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Wednesday, March 16, 2005

What's Folk Music without a Wee Bit O'BASS

What a great recording session last night! Cedric the fiddler came in early to get the evening started. I really should've given him something to listen to before we recorded. Fortunately, Cedric's talented enough that he picked up on non-normal folk key and played "Wild Kitty" with precision like the pro he is.

Course, my producer, Ari Koinuma, knew exactly what he wanted. He had Cedric lay down a bold fiddle part with some a few points of tasty improv, plucking the fiddle strings. Then on "Furagone's Wake", we were all delighted by the addition of the mandola to mix.

Speaking of mixes, I forgot to mention what Ari was doing while I was at Excalibur Fantasy Faire this week... BASS!

That was amazing. I'm just not used to hearing my autoharp recordings with low end, but wow! Ari added some standup bass and other instrumentation to give the songs movement. It's really starting to sound like The Dubliners music now. It has a LOT of body.

It also helped to add Ben Hamley to the mix. Ben is a professional voice-over actor and also an actor at the Texas Renaissance Festival and Excalibur Fantasy Faire. At TRF, he is Italian, but he the man of thousand voices does a great Irishman. In "Wild Kitty", he puts on an award-winning performance as an Irishman who gets drunker and drunker through the song.

Blake McCaig had icing on the cake. I'd never heard actually sing, but wow, what a beautiful voice she has! Blake sings with a local cover band and has a five-octave range. She's not used to singing like Ben's drunk Irishman, but with a little coaxing from Ari, she sang the most beautiful and cute harmonies. That little giggle she does in the last chorus is adorable!!!

When all the main vocals were done, the three of us added some cat meows and claps for "Furagone's Wake", and then everyone departed. As for me, I fell asleep with a joyful smile on my face. posted by Marc Gunn @ 7:24 AM