — Mon, 22 Aug 2016 20:54:00 +0000

It was rather evident during my sessions with Andrew that my old EKO E20 had seen better days. The lower frets have been worn for some time and it was becoming increasingly difficult to hold down any kind of chord without buzzing or ripping my fingers apart. I’d got to the point of putting it aside and even considered replacing it, despite it still being my favourite acoustic guitar for it’s warm, almost bass-y sound.

I’d been asking musician friends about any luthiers they might know. The good ones all seemed too far away. Andrew finally put me in touch with Ben ‘Beej’ Shand, a guy that he uses for all of his guitars, and, though I made a few attempts to call him (he tours as a guitar tech with a few well-known bands), he has a workshop quite close to the centre of Leeds.

Anyway, when I rang and told him I had an EKO, he said: “Don’t tell me, I’ll tell you what the problems are…” anyway, he rattled off the symptoms, and was right on the nose with most of it. Anyway, he offered to re-fret the guitar, re-set the action and clean up the machine heads. Turn around time – a week. Actually, as I was on holiday for two weeks after that, he had three weeks to do this.

Now I have it back it is, once again, a pleasure to play, and my guitar of preference. Great job, Beej!

Ben’s website is here: http://www.beejguitars.co.uk

I’ll be in touch soon, as I’ve got one or two guitars that could use a little improvement…

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Studio Session 2

Craig — Wed, 27 Jul 2016 19:19:00 +0000

I have to say how much I am beginning to enjoy these sessions in the studio with Matthew. It’s great to be able to bounce ideas off him and get feedback when I ask the odd technical question. Last week was the guitar session. This went very well indeed, and we had good time for Matthew to demonstrate some of the layered vocal work he was doing on another couple of tracks.

Today’s hour-long session was to add my vocal track to Watching the Rain, and we did several ‘takes’ to allow Matthew to choose the best bits. Once little thing that wasn’t comfortable was Matthew’s insistence on me pronouncing all the words with what, by the end of the session, I was calling my “best BBC” accent. To me it felt a bit forced, and didn’t come natural to me at all. I’m the product of my upbringing, and my accent is somewhat a ‘hybrid’ of Midlands, Sussex and Yorkshire, and though I’ve never had to analyse it before, I tailor the sounds of my voice – including the accent – to fit the song. However, again, as it’s the first song I’ve done with 360, I’m letting Matthew run with this and wait to hear the result. It’s a strange feeling though, not being in control of the arrangement.

We used up the entire hour today, and so I need to be called back to do the backing vocal, so there’s at least one more session to do on this song. So far I haven’t heard any strings on the backing track, so this is either something Matthew is dropping, or is yet to introduce.

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Open Mic at ‘The Hop’

Craig — Tue, 19 Jul 2016 08:25:00 +0000

I’m so pleased to say that despite the initial nerves, my section went very well, I think. I fluffed my words a couple of times and my mic usage was a bit erratic, but I don’t think it mattered too much. The Hop was quite empty (I guess Monday night isn’t going to be as packed out as a Friday or Saturday), so really I was just singing to my guests, Claire, Ken and Pat, plus the other artists that 360 manage and their guests. So – it was a lovely informal evening, not too much pressure, and chance to build up my confidence and improve technique on a live rig.

It’s nice also to see how well the others are doing: Zoe, Carla and Harry were also singing last night, and they clearly seemed more confident than I was. I elected to go first as I thought that it would be better to do my little set, and not prolong the nerves any longer than necessary. It’s nice that we all perform in very different genres and therefore don’t have to be competitive in any way. We are all there to develop our skills, build stage confidence and build our repertoire.

