There are many things that are going on this semester, inside of music and outside, that I am drawing inspiration from. However, one of the main things is something that I didn't mention that happened last week. On Wednesday last week, we got a visit from Miles McPherson and his father Jerry McPherson. Miles is the drummer for Kelly Clarkson and has also done a lot of studio work, but pales in comparison to his dad, Jerry. Jerry is one of the greatest studio guitar players on the planet. He has worked on many, many, MANY records in his day as well as toured with Amy Grant and Faith Hill. He played on the latest Carrie Underwood album, played on almost every Toby Keith album, the latest Tim McGraw album, various Point of Grace and David Phelps albums and a couple of Keith Urban songs. However, that is all since the year 2000!! This guy is ridiculous!! Anyways, they visited to teach us about studio music and stuff and they actually played on Stephanie Spitnale's track and it was absolutely amazing to see how much one or two instruments and turn a song around. I mean not to say that our players here aren't great, but just adding drums on the track before we even touched guitars, the whole song took a new form and had new life. It was quite remarkable.
So Steph had to leave on Sunday and I was pretty sad. I'm really glad she got to come down and see me though. I really enjoyed having her around and seeing what I do everyday. It is tiring and time-consuming but it is so worth it!! Also, Hammer Time was on Monday and I'm pretty sure I got the best compliment that I've gotten since I've been here. After we played a little bit of Maxine's second song, he stopped us, looked at me for a second, then looked at everyone else and said, "Who on earth is back there playing drums?! Is that not a completely different drummer from 5 weeks ago?!" I was happy to hear that, lol. I feel like I've improved but I put myself down more because I feel like I should be so much better.
So I mentioned drawing inspiration from things other than music. My wonderful mother bought me the 3rd season of Chuck and I haven't been able to put it down. That is hands down, my favorite show in the world. It is the one show that captivates me not only just to watch it but I'm so emotionally invested in this show to the point where I begin to yell at the computer screen while watching it (doesn't sound like me at all, lol!). Anyways, so I've actually been inspired to really write a song and I mean really take the time to work on it. I'm writing this song because I was inspired by the emotional love rollercoaster of Chuck and Sarah on the show. I'm not going to mention their names and stuff like that but I'm going to attempt to write a nice song about relationships like that. I thought about it and didn't know for sure until Morgan, another character on the show, gave me the nudge to do it with one of my favorite quotes by him on the show..."Love Is A Battlefield". That quote just seemed to speak to me and decided to write about it. I'm not the greatest of songwriters but hopefully this one will turn out nicely. We'll see, who knows, lol. Well, I think that gets you up to speed pretty well. Other than the usual that I always do, rehearsals and recording. The fun never ends around here, which is definitely a good thing!
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
"It's Been...One Week..."
Sorry...90s music reference if you didn't catch that. One of the staple songs of the 90s Pop genre, "One Week" by the Barenaked Ladies. Anyways, so it's been that long since I've updated so I have to let you know what went on this week. I wasn't able to go to church this week because practice times were moved up because of the Grammys on Sunday night because there was a party at Tom Willett's house, which I didn't go to but wish I did. I wish I would've went only to hang out with everyone, not to watch the Grammys at all because I wasn't too big on the show itself. Yes, the 2 minute performance of Dolly Parton's "Jolene" with Keith Urban, John Mayer and Nora Jones was about the best performance of the night. Also, the fact that Keith Urban won a Grammy for Best Country Male Vocal Performance, which was great; definitely made my day on Sunday. However, after the Grammys, we had a recording session with Maxine, which we recorded "Bring It", which is an awesome song!!
Anyways, Monday was of course Hammer Time and surprisingly, it went pretty well. After Hammer Time was Meredith's recording session, which in the beginning, we thought was great but found out later that apparently everything fell apart and wasn't together, so Wednesday morning we had to come in the studio at 6:30 to redo the whole thing, ugh!! Anyways, on Monday, I found out that Ben Kasica is leaving Skillet after being with the band for 10 years...so, so sad. Ben is such a great guitar player and I hate to see him leave the band. Monday and Tuesday let up a little bit because most of my recording sessions are on the weekends, so all I have to concentrate on are rehearsals during the week mainly.
