"The Elephant Diet" Day 132 Green and White

Today I worked on getting all the files ready for Portraits of White to send to the engineer who will begin mixing all the Christmas music.  Portraits Of White is a fun song - stacked 106 tracks of vocals -

It's my Frances version of Enya and I love it!  All the vocals were done in my studio so I could focus on getting all the tracks I want for this piece.

It meant a phone call to TN to talk with Ronnie the engineer and clarify the lingo - consolidate files, set to zero, keep the pan settings and put them in the Dropbox as a WAV file in stereo separated by lead and harmony, file with reverb and one without reverb. 

Whew - I sent them off - hope they are right.  I'm sure he will let me know!

Ronnie Brookshire mixes most of my music and he's another Grammy winner who works magic to music.  Artists like Michael W. Smith, Nicole Nordeman, CeCe Winans, etc., appear on his client list. But when he answered the phone he was as friendly as a southern gentleman and I knew he would make sure I understand all the tech stuff to make this great.  A cordial "I feel like we're leaving ya to the dogs" comment wrapped up our conversation and I laughed.  I'm in good hands.

Other stuff on the agenda today?  

Green beans blanched and in the freezer

Learning how to organize my life with Evernote (a green app)

Listening to a new podcast I really like (while I did my 1200 jumps and 50 minute walk) called "The 5 a.m. Miracle"

Groceries

Recording vocals for the last song on the project "Sing A Song Of Joy"

Practice the piano

Financial matters for my mother 

Time to rest.

Podcast episode # 23 "Gone Too Soon"

Frances shares an interesting outcome from her interview with Chris Fabry on the Moody Radio Broadcast back in 2009.  Hear a few songs for some very special children!

Check out this episode!

"The Elephant Diet" Day 131 Hoof Stompin' Mamas

I started the morning of my last day in Nashville by walking/jumping through a beautiful housing development near my hotel.  Stately trees, perfectly manicured lawns and flower gardens decorated the yards of the mansions.  Much to my delight, I came upon five fawns in someone's yard who were not at all alarmed by my presence.  Eventually three doe appeared, probably their mamas I decided.

It was such an amazing sight, that I decided to sit down on the pavement and just watch them.  All at once, another doe appeared and perked up when she saw me.  She began to make her way over toward me and stopped.  Raising her right leg, she began to pound her hoof into the ground with distinct, quick movement.  It was so pronounced I began to wonder if I might be in danger.  Would a doe charge a human?  I had no idea and I began to get a little bit nervous.  All at once, she snorted and took off and everyone followed her.  At that same moment, I heard a snort behind me and turned to witness a deer bouncing off behind me.  Aha.  They must have been communicating with each other and I was the monkey in the middle.

When I arrived at the studio, I asked the guys if they knew why a doe would stomp at me.  They didn't seem to know, so I googled it and sure enough, a doe will stomp their hoof as a sign of danger or to establish territory.  In all my lifetime of seeing deer, I have never witnessed that and it was quite a moment to behold.

In fact, it made me a little bit late to the studio.

Precious Moments

Just as we began to wrap up all the vocals on Friday, my videographer arrived at Phil's studio.   Lights, camera, action.  It was a much more subdued session than the night before because Billy was trying to capture the essence of recording vocals which basically means I stand in a booth with headphones on and sing my heart out, while Phil sits at the computer and engineers.

After catching an interview with Phil, Billy zoomed in on me singing in the booth.  It feels a little bit odd to sing when a camera is buzzing around you.

After Billy packed up his equipment and left, we kind of just took a big breath to relax and then re-set the studio for an exclusive interview between Phil and I, compliments of Phil.

Working with Phil has been an amazing experience and I humbly asked if he would allow me to do an interview with him for my podcast.  He graciously agreed and informed me that he was doing more talking (between the video interview and the podcast interview) than he has done in 10 years.  I am getting a special thank you package ready to send to him as a BIG thank you!!!

I was so touched by the next hour of conversation that we had.  It was as if I stepped back into time and witnessed the beginning of this man's career and his dream to pursue music.  As he leaned back in his chair and reflected over years of experiences, I realized that I was witnessing a very precious gift and one that I don't take lightly.  I will treasure it forever.

No matter how hard those mamas stomp their hooves, it will not keep me away from Nashville, TN.  I might even write a song about them.