Heather Cairncross
By Heather Cairncross
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Podcast Description
Professional Singer Heather Cairncross takes you behind the scenes and in the studio
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HC012 | Tumour In My Freezer – My Friend’s Search For An Alternative Treatment For Cancer | To help a friend in her search for an alternative treatment for Cancer, I just put a piece of her malignant tumour in my freezer. Remember that I love to read your comments so feel free to comment in the box below this post. looks harmless enough? A strange request you might think, and it certainly made me think. It looked like a small, harmless, white and pink worm. It had been taken from the lump that had just been removed during surgery and put in a clear jar in a saline solution.How could something so small and innocuous do so much damage to the human body? Press Play To Listen Instead My friend Lynne came to live with me in my spare room in 1999. I had just left the Swingle Singers after ten years and with no work on the horizon my savings were dwindling fast. I advertised for a lodger and nobody who came seemed suitable to share my home with, until Lynne arrived. She was a bouncy, happy person, full of life. We chatted about her career as a film and tv background artiste (or Extra, as they were called back then) and she seemed ideal. I agreed that she could move in the next weekend and off she went back to London. Lynne rang me in the week and somehow managed to convince me that it was ok to bring her house rabbit called Rex (who’s hutch would be in her room!), two budgerigars and four canaries that she liked to let fly free and an octagonal fish tower. She even got me to agree to have the fish tank in the sitting room and there we all lived in the Hove Menagerie for a couple of years. Lynne regularly got up at 5am to travel to London in her little car for a long day’s filming on TV shows like Holby City, The Bill, East Enders and Judge John Deed. She was featured in many big films most notably Star Wars. There is even a playing card with her character on it – Kari Neth, the only female pilot! In her spare time Lynne had worked for The Hunger Project on a global level and also brought courses to the UK to help children and teenagers to learn skills that helped them to communicate better and be more confident and happy. She eventually moved out from my flat to go on an extended trip to Australia and New Zealand and when she came home, bought a flat nearby and we remained firm friends. Not long after this, Lynne developed a severe allergic reaction to mercury & amalgam in her fillings and despite this being confirmed in a patch test at Guy’s hospital, her fillings were removed without full protection. She ingested the very thing that she was so allergic to. The bubbly energetic person was reduced to somebody who endured great pain and overwhelming fatigue. Other people would have curled up in a depressed ball and given up, but Lynne had an idea for a project that she could work on from her bed, via the Internet, to keep herself positive. She went on to create something extraordinary. Despite her life being changed irrevocably by her illness, Lynne had become passionate about the cause for World Peace and shining a light on all the people who do good things in the world. She set up a website called www.PeaceInOurLifetime.org. Her dream was to allow people to declare that they stood for Peace. They could then download their Certificate for Peace with their personal number on it. (They didn’t even need to give an email address!) They could print it out, use it as a screen saver and even put it onto a mug or a tee shirt. A simple gesture, but Lynne’s thinking was that if she could get one billion souls on this planet to say “Yes, I stand for Peace” then there could be a shift of World Consciousness: rather like the concept of the butterfly’s wings altering the course of life. This movement has grown into a yearly concert that happens all over the world and is broadcast live on Peaceday.TV. Many huge global organisations including Peace One Day, Peace Jam (10 Nobel Laureates working with youth), Pathways to Peace, Humanity’s Team and Imagine Peace have collaborated with her. Lynne was made a Goodwill | 23 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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HC011 | Making An Album | How To License Music For A CD Part 2 | I’m still trying to find out how to license music for a CD and thought I’d update you on what I’ve discovered further. Remember that I love to read your comments so feel free to comment in the box below this post. You might remember in my first article on this subject that it was very unclear which order you had to do things. Manufacture or Licence. MCPS clearly stated on their website: If you’re not a record company you need to apply for an MP2 License and the process is as follows: 1. Customer fills in application form. 2. They send an