On Thursday, of course, we have soundcheck and the show. However, we were renting out our building to a record label for a showcase on Thursday afternoon from 12-6, so we had to do soundcheck at 8 am in order to have everything ready to go for Thursday night. Again, I have to get up at the crack of dawn to do something...oh joy. However, Steph came down on Thursday night to see the show and to spend time with me this weekend, so that was definitely awesome!! However, aside from the record label messing with our normal schedule, the show on Thursday night went great. It improved so much from last week (not that last week was terrible, but it was definitely the worst show so far). I again, played for 4 bands this week (Kylie, Dan, Karissa & Tavis). This whole semester has been great and will continue to be great but the best moment that I feel, as of right now cannot be topped, was playing "Dream On" live with Tavis and his awesome band. We are so full of talent and we pulled it off nicely. Big shout out to Tyler for knocking out the awesome guitar licks to that song and to Tavis for actually using the scarves on the microphone just like Steven Tyler and really pulling off a really great performance. After the show, we had an after-party at a bowling alley, which was so much fun. It was great to be out of the building and at the same time, having all of these people with me and having a great time doing something other than music. However, the highlight of that night was definitely me winning 2 games of bowling against Zach, Dan, Steph, Rose and Karissa. The second game was definitely better because I got to make an awesome comeback, which is always exciting.
Game Tape on Friday went pretty well, but definitely some things to work on. And yet another week starts at the CMC as we started another round of rehearsals and performances. The administrators decided to change plans and only go with 2 songs per artist this week so we can trim the line-ups down to 2 weeks instead of 3 so we can begin preparing for tour. I'm not sure about all of the tour details yet but I will fill you in when I get them. However, this week, I am playing for Meredith, Maxine, Josh & Ashley. I'm pretty excited for all of them and am super relieved that we only have to do 2 songs, which will make things so much easier. However, right now, I am currently in the studio with Dan, mixing his master track called "Let This Go", which we performed the other night. After Dan, I will stay in the studio with Josh for last minute adjustments and mixing on his track called "Set Me Free". We also have a show coming in tonight by Will Gray, a CMC Semester 2 Alumni. However, tomorrow I will also be in rehearsals and the studio all day. I should probably pay attention to my wonderful fiance here, who is currently laying on the couch in the studio, looking pretty bored. However, she did say she wanted to get up early with me and go see what I do on an everyday basis...and this is what I do. Anyways, gotta run!!
Anyways, Monday was of course Hammer Time and surprisingly, it went pretty well. After Hammer Time was Meredith's recording session, which in the beginning, we thought was great but found out later that apparently everything fell apart and wasn't together, so Wednesday morning we had to come in the studio at 6:30 to redo the whole thing, ugh!! Anyways, on Monday, I found out that Ben Kasica is leaving Skillet after being with the band for 10 years...so, so sad. Ben is such a great guitar player and I hate to see him leave the band. Monday and Tuesday let up a little bit because most of my recording sessions are on the weekends, so all I have to concentrate on are rehearsals during the week mainly.
On Thursday, of course, we have soundcheck and the show. However, we were renting out our building to a record label for a showcase on Thursday afternoon from 12-6, so we had to do soundcheck at 8 am in order to have everything ready to go for Thursday night. Again, I have to get up at the crack of dawn to do something...oh joy. However, Steph came down on Thursday night to see the show and to spend time with me this weekend, so that was definitely awesome!! However, aside from the record label messing with our normal schedule, the show on Thursday night went great. It improved so much from last week (not that last week was terrible, but it was definitely the worst show so far). I again, played for 4 bands this week (Kylie, Dan, Karissa & Tavis). This whole semester has been great and will continue to be great but the best moment that I feel, as of right now cannot be topped, was playing "Dream On" live with Tavis and his awesome band. We are so full of talent and we pulled it off nicely. Big shout out to Tyler for knocking out the awesome guitar licks to that song and to Tavis for actually using the scarves on the microphone just like Steven Tyler and really pulling off a really great performance. After the show, we had an after-party at a bowling alley, which was so much fun. It was great to be out of the building and at the same time, having all of these people with me and having a great time doing something other than music. However, the highlight of that night was definitely me winning 2 games of bowling against Zach, Dan, Steph, Rose and Karissa. The second game was definitely better because I got to make an awesome comeback, which is always exciting.