With the first one behind me, I think I’ve finally laid the ghosts of past stage disasters to rest. I’m very grateful to Ken and Pat (and Claire of course) for coming to support me, and of course to Andrew for being my backing and lead guitarist. Ken has video-ed the set, (pics are taken from the video) which I may or may not put up at some point. I’m very highly critical watching stuff back like this, and there’s certainly room for improvement. To me, the sound at a live gig is never as good as when you were there – even for the pro performers, and you watch it back and you think: “Blimey, I didn’t realise he was singing flat there on the night…” But that’s the downside of recording with a phone, and not directly from the stage mixer. Perhaps next time we can do this, and see what we really sound like…

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Last rehearsal

Craig — Fri, 15 Jul 2016 13:39:00 +0000

Last rehearsal with Andrew was on Wednesday before my first open mic at The Hop next Monday. This went pretty well I thought, only a couple of slips. One particularly with the mid-section of (Don’t Hurry) Slow Down, where I simply can’t see the fret board while singing, to get the upper bar chords right. I guess I’ll have to modify my singing over that part for now, until it becomes more “muscle-memory”.

Anyway, the nerves, I admit, are setting in a bit now. I’ve been rehearsing at home and do about an hour each day since Wednesday, but the rehearsals have not been going so well. That is, until I decided to raise the guitar up slightly, so it’s sitting higher and more comfortably placed, especially for those bar chords on Slow Down.

In the meantime, I’ve been doing some research on stage nerves online, and found a brilliant set of quick tips from singer and voice coach, Adrienne Osborn. These have helped me put a few of the old gremlins aside. Let’s see if they will do the trick on Monday.

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Performance session

Craig — Wed, 29 Jun 2016 11:56:00 +0000

Andrew had me going through my set, firstly making sure my mic positioning was correct. As I’m suffering from a bit of back trouble (the benefits of getting on a bit….!) I’ve had to modify my footing, so I needed a bit of instruction before this came right.

I don’t know why, but I’m having a touch of block somewhere during the opening song. I don’t know if this is just nerves, or lack of concentration or something, but it’s always somewhere during Chasing it Down that I am forgetting a word or a phrase somewhere, and it’s not that I don’t know the song, far from it… Anyway, second time around it came out good.

Then we started to work out Andrew’s parts fully. Watching the Rain is sounding very nice, and Chasing it Down is coming together too. Anyway, a little work is still needed on (Don’t Hurry) Slow Down, but the other two are coming together nicely. As I know Andrew’s style is a little different to mine, I’m asking him to fill in a second part where it feels comfortable. I’ve also given him some recordings of the live songs that I did over last weekend, these were just miked-up practices, so he gets an idea of what I’m going to play and can get familiar with them.

Last practice run through in two weeks time, and then we’re performing it…

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Second Singing Lesson

Craig — Sun, 26 Jun 2016 16:39:00 +0000

Firstly, I made sure I’d remembered as much as possible before going across to Leeds. I went through my notes again fully, and had a little practice of the exercises that Matthew had covered with me a few weeks before. I have been practicing Ng warm ups and stretching exercises anyway prior to singing, and ended up doing these driving across there in the car.

Again I think this has been an enlightening session. We went through an exercise where I was asked to sing a minor or major third above the note played. Last session I couldn’t manage it, this time, though hesitant, I nailed every one. However my long held note, last time was 28 seconds, fell to a rather short 19 this time. I am suffering from hayfever right now, perhaps that is a factor.

We also talked about rehearsal for my open mic night coming up soon, and Matthew has given me a few techniques to help me remember my lyrics in particular. He’s also given me a song to learn for next time… not a song I particularly feel comfortable with, but it’s within my range: Elvis Presley’s Can’t Help Falling in Love. Maybe as it’s not a Presley song I like very much, a little too ‘old-time’ for me, but I’ll have a go at it and see what I can do with it. The idea is to put across the meaning of the words within the song. At my first shot at it, I really tried to sing it like Presley, American accent and all. So, the idea now is that I go away and personalise it…

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Performance Session 3

Craig — Wed, 15 Jun 2016 02:08:00 +0000

I’m now into session 3 of performance coaching. Andrew has been giving me tips on how to make my songs more dynamic on stage, and today he introduced mic technique as well. I have been practicing at home over the last week or so with an unplugged mic on stand, to learn to be comfortable with it there, but Andrew has even covered where to put your feet, and how to move to and from the mic during the performance.

