Ahhhh, a photo shoot by Joe Mays, back when we artists could WORK!
Ugh, shoulder surgery, y'all!!! This thing is a beast. My poor husband has taken to learning soft tissue work because I'm afraid to go to PT because I don't want to be inside. While I trust the doctors and therapists, I don't trust their other clients. I prefer completely lockdown to this grey area where we judge each other unintentionally. I don't want to judge, and so I shall stay inside and try to create rather than hide.
Is anyone working on big projects?
I'm writing a lot, thanks to my Patreon community, most of whom will receive a copy of my book whenever I finish it. I'm hoping to share stories and figure out what to do with The Book at some point. I'd also love to tour it as a musical/one-woman-show, but when will I ever be able to travel again????
I'm trying to figure out how I can properly release a new song and video without the six month publicity lead-up that the music business supposedly requires.
I'm trying to figure out what to do with my kids because I can't send them to school. We were already 90% leaning toward homeschooling him because he was so bored and the JCPS attendance policy was cramping his film career, but now I feel like an entitled ass if I homeschool him.
In trying to reconnect with friends, I'm spending too much time on Facebook and Twitter, and it's not doing my mental health any favors. It's hard, however, to remain relevant in any meaningful way as an artist if you AREN'T on social media being funny or charming.
Do y'all ever think about what your life would have been like had you not made that one decision that altered your trajectory? I'm more than happy with my amazing family. I do sometimes wonder what life would be like if I were a retired partner from McKinsey right now, probably hiding out on a private island that only rich people know about sipping piña coladas and sleeping on clean sheets every night. But you know what, it's pretty awesome to have a hot husband in Louisville who massages my aching shoulders every night.
Oh! Fun news: check out Graham's iMDb page and understand why we are leaning more and more toward homeschooling.
Click to hear a first master of a NEW SONG!It's called "18 Months Later," and I wrote it during that odd waiting period when my mom was living long past her prognosis. I'd already turned down a leading role in a National Touring Broadway show because she was supposed to be dying ... but then she lived ... so how long can people live with life-on-hold? Anyway, sounds oddly familiar to pandemic-living, when we can't make plans. Have a listen to the preview (it is not a final master, but the song is there, available to my wonderful, loyal blog-readers!).
It was created by Patrons -- the reason I can pandemicly-record (which is shockingly expensive, even in the era of Garageband!!).
Now let's discuss homeschooling pods.
I'm hesitant to commit to homeschooling other people's children because part of why I need to do it this year is more to do with freedom of schedule than pandemic. I'd been leaning towards homeschooling for years because the public school schedule does NOT jive with the performance schedule of a singer-songwriter like me.
Pandemic has changed things a lot. I'm grateful to be able to keep my kids home without much collateral damage, but I'm having horrible feelings of guilt (as usual) about community. I want to find a way to go around from neighborhood to neighborhood offering FREE performances to other kids who are homeschooling this year not by choice.
Anyone out there care to set up OUTDOOR shows for your NTI/neighborhood pod? I don't want to live in a bubble, and I don't want my community to be the only one that benefits from my LOVE of teaching and my ability to MariaVonTrapp a pod of kids.
Also, what is the proper term for a "pod of neighborhood kids?" Like, a murder of ravens, a pride of lions ... hmmm maybe it's called a "privilege."
LOVE to you.
Seriously, someone please become the neighborhood-tour-booking person. I miss singing at schools. Let me sing in your yard. Masked. From very far away.
Now is the part where you ask: Brigid, ARE YOU OKAY??
Why, thank you for your concern! I am. I think. Adulting is hard.
Last month I glanced at the kitchen calendar and noticed my 7-year-old had scrawled “Grandude’s Death Day” on one of the boxes. It made me smile, which was nice on a day I certainly didn’t need reminding of.
And so, rather than weep on that one-year-anniversary, I demanded time alone, sat with my musical saws and decided to conquer something I’d wanted to for over twenty years: record track after track, overlaying sounds and pitches, using my 20”, 26”, and 30” saws to see exactly what an orchestra of thirty musical saws would sound like.
