30th November 2010

Hello fellow bloggers,

This week has been slightly more productive than previous weeks. So far, Glyn, Myself and Jez have got the new song (under the temporary name of "This One") under way and ready to start getting it down on logic and start messing about with it, building up the layers. The christmas gig will be interesting. Christina's had to back out of it so vocal-wise it's a lot to learn but on some of the tracks such as; Peggy Sue, King Creole, our Original creation, I'm A Believer and These Boots Are Made For Walking. I'm quite glad actually to have the chance to be more than just a backing singer, but am slightly worried about the choice of songs due to my vocal abilities. Shall be interesting to see what can be acheived from it.
On a different note, I have a concert coming up in February, which i'm hoping can be marked as part of the course as well as my own reasons out of college. Would be really good if i can be marked for solo performace as well as group performance with the bands within the college. It would also be a good chance for me to be marked on a type of music i'm more comfortable with and show my abilities rather than just the type of music i have to do at college. I'm still happy to do the stuff at college, but to use outside performances as extra will make things better for my overall mark - hopefully.
This past Friday was really unproductive. Most people were down in the studio recording the 60s tracks again because they were so bad the previous friday before. This threw practice out of the window. We're just beginning to start on the 70s and 80s style tracks now which i'm slightly excited about. The tracks i'm looking to do are; Bonnie Tyler's 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' and Carly Simon's 'You're so Vain' these are songs that work well with my vocals and are great songs to do and have up your sleeve. Once we manage to get everybody together to practice all should work well... i hope.

Tuesday 9th November 2010

Hi Guys!

Last week a group of us (Glyn, Saara, Jez, Mike and myself) started working on a new song called this one. Hopefully will be able to use it for compositional work amongst other work we've done. Personally I'm finding the written work gets in the way of everything and takes all my time when i'd prefer to do more practical work and more theory, but it's slowly getting done. The 60s tracks that we're doing - i'm a bit confused with atm. I was off ill on friday the 5th and Tim was off last friday so we couldn't practice the two covers songs and christina came up with a composition in the style of the 60s, which sounds really good. My main worry and concern is that i'm only needed on one song i don't know what i'm doing for the other two and we're playing live next friday. Not sure when we're going to get time to go through it all and decide before next week.

songs for the future of this year!

So far this year, i have started writing a track which uses a solo vocalist (mezzo soprano - based around my own voice), a choir (sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses) and orchestra consisting of flutes, clarinets, soprano sax, trumpets, bass trumpets, trombones, horns, violins, violoncellos, triangles, tambourines and a drum kit. I am hoping to get this song recorded at the latest at the beginning of next year along with any other songs i write in the meantime. I also plan to perform the Lander live with FranetiC and the LanderQuin in a club somewhere asap so we can publicize all of us and our work. Not sure yet how it's all going to work but i've been assigned the task for the three of us and so plan to get it sorted as soon as possible with a good set list - using whatever songs we can come up with together. Needs more sorting yet but hopefully can work it out before the year is up. That's my update for now on plans for this year.

songs i have been involved in writing!

These are the songs i have been involved in writing so far from last year!

http://soundcloud.com/charra

The songs include;

Coming Home - written by a group of us at the mill (myself, Glyn Read, Alex Fisher, Lawrence Landers-Cooke, Rob Munro, Simon Gregg and a team of others throwing in ideas as we went along. The song is performed by the band Sub Zero with myself, Glyn Read, Richard Digby-Smith and Sophie Williamson on the backing vocals.)

The Lander ft. LanderQuin - Written by FranetiC and the LanderQuin, I only helped with the engineering and the backing vocals on the track.

Broken Child - Written, produced and engineered by myself with the help of Christopher Raymont on the backing vocals and as assistant engineer.

Wednesday 27th October 2010

Finally, here's hoping it works!!!

I have tried and tried and tried for ages to get this up, it's the first track i've properly created ever so any constructive criticisms would be great! thanks

Broken Child by CharBakes

wednesday 27th October 2010

Well, 50s out of the way, over and done with, with no going back and changing it, we move on to the 60s. Last week's live lounge recordings for the college radio, Newton Abbot radio and Coombeshead College radio was a total shambles. Listening back to - at least my - vocals made me cringe. I thought i sounded awful. However, this time for the 60s I aim to make a much better job of it. Hopefully by then the Tech guys will have learnt what they are doing and can make a much better job of doing their jobs too, making our lives (the performers) easier with the ability to succeed in sight.
All the performer groups have chosen their cover songs to perform. My group have chosen to perform the covers; Wild Thing (poss) by The Troggs, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwRrXjWgkaY
These boots are made for walking by Nancy Sinatra; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRkovnss7sg
and I'm a believer by The Monkees; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfuBREMXxts
We've done really well in the practice we had this afternoon, we've managed to work out the whole of "i'm a believer" and "these boots are made for walking" on all the basic instruments (bass, guitar, vocals and drums) there's just a few other instruments needed adding to the "these boots are made for walking" such as a keyboard with the saxophone on (or some other jazy instrument) and some sort of percussion on both "i'm a believer" and "these boots are made for walking".
Tim's already working on an original 60s song for us to perform so when we return after half term we only really need to practice all of them over the corse of the three weeks remaining and then perform them live. Hopefully make a better job of it all this time..... :)

Wednesday 27th October 2010

As a follow on from the 50s style - these are the songs my group performed on the radio;

I need you - our original song

King Creole - this was one of our covers