Game Tape on Friday went pretty well, but definitely some things to work on. And yet another week starts at the CMC as we started another round of rehearsals and performances. The administrators decided to change plans and only go with 2 songs per artist this week so we can trim the line-ups down to 2 weeks instead of 3 so we can begin preparing for tour. I'm not sure about all of the tour details yet but I will fill you in when I get them. However, this week, I am playing for Meredith, Maxine, Josh & Ashley. I'm pretty excited for all of them and am super relieved that we only have to do 2 songs, which will make things so much easier. However, right now, I am currently in the studio with Dan, mixing his master track called "Let This Go", which we performed the other night. After Dan, I will stay in the studio with Josh for last minute adjustments and mixing on his track called "Set Me Free". We also have a show coming in tonight by Will Gray, a CMC Semester 2 Alumni. However, tomorrow I will also be in rehearsals and the studio all day. I should probably pay attention to my wonderful fiance here, who is currently laying on the couch in the studio, looking pretty bored. However, she did say she wanted to get up early with me and go see what I do on an everyday basis...and this is what I do. Anyways, gotta run!!
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Another One Bites The Dust...
Yes I'm talking about yet another CMC Live behind us, but this one wasn't my best. Yes, I did get to cover "Gunpowder & Lead" with Maxine and it was awesome!! I hit my fast triplet fills to a "t" but I did get made fun of for doing the "cocking the gun motion" with my drumsticks in the middle of the song, but that's ok; I was feeling it and we were really grooving that song. However, I just felt so uneasy about the songs and I'm not sure why. However, it was another live performance for me to learn from.
We didn't get much of a Friday break because the main studio is now up and running so we got a quick tour of that and it was back into the rehearsal room. I have 4 acts again this week, seems to be an ongoing thing; I am playing for Tavis, Kylie, Karissa & Dan. I'm super excited about Tavis's set this week because we are covering "Dream On", which if you didn't know is by the greatest rock band in American history, Aerosmith!! We practiced it for the first time today and it was pretty rockin'!! However, today was really consumed with the beginning sessions of recording. Three of the artists that I play for had their recording sessions today (Dan, Josh & Kylie). However, I also had 4 rehearsals today which interfered with the recording times, which also happens tomorrow and pretty much everyday this week. Therefore, what does Chris get to do? For every recording session that I can't be at, I had to schedule a time slot to record all of the drum tracks for those artists; that time slot is on Saturday night from 11pm-4am. Talk about a bummer...but it won't be that bad because I won't be in there the whole time. After getting through today and having virtually the same schedule tomorrow, I think they'll only be 3 or 4 artists that I will have to track drums for at the last minute, so it won't be terrible. However, I'm pretty sure this is what I signed up for so I can't really complain now. I'm just thinking about looking into prices for futons and putting one over there; now all I need is some kind of butler service and a shower over there and I could just move in, lol.