invoice (within 10 days of receipt of application) 3. Customer pays invoice (within 28 days) 4. Manufacture of product can begin When I tried to do this I was stopped at the first hurdle by questions on the form that I just couldn’t answer. When I got home from tour, I telephoned a manufacturing company. I explained that I was trying to find out the best way to do things correctly and could they advise me? I told them that my understanding was that I would have to purchase the MCPS/PRS licence before a company would manufacture the CDs but I was finding it hard to fill in the MP2 form. The man was very helpful and told me that because of that very situation, they could manufacture CDs without all the licences in place but I would have to sign an IPR form. IPR stands for Intellectual Property Rights and would basically mean that I would sign a form stating that I owned the recording and had obtained the necessary licences. A bit like an accountant making you sign a disclaimer, saying that although they had prepared the accounts, you were wholly responsible for the information and figures provided. I found an IPR form online. This form states “Licenced content requires proof of licencing for replication”. So, even if the form was signed in order to shift any licensing misdemeanours to the customer, if the customer didn’t have the rights to make the CD, including having paid for the PRS/MCPS licence to be granted, then it all seemed a bit dubious. I called the MCPS Licensing department to get further advice. I told them I was trying to fill in the MP2 form but didn’t have some of the information required. Was it possible to leave those bits blank, as long as I knew the manufacturer details – They told me that yes, it was possible. So I went to the form and tried to leave the barcode box blank and it DID let you go to the next page. By the way: to get to the actual form you need to follow these steps: 1. Visit PRS Website Click on the drop down menu in the We’re Here For Music Users section and select physical product. Click go and then select the CD & Vinyl link on the next page Click on Retail Audio Products: AP1 and AP2 Licences Click Apply Now on the AP2 Licence and accept the terms and conditions…..you’re into the actual form – remember to save as you go along because if you are inactive for 40 minutes (zzzzzzzzz) it loses the information you’ve entered. You can read the guidance notes for completing the form (which are nice and clear – well done MCPS!) Ok – so I’m in the form and I immediately notice a column for ISRC numbers – what the hell are those? I looked back at my emails and remembered that Andy had suggested that, as I was a PPLUK member, I could set myself up a record company on my member profile. Once I had that information then the manufacturers could generate a catalogue number for the CD and I can put that on the MCPS/PRS form. I had done just that and realised that I already had the genesis of the ISRC number. I just didn’t know how to get the damn things for each track…..did they have to be different or was there one code for the whole album? I called PPLUK and the always helpful staff came to my rescue. They explained that I needed a number for each individual track. The ISRC number which PPL had created for me was : GB – 4B4 – 11 – 00001 The first part of the code is the country – straightforward. The second part is my | 18 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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HC008 | Making An Album | Finalising The Artwork For The CD Cover | On the last leg of making an album you need to finalise the artwork for the CD Cover. Remember that I love to read your comments so feel free to comment in the box below this post. CD manufacturers usually have a page on their website with templates for artwork. You can have a look at some examples here to get some idea. The company we’re using makes the actual CDs and produces and prints the artwork. So the things we needed to design were the cd label, the cd booklet (which slots into the front of the jewel case to act as the album cover, and the tray liner, which acts as the back of the album when holding the CD box. The shorter the booklet, the cheaper the total price. An old friend Graham Black, who is now the Art Director for the Economist magazine’ More Intelligent Life amazingly agreed to help design the artwork. He managed to squeeze all my content into an eight page booklet. Once we decided what the cover was, I had to choose what I would put in it. Some artists print the song lyrics. As all the songs are well known and easily available on the web, I decided not to do this. I had emailed David Newton asking him for a paragraph – I actually meant for him to write a CV about himself. Instead he wrote very kindly about the actual working process. This made me decide to tell a little of the story of how this CD came about and more importantly for me, I tried to explain my concept and aims: explaining why we had recorded the