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March 27

Healing Circle DVD soundtrack and new project on the way..

Last night was spent finishing up a few mixes for the Healing Circle Message DVD.

Five songs in all have been completed and excepted by the Director. Whether all five make it in the DVD I can't say. This has been tough for me. I usually write things in minor keys and add a lot of tension and release. I felt for a message video tension was not something that would work well.
By 11:30 pm eastern time all the files had transferred over to the editor on the west coast. Now it's on to contracts, cue sheets and paperwork. UGH! But it is a necessary evil. Not that I don't trust the purchaser; I've known her for a while. It's just that it is good to have all things documented in case of outside influence toward the negative. Next week I'll concentrate on getting the CD together to sell through Cafe Press.

Heard from my brother today. He's got a rough cut of the short film he shot during his last visit to Virginia. I have to record a voice over this weekend for him, then start writing music for the film. He asked for an Elfman like soundtrack. But this weekend is concentrating on things around the house. Major concentration on the Media Center PC.

March 20

Good night in the studio...

Last night's studio session went very well. I had been playing with Fripps New Standard tuning, but have changed the tuning slightly. I'm calling it "New Standard Tuning Slightly Altered" I haven't written it down yet so I can't publish it yet. After the soundtrack is finished I'll try to remember to write it down. Basically I turned it onto a nice sounding open tuning. What I recorded last night was a piece that came out of noodling at the end of Wednesdays session. It's very much a Will Ackerman influenced piece. After recording the guitar I added some Native American flute and Japanese inspired percussion. I may just let it be as it is. I was thinking of adding some whispy synthesizer but nothing seemed to fit. My Brother, Sister in Law and my Mom are coming into town this weekend so Sunday night I'll mix the pieces recorded this weeekend and ship them to the West Coast for review.
My carpel tunnel is slowly going into remission. I can at least have a good night of playing guitar in the studio. Typing on the keyboard during he day still brings numbness in both hands.

March 12

Using Flicker to compose...

I am in the middle of composing and recording music for a DVD that will center on Message Therapy. The Producer/Director and Therapist like the first piece of music I send her. She didn't like the second piece. She said that the first piece gave her the feeling 'very "sitting on top of a mountain", that really works with this. Anything nature-feeling. The uptempo one sounds sort of in doors.' OK. I thought. How to I capture that feeling. So I turned to Flicker. I found some mountain pictures. Great ethereal feeling pictures from mountain views and of mountains. This helped put me into the mind set. A subject to compose to. A picture to compose to. It worked. The music that was inspired by the pictures that I was able to "fall" into and pull inspiration gave me what I needed. The music I sent to California on Wednesday was in her words 'That is SOOOOOO perfect. Exactly what I had in my head. More stuff like that is perfect. You were so at the mountains with that one!' So if you are stuck looking for inspiration and can't go where you need to for inspiration; try Flicker to put you in the mood.

A couple of pictures of acoustics used in the recording this week.

The guitar on the left I bought at a yard sale in 1985. It's a Yamaha Classical guitar with a cool pagoda shaped headstock. It has a warm mellow tone.
The guitar on the right is a Spanish made classical guitar date unknown, and the manufacturer is not around anymore. I salvaged it from a prop department in a theater in Pennsylvania. It's beat up, missing frets above the 13 fret, but it sounds fantastic. Clear, bright tone.

March 06

Full night of recording

Had a great full night of recording in the studio last night. Worked on 3 pieces. Last night was centered on the acoustic guitar. There was an uptempo piece that was really needing some nylon guitar leads. Used the Yamaha which has a nice mellow tone. Although I did notice that the intonation was off a little. It may need retooled. The next piece had the guitar recorded already so I added some simple piano lines. That piece needs much more work but it has a solid start. I started recording a piece for the classical guitar that was written in some tuning I hadn't documented but just came up with. I believe it is in D. It allows for some nice droning in the lower strings will working on an upper melody. Very Will Ackerman.
This weekend, I will concentrate more on some synthesizer pieces as well as some synth guitar centered pieces. Using the Roland GR-1 I can created patches with bass on the lower strings as well as maybe some atmospheric synths along with the traditional guitar over top. I can compose all in one shot similar to Vangelis using 2 hands and 3 or 4 synths.
There is a second goal this weekend; that is to get a windows machine up and running all the VST synths that I have. I'll run their audio into Logic on the Mac.
Oh and also help Amie unpack the house.

March 04

Studio being pieced back together

After a long weekend of moving; the family is slowly taking up residence at Harmon House. Studio set up started on Monday morning. First determining where desks were going. Then on to laying down carpeting. I have scheduled delivery of some material to Dr. Gruver this week for her DVD; so the equipment needed to be set up as soon as possible. I have more desktop space and more all around room then before; so synths like the Moog and Juno 106 (not pictured) can be set up and routed to the mixer, ready for some knob twiddling. Another new aspect of the new space is the inclusion of an actual desk to work at. Instead of trying to find space on top of a mixer or synth; I’ll have an actual desk to set up my laptop and notepad or the ever present cup of coffee.

On to the projects. I started working on music for the DVD soundtrack. I have a piece ready for mixing that might fit well as underscore for opening and or closing music. I’ll send that off tonight or first thing in the morning on Thursday. I sat down with the guitar yesterday with an un-standard tuning yet to be written down and came up with some thing that might be worked into a piece.

Second bit of business. Dr. Gruver also proposed that I record an full length companion CD that she could sell at her office, and lectures as well as a link to an online store. We are looking at the cost of it all this week. I proposed using Cafe Press as an online store and way for her to purchase only what she felt she could move. I’d have to have something together by April 1st to coincide with her DVD release. I am approaching this project as a guitar driven CD. Acoustic guitar in various tunings with accompanying instrumentation that will be a simple thread woven into the pieces. In away it will be a back to roots album for me. Similar to the ‘97 Winter Album that I wrote after spending some time in Arizona.

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Rick Reifenstein