So rehearsals are going very well and I'm still pumped and in the groove of the place but my energy is starting to drain. Next weekend, my wonderful fiance and her family is visiting so that will be an incredible "energy pick-me-up" and then the next weekend, 12 of us CMCers are going to see Brad Paisley, Darius Rucker & Jerrod Niemann in concert; that will be followed by a CMC Group Trip to a cabin in the Smokies. So, maybe I won't want to go insane. However, next week also starts CMC Lives with each artist playing 4 songs, but thank God that Warren decided he is going to cut down the number of artists that play each time and we're dividing it into 3 weeks instead of 2. Hallelujah, maybe I won't have as much practicing, lol!! But ya know, practice is the only time where you can improve, so I don't not want to do it, it's just I have so many in a row!! But like I said before, it's what I asked for, so it's what I'm getting. All in all, I love this place!! We're already 1/3 of the way through the program and I'm going to be really sad to see it end! I will miss all of these people like crazy but I know they will be lifelong friends!! However, the bright side to this program ending is: 2 weeks later, I'm getting married!! You can't get much better than that!! :-)
We didn't get much of a Friday break because the main studio is now up and running so we got a quick tour of that and it was back into the rehearsal room. I have 4 acts again this week, seems to be an ongoing thing; I am playing for Tavis, Kylie, Karissa & Dan. I'm super excited about Tavis's set this week because we are covering "Dream On", which if you didn't know is by the greatest rock band in American history, Aerosmith!! We practiced it for the first time today and it was pretty rockin'!! However, today was really consumed with the beginning sessions of recording. Three of the artists that I play for had their recording sessions today (Dan, Josh & Kylie). However, I also had 4 rehearsals today which interfered with the recording times, which also happens tomorrow and pretty much everyday this week. Therefore, what does Chris get to do? For every recording session that I can't be at, I had to schedule a time slot to record all of the drum tracks for those artists; that time slot is on Saturday night from 11pm-4am. Talk about a bummer...but it won't be that bad because I won't be in there the whole time. After getting through today and having virtually the same schedule tomorrow, I think they'll only be 3 or 4 artists that I will have to track drums for at the last minute, so it won't be terrible. However, I'm pretty sure this is what I signed up for so I can't really complain now. I'm just thinking about looking into prices for futons and putting one over there; now all I need is some kind of butler service and a shower over there and I could just move in, lol.
So rehearsals are going very well and I'm still pumped and in the groove of the place but my energy is starting to drain. Next weekend, my wonderful fiance and her family is visiting so that will be an incredible "energy pick-me-up" and then the next weekend, 12 of us CMCers are going to see Brad Paisley, Darius Rucker & Jerrod Niemann in concert; that will be followed by a CMC Group Trip to a cabin in the Smokies. So, maybe I won't want to go insane. However, next week also starts CMC Lives with each artist playing 4 songs, but thank God that Warren decided he is going to cut down the number of artists that play each time and we're dividing it into 3 weeks instead of 2. Hallelujah, maybe I won't have as much practicing, lol!! But ya know, practice is the only time where you can improve, so I don't not want to do it, it's just I have so many in a row!! But like I said before, it's what I asked for, so it's what I'm getting. All in all, I love this place!! We're already 1/3 of the way through the program and I'm going to be really sad to see it end! I will miss all of these people like crazy but I know they will be lifelong friends!! However, the bright side to this program ending is: 2 weeks later, I'm getting married!! You can't get much better than that!! :-)
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Just Another Day In The Life...
So again, it's been a little while since I updated so let's get you up to speed on everything since last Friday. Friday of course started our new week which began another round of rehearsals. This week I am playing for Josh, Luke, Meredith and Maxine. Meredith being the only one that I haven't played for yet but I'm glad I'm playing for her this week. She is doing a song that one of her roommates, Whitney, wrote about her mom and it is lyrically, the best I've heard come out of any of the artists down here...and she isn't even an artist!! I guess because of losing Mom over 2 years ago, it just really hit home for me, but it's an incredible song and I'm so happy to be playing on it. Luke, of course, is rocking it out this week, which is so much fun as always. Josh's set is interesting this week because he is throwing an original in there, which he has never done before; so we're all pretty proud of him for that. However, I'm pretty sure my favorite song of the week to play will be the last song in Maxine's set. Her first two songs are originals and are great, don't get me wrong. However, the last song in her set is a cover of "Gunpowder & Lead" by Miranda Lambert and holy cow!! Maxine knocks this song out of the park!! And on top of that, it is so much fun to play with Zach and Joe dueling the guitars and Ashley playing keys brings an awesome element to the song that I hadn't really heard before. Also, we added Stephanie today on background vocals and just made the chorus pop; so the song is even more exciting to play now!!