songs in one take. Now he’s finished the layout it’s up to me to spot final typos and mistakes. I keep leaving it and coming back for another look and every time I do, I spot something new. It’s amazing – the brain’s capability for filling in missing words and correcting things – you just don’t see them! Before I sent the final draft to Graham, I asked a few friends to work as proof readers (thanks especially to the Thomas family!) I re-wrote it many times trying to cut down my verbose writing style as much as I could. Then I had to do a short version of my CV – after over 20 years in the business that was very difficult. David managed his brilliantly – but then it was announced that he has been awarded Best Pianist at the British Jazz Awards for the TENTH time, so we had to amend the ‘final’ version at the last minute! Then it was the track list with timings and details of the composers and lyicists and finally the ‘thank you’ list. I certainly enjoyed that bit but it’s secret for now! So here are our cd comments: David: When it came to choosing my favourite eighteen from the fifty-four tracks that we recorded over two days, I had to do rather a lot of listening and the more I listened, the more I realised what an incredible singer Heather is. It was one marvelous take after another. To be frank, if it wasn’t for me dropping clangers here and there, this could have been a boxed set. The songs on the album were all written by people who knew exactly what they were doing and so effectively, that most of the hard work was already done. All we had to do was a bit of interpretation and personalisation to bring it all to life. Heather also, I discover, has a very rare quality when it comes to phrasing. She has a Sinatra-like ability to hold a note for ages and then finish the line without having to take an extra breath. For me that’s sheer technical artistry and that kind of attention to detail is just one more reason for you to enjoy her marvelous singing. One of the many wonderful attributes of the Great American Songbook is the flexibility most of the songs have. One can completely re-harmonise and bury the melody so that the listener has to dig deep to find it, or as in our case, celebrate the composers’ art but add a few surprises so that you don’t quite know what’s coming next. Heather: “During a recent gig at Steyning Jazz Club, I had to announce that we had thre[...] | 14 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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HC007 | Making An Album | How To License Music for a CD | When making an album, I needed to find out how to license the music for the CD from MCPS/PRS who administrate the mechanical royalties for the copyright holders and composers of the songs. Remember that I love to read your comments so feel free to comment in the box below this post. I visited the MCPS/PRS website and managed to find the relevant pages (which were not immediately obvious), so I thought I’d write about the process to help other musicians. I, like many of you, don’t have a record company to take care of the details. If you write your own material then you need to register that you own the songs and then you can exempt yourself from having to pay a license fee. Their website explains “MCPS songwriter, composer and publisher members have the right to set up an exclusion of their own record company from royalty collection arrangements.” If you record songs that you haven’t written and are still in copyright, like I have, then you have to pay a percentage of the price which you intend to sell the CDs. This is payable at the point of manufacture. The good news is that on the first run they allow you to make 250 in a run of 1000 units as ‘promotional’ items which excludes those units from the license fee. This is great news because the reality is that you need to send out as many copies as possible to reviewers and venues to try and promote yourself. The website explains: “You are entitled to a promotional quantity in order to promote the record. The allowance for promotional copies is 25% of the first manufacture. You will be allowed to manufacture this quantity royalty free. The allowance will be available where 500 or more copies of the product are being manufactured. The maximum is 400 units per format for a single and 250 per format for albums. If you wish to benefit from this option, you should tick the appropriate box on your application for Licence (AFL). If this option is chosen, the record’s packaging must be prominently marked ‘PROMOTIONAL COPY – NOT FOR SALE’. Promotional copies which go over your allowance must be licensed under the AP4 licensing scheme.” I had been told that you had to obtain the license before a company would manufacture your CDs but when I started to fill in the form, I didn’t get very far as I needed to know these things: The catalogue number The bar code The manufacturer’s name and address Exact track length The song publishers for each title So, it seemed you needed to