I was sure once I saw the mics at The Hop, that they were Shure SM58’s, and today confirmed it. They are, after all, the world’s most “bomb proof” microphone for quality sound and robustness combined, and often the stage mic of preference. Today one of them was used for me to get positioning and posture right.

I currently have a set-list of three songs, namely: Chasing it Down, Watching the Rain and (Don’t Hurry) Slow Down, and I have been busy practicing these for the last three weeks. We’ve discussed me doing some cover songs, but I’m really not so keen, as I have so many of my own songs to choose from. I did play a couple of possible covers to Andrew three weeks back in session 1, so they can remain as reserves for now, while I concentrate on perfecting the current set. This set is to build upon over time, so we can choose to include the later if need be.

Along with this, I have just been given access to The Songwriting School course for recording. This, I hope, will smooth some of the gaps in my knowledge on recording technique, and help me mix my home studio tracks better, as I really want to be able to record and present my tracks, songs and instrumentals alike, in as professional a quality as possible. Looking at the syllabus, some of the topics covered are already familiar to me, but my hope is that the depth of material covered will be greater than my present knowledge. The next few weeks will decide, I guess.

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Preparation

Craig — Fri, 27 May 2016 05:21:00 +0000

One of the first things I’m finding with this whole process, is that I’m having to spend more and more time documenting the songs. For the older stuff (Daytime and Slow Down for example) I’m going to have to write down the chords and the lyrics, something I just memorised over the years and didn’t ever contemplate having to communicate to other musicians…

Now I have a basic rudimentary knowledge of chord shapes and over time I have learned by ear what seems to go together well and what suits my voice. Now I’m finding that the chords I use are not typical standard shapes, I use diminished and suspended chords, I guess to vary the sounds that I play, but at the moment I haven’t the foggiest idea what chords they are…

There are a multitude of websites out there that have chord finding apps, that’s if you have been given the identity of a chord to begin with; but where do you go if you already know what the fingering is for the chord and you just want someone to tell you what it is?

A few months ago I found the website Jamplay.com, and they have what was, to me, the best chord finding app on the web. All you have to do is click upon a fretboard upon each string in the exact shape of your chord, and it then offers you the chord name (or a number of alternatives, as I’m finding that there’s not just one way of identifying a weird chord!)

Anyway, just to complicate the issue, jamplay.com’s site went down about a week ago, following the announcement of some site updates, which they said were just going to take a couple of hours. It seems they’re having bigger problems with the updates than planned. So – its left me kinda high and dry for the moment, just at the point when I need to be able to write a lot of my stuff down. I could really do with a replacement tool with the same way of finding chords quickly. I’ve yet to find a better one, whether it’s for Mac, or iPad… Suggestions anyone?

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Performance Session 1

Craig — Thu, 26 May 2016 23:43:00 +0000

Held at Andrew’s house on Tuesday, we went through a few songs that I felt I could work on in order to play live and rebuild my stage confidence. I played a few verses of my songs tha I’d like to perform live, as well as a couple of covers, to get ‘established’ so to speak. We discussed my last disastrous gig, and then hopefully this can be put to bed, where I hope the old anxieties won’t resurface.

Andrew is offering to accompany me for these open mic events, for as long as I need it. I must say this is encouraging. I am seeing the supportive side of 360AD now, and I’m looking forward to our future sessions.

On returning home, I have put together some song sheets with chords for Andrew to learn for our next session in two week’s time.

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Open Mic Night

Craig — Tue, 24 May 2016 18:58:00 +0000

This was held last night at Wakefield’s The Hop, a lovely little venue situated quite near to Westgate station and Wakefield’s Theatre and Opera House. Here I’ve got to meet quite a few of the Artists currently on the 360 Programme, or at least the more local ones, some at least coming from as far as Manchester and Nottingham.