Why musical saw and why thirty? My dad was the first to show me the saw, around the time I started playing the cello in elementary school. When I eventually read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, a paragraph jumped out at me, something that most readers likely just glided past:
It was an incredible sight. The dungeon was full of hundreds of pearly-white, translucent people, mostly drifting around a crowded dance floor, waltzing to the dreadful, quavering sound of thirty musical saws, played by an orchestra on a raised, black-draped platform.
The main characters had gone to the dungeon of Hogwarts to a ghost’s 500th Death Day party. It was apparently a weird and spooky event, as you’d imagine a crowd full of ghosts would be.
It was also the first pop culture reference I’d seen to the musical saw, and I swore one day I’d make a video like the one I’m releasing today.
This was 1998, before Harry Potter had been licensed, before the films, etc. I hoped that maybe I’d be able to record 30 musical saws for the movie someday, if ever one was made. (Imposter Syndrome struck hard: I know now that I absolutely could have found a way to get to Warner Brothers and create a musical saw orchestra for the film, if I’d been more confident!)
I hope y’all enjoy the video and find it charming, useful, maybe a little tearful, but not flippant. My mom’s 2nd Death Day is several weeks away, but I’m releasing this on her birthday instead.
Recorded on my dad’s Death Day; released on my mom’s birthday. My birthday is at the end of July (just like JK Rowling’s), and I acknowledge that this a weird way of dealing with grief. It took me trying to celebrate my first birthday without my parents to realize that birthdays are not a celebration of the day you are born; they are a celebration of the day you meet your parents.
As I’m not particularly looking forward to a birthday without my parents, let’s do this year in a minor key.
***
The Making Of!
How did I do it?
From a musical standpoint, I switched the melody from a major key to a minor key. People tend to associate sad things with minor keys and happy things with major keys. I typically play "Happy Birthday" in Ab major on my favorite Stanley 26”, so I switched to Ab minor (G#minor if you are a transcription-geek like I am) flattening the Fs and most of the Cs. That’s why the song itself sounds mournful rather than joyous.
From a video/audio standpoint:
There’s not really a way to record THIRTY split-screens easily, but the ACapella app has 9-part and 6-part screens templates. Basically I made four separate Acapella videos, each set to the same metronome tempo. 9+9+6+6=30. Yes!
I recorded the melody once, then put on headphones, switched saws and played along to my first recording while recording a second video. The Acapella app makes split-screens a LOT easier, but it does require you to do a perfect take; no mistakes, no “punching in” or auto-tuning. Here’s a link to a Tutorial on How to Use the Acapella app.
I arranged 3-5 melody parts (each slightly different depending on the saw) and layered track after track. There are 6 videos playing some version of the melody, but in various octaves on different saws.
Next, I created a new 9-part split-screen entirely composed of some alto lines.
Repeat for tenor harmonies, with 9 videos, since the tenor parts are typically the most interesting to me.
Repeat for bass harmonies, only six videos of these, and most played on my 30” baritone saw.
I added some reverb and mixed the audio -- I wanted the melody line a little louder, and for the bass & tenor parts to come at you from both sides (which only really matters if you’re listening with swanky swanky headphones, but, hey, I am a music geek!).
The trickiest bit was lining up the sound wave files from each video, but i did that by stretching out the media files and making sure the wave forms matched, then listening obsessively just to make sure.
I used the “picture in picture” function on iMovie to make the 30 videos go together. I’ll make a youtube tutorial on that someday because it’s too complex and boring to go into that now. It involves exporting the mixed video four times and layering it.
I added some title cards! That part was mostly easy, though would have been much faster in Adobe or FinalCut. (I had to create some transparent PNG files in Google Docs to layover the final video in order to get the titles in the right part of the screen. The title cards that come with iMovie weren’t cutting it for me.)