choose a manufacturer first and answer those points. Fortunately for me, Andrew Cleyndert (who has his own record company Trio records) was at the end of a phone call to advise me. I realise that we don’t all have that help, so when I get home from tour, I will call up a CD manufacturers to see if it is possible for a civilian to get that information before applying for an MCPS/PRS license. If you’re not a record company you need to apply for an MP2 License. The website states in it’s FAQs that the process is as follows: 1. Customer fills in application form. 2. They send an invoice (within 10 days of receipt of application) 3. Customer pays invoice (within 28 days) 4. Manufacture of product can begin So the website seems clear that the License must be obtained before manufacture but I found that you couldn’t fill in the form without information only obtainable from a manufacturer. Confusing! MCPS say “You will need to issue your releases with a catalogue number for identification purposes. This can be whatever you want it to be, however we do advise you to try to make it unique to you e.g. MNPCD1 as opposed to CD1 as it will be easier to find.” I am a member of PPLUK, which is an organization that collects revenue from radio play and distributes the money back to the musicians who have registered as playing on particular recordings. Andy advised me that I could set myself up a record company on my member profile. Once I had that information then the manufacturers can gener | 9 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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HC006 | Making An Album | Use The Force! | Making An Album | Use The Force! When you’ve finished making an album you have to ‘Use The Force’ to get the CD noticed. Remember that I love to read your comments so feel free to comment in the box below this post. My sister (and marketing wiz) Nicola Cairncross and I have been racking our brains to come up with contacts – no matter how distant or tenuous, to try and spread the word. I started by approaching a good friend to send a copy to a well-known pianist/composer to ask for a quote for the cover. Hopefully, with her personal cover note, we may be lucky. My inclination was to wait until the CD was actually manufactured, so that it looked more professional, but Nicola was keen to get it out there and believes that people in the industry like to be in at the ‘ground level’. She thinks you have to try to make them believe that you’re sharing a wonderful secret, that they are lucky to be party to. Like most musicians that I know, I’m a bit rubbish at self-promotion and always feel awkward about approaching my colleagues. Nicola, on the other hand is totally fearless and will think nothing of going straight to the top. She messaged me on tour to say “it appears that Stephen Fry is following me, so I can message him: so I private messaged him with a link to the sneak preview of At Last. Hahahahaha there’s no stopping me now!” I wonder if Stephen will spot it amongst the huge pile of requests he receives? She was referring to a YouTube video she made, which has a copy of the album cover design as an image, with the title track playing. The video is not available for searching yet, so it’s a neat trick to get people interested. My delicate ears hate the fact that the YouTube platform spoils the beautiful quality of the audio which Andrew Cleyndert has created. Nicola thinks it’s an easy, quick link that busy people can click on, to see if they want to listen further. On the information about the track there is a short CV and history of the project with links to my website, and details where they can get hold of the whole album. While Nicola has been beavering away on Facebook and Twitter getting contacts, I’ve been running off CDs and printing out the latest proof of the CD cover and booklet. I’ve been really careful to put a clear contact address, website and phone number on the actual CD (they can easily get separated from the letter and artwork). I’ve then been drafting a short letter of introduction – outlining who was the initial person who ‘introduced’ us. Gradually, as I’ve started to get interest and feedback from various people I add that into the introduction letter as an incentive that the CD is worth a listen. Happily there has already been some really positive feedback that has spurred me on. Here are a couple of quotes: “WOW!!!!!! It’s absolutely stunningly beautiful! I’ve just listened to the album and have been mesmerised from start to finish. Wonderful. All my favourite tunes too! Ruddy love it!” “Heather’s voice is sublime and David Newton’s credentials are impeccable so yes, I’m impressed.” Nicola had contacted one person and received an email asking me to send some CDs. He called me when I was still asleep in my hotel bed in Pisa. The previous night we’d done a concert in Pisa Cathedral of Stravinsky and Bruckner with the Monteverdi Choir and I’d stayed up rather late chatting to my colleagues. He left a