Here a great many of the pieces about 360AD have come into place, I feel. It’s nice to have met the other artists and I see that group support that they have, and the support that Matthew and Andrew give them too. It was nice to see people who had been with 360AD for just a few months, and also see some who have been with them for a few years too, and see the level of confidence and professionalism even from those who have only been there a short time.

I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to be involved in the live scene, and this really because I have severe hang-ups about my last stage performance: albeit some 30 years ago it was a club audition that went quite horrendously wrong. To cut a long story short – and it is still hard for me to talk about it (though a bit easier to write…), I ended up completely freezing on stage on my final song, without any memory for chords or words, and just had to end the show there. Needless to say that it happened in front of a load of local talent scouts, and it was the worst way to end a potential career as a club player. Past history.

Anyway – I was just there to spectate last night. I admit I was quite tempted to get up and do something, but I don’t feel personally prepared enough yet to perform, and I reckon this will ease the more I practice and the more the songs become “muscle-memory”.

My conclusion: wow – what a great bunch of performers! Such talent and such a diversity of styles and genres. I said to Andrew and Matthew at the end, how much I feel that I’m in awesome company, and feeling quite humbled and slightly unworthy right now. I hope I can escape the rabbit-in-the-headlights syndrome when it comes to my turn…

So…. practice, practice, practice…

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First recording session

Craig — Thu, 19 May 2016 09:47:00 +0000

Finally got in touch with Andrew last Tuesday, who texted me to say that he and Matthew were starting to record the tracks the next day… “Hang on a minute…” I thought, “…where do I fit into all this?” Turns out they were planning to do the session without me. Anyway, I promptly texted back to voice my desire to be included in the process, after all, these are my songs, and I want to be involved in the sessions. So it was then re-scheduled for Friday morning. I have to say that I’m used to having complete creative control, and “letting go” is very difficult.

Once I arrived on the Friday morning, it was revealed that some of their ‘artists’ don’t actually get involved in the recording side of things at all, they just turn up and sing, and let Matthew and Andrew sort out the rest. Now I’m not that kind of person at all: I’m a very ‘hands-on’ guy, and especially since to date I have recorded all my own instrumentation. Still, I have asked for them to tell me when they are next scheduling in sessions, and to invite me along.

So – We started with the track I had sent across to Matthew: Watching the Rain. He has put all of the audio tracks I’ve exported into Cubase, and roughly mixed them. Then he had Andrew, with his steel strung acoustic, playing layered guitar over my backing track.

First impressions: I must say, Andrew’s style of playing is more than a little different to mine. I just got the impression that he felt restricted with me being there, listening to him playing along to my DI (direct input) guitar. It sounded a little awkward with Andrew trying to emulate my style of finger-picking. At one point Matthew asked me to record my guitar part again over the top of Andrew’s parts using his steel guitar, but he faded this low into the mix, so I’m not sure if he really wanted to use this, but perhaps it was an attempt to include me in on the session. I really felt that they just wanted to record all of the session themselves, and I was in the way.

Anyway, with several layers guitar parts recorded, strummed, some flourishes added, a few other textured guitar playing, mostly double-tracked, and with time running out (I think they’d only scheduled in and hour and a half, and this was running to two hours), Andrew started to play cajon over the guitar, quite a vigorous pattern of playing that, to me, didn’t suit the ‘feel’ of the piece. All the time in the session I found myself saying “Keep this gentle… Keep this simple…” as it’s a gentle song. Again I feel they have other ideas for this.

Anyway, to save us clashing here, I have concluded that I will let them run with this one. How else am I going to find out what they’re capable of? At the end of the day though, I’m here to learn the processes, and to pick up the recording and mixing side of things for myself. The recordings then are a bonus. I guess if I want to record my music in my own way, then I can still do this at home.

Further to this session, Andrew has asked me if I want to work on my live performance. My task for this week is to come up with some covers that I might want to play at an ‘open mic’ night… I told them that my last stage performance (some 30 years ago) was pretty disastrous, and this put me off performance. I said I wanted to work on building some confidence first.