Other than that, it has been rehearsal after rehearsal. On Sunday, however, we went back to Brentwood Baptist to church and went to the more contemporary service, which was pretty good. The thing that amazed me the most is that they streamed the sermon on the screens from the actual worship center, no big deal right? But it gets better my friends; during the prayer they brought down this huge screen in the middle of the stage and projected the pastor on there as well. However, they used some sort of technology, or maybe just a normal projector, to project him as if he was actually walking on the stage. It honestly took me a couple of minutes to figure out if he was on our stage or the other one!! It was incredible!! Maybe I'm just easily amused! And I say all of that to say that my week hasn't been entirely the same as other weeks. Saturday morning on my way to rehearsal, Warren, our director, stopped me and asked me what I had going on Monday night (last night) and I said I have a 5:00 rehearsal but other than that just the community dinner and movie that we have every week. And he was like, okay, you're skipping it, and I was a little confused and asked why. He was like, "I just talked to Jason Halbert (REMINDER: Kelly Clarkson's band leader) and he is doing a project down at Quad Studios in Nashville on Monday evening and he invited you and Evan (another drummer here) to come check it out; I was like...uh...yeah!! Well, I didn't find out until yesterday right before we left that we were actually going to watch the drums being tracked for the upcoming Newsboys single that Jason is producing!! How cool is that?! So we were at the studio for quite a while because they were having trouble hooking some stuff up but that's okay because it gave us a chance to hang with Jason, Juan (a guy that wrote on the Newsboys' last album Born Again) and Shane Wilson, the engineer. Shane's most recent project, I believe if I understood Jason correctly, was with Third Day...no big deal right?! Yeah, I was in the same room with these guys for like 4 hours!! Ridiculous!! And the session drummer that played on the base track for the single was a guy named Derek Wyatt (I think, lol!). He is actually on tour with Point of Grace right now, which I thought was sweet!!
Anyways, so really puts you up to speed as to how my week is going. Oh yeah, and one other thing; about 12 of us from here at the CMC got together and decided we wanted to go to a concert. Therefore, the day before we leave for our retreat at the Smokies, we are going to see Brad Paisley, Darius Rucker and Jerrod Niemann in Nashville; pretty cool right?! Yeah, I thought so too!! I'll update as soon as I can; the week really starts to pick up tomorrow because we have portrait shots and big time rehearsals before CMC Live on Thursday. And then, as I've quoted many times before, it all starts over again!!
Other than that, it has been rehearsal after rehearsal. On Sunday, however, we went back to Brentwood Baptist to church and went to the more contemporary service, which was pretty good. The thing that amazed me the most is that they streamed the sermon on the screens from the actual worship center, no big deal right? But it gets better my friends; during the prayer they brought down this huge screen in the middle of the stage and projected the pastor on there as well. However, they used some sort of technology, or maybe just a normal projector, to project him as if he was actually walking on the stage. It honestly took me a couple of minutes to figure out if he was on our stage or the other one!! It was incredible!! Maybe I'm just easily amused! And I say all of that to say that my week hasn't been entirely the same as other weeks. Saturday morning on my way to rehearsal, Warren, our director, stopped me and asked me what I had going on Monday night (last night) and I said I have a 5:00 rehearsal but other than that just the community dinner and movie that we have every week. And he was like, okay, you're skipping it, and I was a little confused and asked why. He was like, "I just talked to Jason Halbert (REMINDER: Kelly Clarkson's band leader) and he is doing a project down at Quad Studios in Nashville on Monday evening and he invited you and Evan (another drummer here) to come check it out; I was like...uh...yeah!! Well, I didn't find out until yesterday right before we left that we were actually going to watch the drums being tracked for the upcoming Newsboys single that Jason is producing!! How cool is that?! So we were at the studio for quite a while because they were having trouble hooking some stuff up but that's okay because it gave us a chance to hang with Jason, Juan (a guy that wrote on the Newsboys' last album Born Again) and Shane Wilson, the engineer. Shane's most recent project, I believe if I understood Jason correctly, was with Third Day...no big deal right?! Yeah, I was in the same room with these guys for like 4 hours!! Ridiculous!! And the session drummer that played on the base track for the single was a guy named Derek Wyatt (I think, lol!). He is actually on tour with Point of Grace right now, which I thought was sweet!!