message telling me that he’d left a longer message on my home phone but had been cut off in the middle of giving me his home number. I rang home excitedly and retrieved that message where he said that he loved the album. He had already passed on the other two copies I had enclosed to a well-known Jazz Radio DJ, who had played it to his boss and would hopefully pass it on to their record label. He asked me if I could call him and when I’d picked myself up from the floor, I did. He turned out to be a DJ himself, as well as having a company tha | 4 11 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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HC009 | Making An Album | Learn To Trust Yourself | Whilst making an album, I’m discovering that you have to learn to trust yourself. Remember that I love to read your comments so feel free to comment in the box below this post. Heather and Dave during recording There are lots of decisions to make along the way and of course everybody has an opinion. From the terrifying moment when you start to play the recordings to your trusted friends and colleagues, through to choosing a picture for the CD cover. Of course, I did seek out opinions – there is so much I need help with. When Tom Chapman first offered to fund the album, I thought long and hard about the sort of recording I wanted to do. I’ve made so many musical friends along the way it was tempting to do an enormous collaboration, to experiment with some earth-shakingly different concept and indeed last year I was cooking up a very ambitious project involving lots of musicians. When it came down to it, I just wanted to get it done and keep it very simple. I wanted to draw on my years of vocal and life experience, trust in my technique and try and be true to the songs. I decided I wanted to sing in the same room as the pianist – no separation and no ‘dropping in’ and repairing sections that weren’t perfect. I wanted to record in the same way that the singers of the time would have done when the songs were originally written. Scary stuff! For my recording work, I am asked to sing in so many styles and make so many different sounds that it’s hard to remember what my voice is. On one memorable occasion, I was asked to audition for the singing voice of Miranda Richardson’s Witch in Danny Elfman’s score of Sleepy Hollow. In the email, they told us we had to sound child-like yet womanly; scary and yet innocent; unearthly yet earthly. All this, in about twenty bars of music. Here’s the extract from the soundtrack: On the day I did my best and the next day, after some choir sessions, the producer asked me to stay behind on my own to do a bit more. They had run out of time when recording one of the choirboys. The tune looked familiar to me, so I asked if they wanted me to sound like a boy. “No” said the voice in my headphones. “We’d like you to sound a bit more deceased for this one”. As this is my first solo album, which has been so long coming, I decided that it was important to sound like ME. Just sing, try and be as honest as I could with the lyrics – and get back to the core of the songs. Not have a producer to shape the performance. You can read more about the actual recording sessions in my previous article The fine jazz bass-player, Andy Cleyndert (who engineered the recording) sent three CDs to me by post. My sister Nicola Cairncross has been championing the whole idea and helping me with my website for some time, so when they arrived through the letterbox it just seemed right to listen together. We put the first one on and as soon as the first song finished, we both promptly burst into tears. We were so excited and relieved that the moment had finally come. Andy had really captured my voice in a way that I had always hoped I sounded. There were some fifty takes of eighteen songs. A couple started well and ended most amusingly with some colourful, Scottish swearing when Dave Newton played something he wasn’t quite happy with. (I’m tempted to compile an X-rated out-take version of that!) I was thrilled that nearly all of the takes could have been used, and most surprising to me was that every take was completely different from the previous version. As we listened I wrote down the track number and made notes. Strangely it seemed a simple task – the recordings that made me get a tingle (technical term) were the ones I put a tick by. I was carefully listening for overall vocal and piano performance but also the take that seemed the most honest. When I had chosen the ones I wanted, I had to try and fashion them into some sort of order. I made a list and noted down the keys. If songs a | 14 9 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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HC010 | Making An Album | The Big Day – The Recording Process | I wanted to tell you about the actual recording process and finally the big day had arrived. Remember that I love to read your comments so feel free to comment in the box below this post. I set