Announcing a new project!
All of us together on a rare cold January day in Tucson
Let's take this piece by piece.
THE OSBORN FAMILY because it is going to involve our whole family. That includes me, husband Tony, daughter Rosie, son-in-law James, daughter Sonja, son-in law Eboy, and son Russell.
TRANS-PACIFIC because three of us are on the America side of the Pacific Ocean, and four of us are on the Asia side of the Pacific Ocean.
RECORDING because that is what we are going to do. We are going to record music together - sort of. We have a master studio at home here in Arizona, and our kids have satellite studios at their homes in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo and in Okcheon, South Korea.
PILOT PROJECT because, although our family is not new to recording music together, we are new to recording tracks, sending them across the ocean, recording more tracks, sending them back across the ocean, and - well, you get the idea.
So we are going to try this out, and if it works well, we will keep the project going. In fact, even if it does not work well, we will keep it going. We will evaluate and tweak and evaluate and tweak, and hopefully we will keep getting better as we work.
Rosie & Sonja working out keys - trying it in E first
The first thing was to decide what song to record. Everyone seemed to agree that the first song we record should be "Take Me Home, Country Roads" (words & music by Bill Danoff, Taffy Nivert, and John Denver). When we went to Borneo for our daughter Sonja's wedding celebration in 2018, we found out that "Take Me Home, Country Roads" is a huge hit in Sarawak, and we sang it at the wedding celebration. It was a crowd-pleaser, and it pretty quickly turned into a family favorite. (To be honest, it became a family favorite while we were rehearsing it around the fire the night before. To be really honest, it was already a family favorite.) The lyrics might not be exactly the same as we sing in America, and the video below hints at that.
Trying it out in the key of D (with creative lyrics)
The next thing was to work out a key that would work for all voices, and be guitar-friendly, and be banjo-friendly. I think we've finally settled on D. It isn’t perfect for every voice and every instrument, but it’s a good, solid compromise. We have our lyric sheet so everybody can practice. We’ve worked out who is singing lead and when, and who is singing harmony and when. At least we have a pretty good idea.
Next is a basic piano track, which will probably not even be in the final product. And I need to play around with the software and get to know it. I love this! See you next week!
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