Neither Matthew nor Andrew are very much about prompting students to book sessions, I’m starting to learn that it’s very much you having to chase them, rather than the other way around…

Addendum to this entry is that I’ve contacted Andrew and now booked a couple of lessons, to work on stage performance coaching, and I have an open mic to visit and watch next Monday evening… I guess it pays to not be afraid to chase people up!

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More Songs

Craig — Sat, 07 May 2016 11:22:00 +0000

Well, it’s been a couple of weeks since my first singing lesson, and I’ve had to rest the throat a bit, swallow more than a bottle of Manuka Honey (a spoonful at a time, in intervals) and generally wait until the voice has returned and the coughing and soreness has stopped. Meanwhile I’ve been editing some of the tracks down and have successfully got most of them down to around 4 minutes, except Daytime, which even with severe chopping is still 4:35. I’m not sure I even like it as short as this, but it may grow on me…. We’ll see.

Matthew contacted me just over a week ago (28th April) to ask me to send over my first song. We’d agreed on Watching the Rain last time we met. I have exported my audio tracks from Logic Pro (they use Cubase over at 360AD) and supplied the MIDI tracks as well if they want to use them. Matthew also asked me for a lyric and chord sheet (although I had to admit the chords were in my head, so I had to go away and write them down….!).

Dropbox came in very handy here for file transportation… It is definitely the best way to send large files like this, and has proven invaluable already. Anyway, all is now quiet. I have no idea what they are doing with the track now… Guess I will have to prompt for feedback soon…

The creativity never stops though… I’ve just written and recorded two new songs at home: ‘Lost and Found’, a bit of a war story, and a catchy tune called ‘Only the Good Ones Go First’, which is a quirky but slightly upbeat song (!) inspired by all the recent celebrity deaths, as well as the passing of a friend, rather in the vein of Loudon Wainwright III or Billy Joel’s ‘Only the Good Die Young’. The latter song I may submit up to Matthew as an alternative to Daytime, but we’ll see what he does with Watching the Rain in the meantime…

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First Lesson

Craig — Wed, 13 Apr 2016 21:52:00 +0000

Had my first singing lesson today… Didn’t get off to a good start, as basically I have the beginnings of a cold and a bit of a sore throat. So – bad decision even to turn up and try singing!

Anyway, after a talk on how to look after the voice, Matthew got me learning to do some warm-up exercises. he was also testing my music knowledge along the way I think. I realise I have a lot to learn about music theory, but that’s why I’m here!

To finish up with, we went through Matthew and Andrew’s top 5 of my songs. Of the 13 I gave them, they like:

The Nonsense Song
Get Out of This
Watching the Rain
Golden Mean
Daytime

Quite a surprise to me, as there was only one present of the initial five I submitted. Along with that, they want me to cut Daytime down to 3-4 minutes, as it is currently 6m 13s, and much too long to be commercial. As it’s a story (and a very deliberately heavy and laboured one, a murder story), I can’t see how I can succeed with such a drastic cut. I asked if they had picked a ‘reserve’, as I’m not sure I want to cut it down by that much.

However, reading between the lines here, I have come away from this session already feeling that a great many of my songs are too long. Many are approaching 5 minutes or even over this, and many have long intros. To make them more suitable commercially I’m going to have to edit them down.

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Signing Up

Craig — Fri, 08 Apr 2016 21:19:00 +0000

Went over to Matthew’s place at 360 today. Basically I’ve signed up for a year of artistic development, beginning with some singing coaching, which starts next week. He said that they are excited to be working with me, and that they were very impressed with the demos I’d played them so far.

I handed over a full 13 of my home-spun tracks on a data stick to Matthew, and they will hopefully get chance to listen to them over the next week and let me know which they think are the strongest candidates to develop into the “top five” as part of the programme.

I also told Matthew (to some surprise I think) I’d got another 12 or so tracks waiting in the wings to develop at home. For the moment, the ones I gave him are the strongest, to my mind, so far. But there are more waiting…

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