off with the precious Neumann U87 microphone to drive round the M25. I was heading to the famous Ronnie Smith’s house in the outskirts of North West London to do a couple of days recording with David Newton. As we had decided to record so quickly after I first called Dave, in the week running up, I had been emailing back and forth with our suggestions and requests for song choices. I’d been desperately working away on the score-writing program Sibelius to finish the chord charts. They would be a starting point for Dave to weave his harmonic magic. He had been his usual, elusive self and was impossible to pin down on the keys he preferred to play the songs in. I had transposed a few songs into three or four different keys so we could try and get a variety. I hoped I had everything covered. I stopped off at the M&S services and bought lots of sandwiches, shortbread biscuits, hot cross buns, juice and some aptly named jazz apples (well it made me smile when I saw them). I know that musicians work better on full stomachs. We had agreed to aim to start work at midday. ( That’s Jazz Musicians for you!) Dave was also coming from Bath in Somerset. One thing I couldn’t control was the traffic and even though I’d left plenty of time, there was an accident near to the M3 and my car crawled along at walking pace for over an hour. I texted Dave, to tell him that I would be a bit late and asked them to set up without me. I arrived at half past twelve and Andy Cleyndert was nearly ready to start. I went through and met the owner of the house, Ronnie Smith who is friends with both Dave and Andy, and is also a fine pianist himself. He has a reputation for always having a good piano at his house and this was the reason we were there. Although I wanted to record in the same room as the piano, I was a bit concerned that my microphone was set up very close to the actual keyboard. Dave is not known for his silent playing and has a very low voice, which he finds hard not to use when he gets really involved in the music. I was rather worried his dulcet tones would spill onto my vocal microphone. There was however, a large horseshoe-shaped, metal contraption surrounding a vocal microphone which had acoustic panels on the inside. Andy took the Neumann microphone from me and set it up pointing upwards at one of his which he already had set up. He explained that he would record my voice on both microphones and then we would have a choice of sound. (I think it was secretly a scientific test to see if I could tell the difference). I got out my charts and we decided to start with the aptly titled “Where Do You Start?”. We chose a low key and Dave started working away on the arrangement to make the song his own. I sang along for a while and then decided to pop into the kitchen to get a pencil and a bottle of water. Andy changes some leads When I returned, the lads were laughing and I asked them why. Apparently when I had left the room, Andy had commented from inside the piano, where he was adjusting microphones, “How refreshing…..” then a long pause, followed by “a singer who can sing for a change.” This amused them both highly and, I must confess, put me at my ease. I’d been a bit nervous that he would think “oh no, a classical singer who thinks she can do jazz”. Andy was set up in the corridor with the computer and the recording controls and he pulled the door to and we set to work. When we’d finished our first whole take, Dave broke the mood as he announced in his Scottish drawl “No major **** ups there then.” The sandwiches and hot cross buns went down a treat between recordings and by the time Andy had to leave for a gig, we had finished four songs. He assured me that it was very simple for me to work the controls, so that | 12 9 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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HC004 | John Wilson Orchestra say ‘Hooray For Hollywood’ at The Proms 2011 | Today I was lucky enough to join the John Wilson Orchestra to say Hooray for Hollywood at the BBC Proms 2011. Remember that I love to read your comments so feel free to comment in the box below this post. I’ve started writing this on the train home to Brighton – whilst on the packed 52 bus to Victoria, I asked a promenader if they’d enjoyed the show and they replied: “It couldn’t have been better”. I first sang with John Wilson and his fabulous Orchestra two years ago in a celebration of the MGM musicals and again, last year, in a concert of Rogers and Hammerstein musicals. John has an amazing passion for the music from the golden age of musical films. For the first concert he got permission from MGM to recreate from ear the musical scores that had been buried under the golf course at the studios. An amazing feat, as the orchestra had a hundred players – not to mention the lavish choir parts and solo vocals. This year was no exception. John quipped in an interview with the Telegraph that the sellotape bill to stick together the band parts had come to over £1700! We