Welcome to the Polar Plunge Train Station!
Cali bear protecting my photoshoot setup :p
DAYS ACTIVITIES: Join me this morning at 11am on Facebook Live for some live singing, a fun Thanksgiving themed game and more chances to win prizes, woop woop!
SONG PREVIEW: You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch!
PRIZE: A signed Christmas Album, a signed “The Awakening” album and a commemorative “Magic of Christmas” coffee/tea mug!
HOW TO WIN: To win is a two fold process :) I’ll be combining the following:
1. Thanksgiving icebreaker game: We’ll be playing a Thanksgiving icebreaker game. Whoever answers all the questions and has either the funniest, most memorable or most heartfelt (etc) answers will win this portion.
2. Pre-Save my album on Spotify and share a screenshot on a social platform of your choice. Tag myself and use the hashtag #TheMagicOfChristmasEP
Spotify is the new radio. It’s one of the main ways artists get discovered today. Even the Grammy’s pay attention to an artist’s success or lack there of on Spotify. Pre-saving my album will go a long way in helping me to reach a wider audience and potentially even win my own Grammy one day!
It would mean the world to me if you could please pre-save my album by clicking here.
Unlocked Content
You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch
How I ended up working with the wonderful Becky Willard/Vox Fox Productions
If you didn’t watch my live yet, I talk about how working with Becky was a dream collaboration that I wanted to do, but almost did happen.
At this point in my EP creation process, I was unfortunately fresh out of funds. I really wanted to do a fun cover of Mr. Grinch though! Rather than wallow in self-pity, I created this page: https://audreymusic.com/music-collaboration/
It’s a page on my website where I basically sell myself and outline why I’d be a FABULOUS collaboration partner :p
I had planned to put the link to this page in a big networking group that I’m in on Facebook. Doing this usually turns up lots of submissions, but it takes quite some time to go through them all and weed out the serious and talented folks, from the beginners or hobbyists with loose deadlines.
It was a process I wasn’t terribly looking forward to, but I remained hopeful nonetheless.
Before I put that link in the FB group though, a little voice nagged at me telling me to send it to the collaboration partner that I ACTUALLY wanted.
Becky always has a fully booked and thriving production studio though, so I was wary of “bugging” her. I’m so grateful that I listened to my inner guides though and shot my shot.
Her message back to me floored me because it turns out she was a secret admirer too!! Say what?! She said she had loved my vocals for a while, but just hadn’t gotten around to reaching out to me yet. (probably because she’s always fully booked lol)
Needless to say it was a match made in musical heaven and we can’t wait to work together even more after the holiday rush.
the making of Mr. Grinch
Becky and I completed this song virtually so I don’t have any behind the scenes footage per-se, but I do have these audios and voice notes from when the song was in it’s creation phase still so you can hear how “a song becomes a song” :)
Initial Idea Flow
I was walking around my kitchen and just started singing “Mr. Grinch, Mr. Grinch…” to myself, imagining it as harmonies.
I stopped everything I was doing and recorded a quick take and sent it off to Becky saying something like “I’m not sure if you can do anything with this. Maybe it’s an interlude, maybe it’s an intro, maybe it’s nothing, just ideas”.
She instantly replied, knowing exactly what she wanted to do with that snippet and we were both in agreement that Mr. Grinch should go down a “dark path” production wise. We were off to a great start start!
Initial Rough Track Idea
Now that we had a direction in mind, this is the initial bare bones track Becky sent me for feedback. I don’t think I had any. I LOVED it right out the gate.
(track starts around 11 seconds in)
More fleshed out Track + A Scratch Vocal from Becky
With the direction of the track approved (and LOVED), she fleshed it out a bit more and even did scratch vocals for me!
This was a huge help in me being able to see where she imagined the singing and the breakdowns, etc.
Plus, doesn’t she sing so purdy?!
Becky is also an accomplished session vocalist <3
Vocal production Phase 1 by yours truly <3
Next I jumped in to my studio and carried out all of the vocals. Lead, harmonies, creepy little audio candies and more. I even did effects on the vocals, just as a sample though so she could see how I imagined them to sound. I took all the effects off before I sent them to Becky so she could do what professionals do best :)
This process was SO FREAKIN’ FUN!!! As much as I love the in-person experience of a recording studio, I might actually like recording myself even more :p Being able to sit at my mic for hours trying things, pitching vocals to create weird sounds, adding in glass breaking, spiders crawling and just having a field day with the production and vocals is easily one of my most favorite parts of being a creative.
And Becky was such a breeze to work with in that regard. Zero ego, just kudos and love when I sent her anything. She took the vocal stems I sent over and just knocked them out of the park production wise.
And the rest is history!
(the song sampled here is from my home studio, not Becky’s final beautiful work)
Feel free to reach out!
If at any point you’re confused on how this works or just wanna say “Hey!”, please feel free to reach out :)