Music Technology At Work
by
Steve Thompson
It's
8.30pm and I am having a nice drink after a recording session
in my studio. Why do I feel so pleased with myself? What I
am so pleased about is the fact that the session I have just
completed is somewhat unusual.
The
3 songs were written in Finland by Harri Kangas, produced
in Teesside by me, and sung by John Verity in Bedfordshire.
During this process none of the parties met, it was all done
using the Internet and new technology!
Late
in 1999 I was putting the finishing touches to my musical
Steel Town (www.stmedia.org.uk/steeltown) The musical is about
the closure of Consett Steel Works in 1980 and the effect
it had on the community. The show was due to be premiered
at South Shields Customs House in April 2000 and in September
at Consett on the 20th anniversary of the British Steel closure.
As
a result of someone wishing to buy my house on Tyneside I
found myself moving to Teesside (some 40 miles south )during
the run of Steel Town at the Customs House. Talk about stress!
The
follow up to the Steel Town show is now in the pipeline and,
in the Lloyd Webber/Rice tradition it has begun with not an
album but a website (www.loveworkandwar.com) Songs Of Love
Work And War looks at working class life in the north-east
of England. However, unless my collaborator on this work,
playwright Tom Kelly gets his PC hooked up to the Internet,
this is going to be difficult work given the distance between
us The first theatre dates are booked and we only have half
the material written!
Next
problem: I recorded a couple of albums with ex Argent front
man, John Verity (www.johnverity.com) and he is keen to collaborate
again. How can we do this - again there is a distance factor
and a lack of time.
And
another prob: I have for a long time been producing recordings
for other writers. I read all this stuff about search engine
placement, which I totally ignore. I find that if you have
a relevant (to the subject) website up for long enough people
will find it. Songwriters have found mine (www.stmedia.org)
and as a result I am recording songs for writers in the USA,
Sweden, Canada, Russia and of course Harri Kangas in Finland.
The problem is, I have moved to Teesside and it is costing
me a fortune to bring the Tyneside session vocalists down
here. For some reason I just can't find Teesside singers.
Then last month I attended a seminar at the Cybersalon on
the Mall in London. There was a software presentation in which
4 musicians in different parts of the world were collaborating
on a recording session. The music was kind of techno but I
heard a chorusof heavenly angels! Here was the answer to all
my problems. A way to collaborate on the new CD with John
Verity and a potential way to find new singers to do my sessions.
Within
an hour of returning home I was posting to some e-lists about
global session vocalists and the next day I had a singer in
Amsterdam, another in Norfolk and John Verity in Bedfordshire
also agreed to do some e-sessions.
And
so Harri Kangas became the first beneficiary of my global
recording sessions. I hasten to add this was not techno music.
Harri wanted a Guns'n'Rose/Alice Cooper type sound so my trusty
1971 Stratocaster was called upon. However modern technology
made this collaboration possible. We did not use technology,
simply because it was there, new technology made possible
some thing that could otherwise not be achieved. This was
technology at work !
Originally
published in sentinel
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