were a little underpowered this year with a 98-piece orchestra. Our first rehearsal was at the BBC studios at Maida Vale in London and we started off with three hours with Christopher Dee – the chorus master of the Maida Vale Singers. The excellent BBC rehearsal pianist had no piano reduction or even just any chords to play from. We had no clue as to what we would hear before we sang, just endless bars of rests to count. After the dinner break, John Wilson and the soloists arrived and he sat at the grand piano and brought the whole score to life. He told us that this choir rehearsal, once a year, was the only time he played in public and apologized. Unbelievable to us, as he plays the scores without any music rather like some famous, matinee-idol pianist from one of the MGM films! John loves us to sing with a fast vibrato – a shimmering vibrato he describes it – and we did our best to create the sound he wanted. It’s interesting to do, as it’s not a sound that’s very fashionable in today’s singing world. John reminded us that his orchestra plays with a fast vibrato and if we could shimmer like them then we’d be ‘like peas in a pod’. All through the rehearsals he exhorted the players and singers to go further with the style and tone and assured us that if we did, then we couldn’t go wrong – and somehow, because he seems so unshakingly confident that we can deliver, everybody just does! At the beginning of the second rehearsal, Chris told us that once we had shown John the sound he wanted, we should save our voices as we had such a lot of music to get through. John looked up from the piano and turned to us, cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted in his broad Geordie accent “RUBBISH!” He demands 100% all the time from his players. In the Strike Up The Band medley we had to shout ‘Hooray’ and although we did it in the correct place we were a bit too short and sharp. John told us he wanted it longer, which we did the next time, and he smiled wryly and said, “trim about a quarter of an inch off that” Here are some other great phrases that John quipped during the rehearsals (try to imagine his gentle Geordie lilt): “In your head, think about the beautiful sound you’re already going to make, so that what comes out of your mouth is absolutely ravishing.” “Ignore the bar lines – they’re only the boxes the music comes in – that’s what Thomas Beecham said and he was right!” “I’ll give you two bars in: 1 – 2 – absolutely in tempo and I won’t budge – then we can’t go wrong.” Towards the end of the rehearsal the choreographer asked us if we were willing to learn Sit Down We’re Rocking The Boat from memory – and add movement. Everybody looked scared! We’d only just sight-read the music and the thought of having to sing it from Memory AND do the moves and possibly make a fool of o | 31 8 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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HC005 | Making An Album | Musical Mind Map – If You Build It….. | Whilst revising a musical mind map for making an album, I was reminded of “If you build it….” the phrase from Field of Dreams that inspires Kevin Costner to build a baseball pitch in the middle of a corn field. I found the trailer for the film on YouTube. It starts with Costner’s character saying “I have just created something totally illogical” and his wife replies “that’s what I like about it”. Then, to my amusement, some white words flash up on the black screen, one at a time: FIRST CAME THE VOICE My sister Nicola is a big fan of mind maps, and lists and white boards……in fact anything to do with stationary does it for her. I must confess to sharing her addiction – we like nothing better than starting a new project and realising that we need a specific, coloured pen or sticky label in a size we don’t have. I adore those little Post It Labels that you can put in your music to mark the place where you have to sing. Particularly the ones in the individual dispenser the size of a lipstick – so handy to put in your handbag for an emergency, musical marking situation. It’s the perfect excuse to visit the exciting shrine to stationary that is Staples. Oooh sorry – I got carried away…. Here’s a definition and example of a mind map: “A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid to studying and organizing information, solving problems, making decisions, and writing.” You put your aim or goal in the middle and then think about the steps that would get you there. You then break down those steps into smaller steps. Don’t be put off if things seem completely out of reach – eventually you’ll get to a branch of the map that you CAN do. The centre of my current mind map is my new album. Just over a year ago, I was sitting having coffee with my sisters and telling them how downhearted I felt about my singing career. I was having a very lean patch and was struggling to make ends meet. Although I had some very prestigious work, it was very sporadic and I was feeling that my age would soon