Anyways, so really puts you up to speed as to how my week is going. Oh yeah, and one other thing; about 12 of us from here at the CMC got together and decided we wanted to go to a concert. Therefore, the day before we leave for our retreat at the Smokies, we are going to see Brad Paisley, Darius Rucker and Jerrod Niemann in Nashville; pretty cool right?! Yeah, I thought so too!! I'll update as soon as I can; the week really starts to pick up tomorrow because we have portrait shots and big time rehearsals before CMC Live on Thursday. And then, as I've quoted many times before, it all starts over again!!
Friday, February 4, 2011
"It's Been A While..."
...since I've updated this thing, sorry everybody. This week has been super busy. Hammer Time on Monday went pretty well, had a few things to work on with each group but through tough practices, we got everything down. Therefore, last night was AWESOME!! Yes, last night was our second CMC Live show and it rocked. I opened the show with Kylie and the set went really well actually, we were pleased. However, we did get quite a few pointers during Game Film this morning but more on that later. Next on stage was Tavis and we had a blast. Tavis was singing like it was his last day on this earth, so much that during the second song, he over-powered the track in my monitor. However, it still went super well and I can't wait to work with Tavis again in the future. Next was Josh on stage. Let me tell you, Josh has come so far this semester, even so far since Hammer Time on Monday. He stood up there and was in the groove with all of us; the band was very tight during that set and Josh loved every minute of it. He didn't rush at all, just took his time and performed each of those songs the best he had ever done them. I was so happy to be part of that experience for him. After that I finally got to come off stage because I wasn't playing for the fourth act but it was right back on for the fifth. Luke was fifth and let me tell you, we rocked that set. It was two pretty rockin' songs and we tore the house down. Luke got so excited and missed a few lines on the second song but that's okay because we were all just jamming out and having a good time. I actually got a little dizzy jamming so hard but it was so much fun. After the show I got quite a few compliments from many people, including Rick, my songwriting teacher and Tom, the co-founder of CMC and professor over the Execs. I was super super thankful for those moments. And then of course, we had our After Party and had a blast. Just getting to chill with the other 31 CMCers after a show is so much fun.
So we actually got to sleep in a little this morning and then headed off to Game Film. It is always very nice to look back on performances and see what you can improve. In all of my sets, Warren said they were all great but of course, there is always room to make each thing better, no matter how good it is. And then, by the end of Game Film, Warren asked how tired me and a couple of the other people were because we've carried much of the instrumental load as far as playing for people goes. Then, we found out that on Fridays after lunch we are going to have 2 hours of chill time, which is much needed. They are pushing rehearsals back 2 hours so we can chill. Speaking of rehearsals, I've got one in 10 minutes so gotta run, but I'll try to be more up to date on this thing. Honestly, the extent of my week was rehearsals, rehearsals and rehearsals, lol!
So we actually got to sleep in a little this morning and then headed off to Game Film. It is always very nice to look back on performances and see what you can improve. In all of my sets, Warren said they were all great but of course, there is always room to make each thing better, no matter how good it is. And then, by the end of Game Film, Warren asked how tired me and a couple of the other people were because we've carried much of the instrumental load as far as playing for people goes. Then, we found out that on Fridays after lunch we are going to have 2 hours of chill time, which is much needed. They are pushing rehearsals back 2 hours so we can chill. Speaking of rehearsals, I've got one in 10 minutes so gotta run, but I'll try to be more up to date on this thing. Honestly, the extent of my week was rehearsals, rehearsals and rehearsals, lol!
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