catch up with me. Not vocally – I actually felt I was singing better than I ever had. It was the culture of ageism that exists in my business. I am somewhat lucky that I have a low voice and there are not so many of those about. Last Christmas we did a concert at Cadogan Hall with the Monteverdi Choir, where we realised that the oldest soprano was 27! I have always been lucky enough to be able to sing in lots of different styles. This increases my chances of work. I have spoken before in my article on the Susan Boyle Session about the precarious nature of the music industry and how easy it is to drop off the list of the all powerful Fixers. If you say no to a couple of jobs in a row, because you’ve already been booked for something else, then your face can be quickly forgotten. I’d been away doing an opera in Paris for a few weeks and I was worried that I had, indeed, dropped off the London session singing lists. My sisters asked me what I’d ideally like to be doing. I joked that I would prefer to stop waiting by the phone for others to book me for their projects and get on with my own music. In our family, we’ve never being able to sympathise with moaning for very long without making a positive plan of action. They immediately whisked out paper and pens (many coloured, of course). Nicola wrote in the middle of a circle “Heather’s Hit Album”. I groaned and we cracked open a bottle of wine to fuel the creative flow. What things would you need to make an album? Music (obviously), the recording, manufacture of the physical product and promotion….. Ok, maybe you haven’t got those, but what would you need to get those? The music can be broken up into musicians and repertoire. Those can be broken into lists of your ide | 23 8 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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HC003 | Making An Album | Choosing Songs & Vintage Microphones | Episode 3 sees me choosing songs and thinking about the best microphone to use on the new album. If you prefer to read click here >>> After the first flush of excitement, we knuckled down at Cairncross Castle to all the preparations for next weeks’ recording. The Real BookMy main task (apart from updating my blog) was to finalise the list of songs and make sure I had some clear charts for them. I know (and hope) that David Newton will probably largely ignore these and weave his own harmonic magic over the music … to read more click here >>> | 16 8 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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HC002 | Music For 18 Musicians In Cork & At The Proms | Welcome to episode 2 of my podcast. In it, I resume my diary of a travelling musician with a trip to Cork, Ireland and then to sing Music For 18 Musicians by Steve Reich at the Proms in the middle of the riots! If you prefer to read just click the previous link or just click below to listen or download. If you want to make sure you keep up to date, just subscribe to the podcast in iTunes, so every time you plugin and update your smart phone or iPad, the latest episodes will be downloaded automatically for your listening pleasure! Just like having your favourite magazine delivered to the house… | 13 8 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
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HC001 | Making An Album | How It All Started | This is very exciting as it’s my first ever podcast. In it, I tell the story of making my first solo album project; how it came into being, the man responsible for making it all happen and where we are up to with the project. Read more about making an album (part 1) here or just click to listen or download. If you want to make sure you keep up to date, just subscribe to the podcast in iTunes, so every time you plugin and update your smart phone or iPad, the latest episodes will be downloaded automatically for your listening pleasure! Just like having your favourite magazine delivered to the house… | 6 8 11 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 12 Episodes |
Customer Reviews
If you are interested in the world of music....
Heather Cairncross is a professional classical singer who writes amusingly about her travels around the world with the Monteverdi Choir, Synergy Vocals and singing at many top spots. An ex-Swingle Singer, from Sydney Opera House to Carnegie Hall, the Palace Of Verseille to Paris Opera House to the Barbican, taking in the Royal Albert Hall on the way (several times each year), she's sung there.
Heather has just recorded her debut solo jazz album entitled ironically "At Last", a collection of intimate love songs recurded with just voice and the sublime piano playing of David Newton, who's won "Best Piano Player" at the British Jazz Awards for the TENTH time!
In this podcast, as well as stories of life on the road (plane, car, bus) Heather shares the stories of how the idea of the album came about, how she and her friends and family brought it to life and to the music buying public.