I’m now just THRILLED to release it, and I’m even more thrilled to release it on my mom’s birthday. She was born in summer, and she died in summer. My dad was born ten days after the winter solstice and died before the summer solstice. There is so much magic in dates, even when we’re not looking for them and even when we don’t believe in them.
*The reason I’m proud of this video is NOT because of the musical prowess it took to arrange and perform; I’m proud that I finally recorded it. You see, I was taught by the music and business world that I should play dumb, and I’m tired of that. I’ve got skills, y’all, and I’ve wanted to arrange a thirty-part musical saw orchestra for YEARS.
What are you reading?! Ever since my surgery, I've been completely unable to focus on anything. I already have #neurodiversesquad issues, but I've learned how to manipulate my mind when I need to. Since that anesthesia, however, my brain fog is just IMMENSE. I have been trying to get through a light, Scottish rom-com, beach read, and I just cannot. I'd love nothing more to be lost in a novel right now, though, so I'm going to list some good reads and hope that inspires me to focus a little more. I'd love to hear what you're reading and will happily take recommendations.
(Also: jump over to Patreon.com/brigidkaelin if you are a patron, and watch an exclusive video project that I'm REALLY proud of. It's an orchestral arrangement. I contain multitudes, like the ability to score songs in 30-part harmony. And if you're not a Patron, would you please please join so I can make art without constantly having to SELL it?!?)
I love Jenny Colgan novels. I think they are rom-com? I am terrible with genres. There is almost always a Scotland, and if not, there is an England. There are always smart book references. This book is the 2nd of a trilogy, and I accidentally read books 1 and 3 without paying attention. Oops. (Who out there is cringing right now at the thought of reading a trilogy out of order?!?! Answer: My Husband.)
I have recently read:
Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague by Geraldine Brooks, which is loosely based on a real town in England that chose to self-quarantine during the Plague of 1666. It wasn't light reading, but it was easy reading. Again, I'm a sucker for British novels. Also, I borrowed this from a neighbor in March and have yet to return it, making me that person. Oops.
The Second-Worst Restaurant in France by Alexander McCall-Smith I just love this author. He has written so many series, and there's always just a light element of philosophy that makes me think I'm not wasting my time. The books are easy reads, though, so I learn stuff, think deeper than most beach-reads, and enjoy losing myself in them. This one takes place in Edinburgh, Scotland, and a small town in France.
This was the last book my mom ever read. Do you ever think about that? What the last book you'll read is? Mom liked this one. She'd borrowed it from a friend, and I even remembered to return the book before her funeral, which I'm pretty sure is my greatest accomplishment from the last several years. Anyway, I've not read the book, but my mom told me I'd like it. I'm grief-afraid though.
Ok. Five books feels like plenty. Didn't I tell you my focus was off?
Please join my Patreon? You'll feel awesome about supporting an indie artist who really wants to bring joy to the world.
My mom snuggling me!
This is my baby brother, George. (He died in 2017.)
Hiiiii. So if you are a patron, you already read the juicy details about my surgery, but I figured I'd updated the masses here. (Just kidding; you aren't "the masses." Become a Patron! That's just a throwback to my high school history teacher who threw around those terms casually and ironically so he could point out injustices to our bubbled classroom experiences. And these are the things I think about at 2:30am during a pandemic that is only getting worse where I am.) I'm on the mend. I still have a shoulder sling and my arm still hurts like hell, and I still can't play the guitar or accordion but i can play left-handed piano and sleep sometimes. No saw for a while though. I am thankful to be ambidextrous, and I've actually been doing some pretty cool left-handed drawings on the iPad. I'll share a coloring page I created for you sometime...
Now for the rest of my pre-dawn ramblings!
European friends: I am not legally allowed to come to you! And I don't blame you one bit for keeping us out. What the HELL has happened to America? My theory is that all the emigrants were the annoying ADHD/YouAren'tTheBossOfMe Europeans from years ago, so you got yourselves rid of the nutters and they all started families in America, yielding a country full of people who refuse to operate as a community. You were wise to kick them all out. Please, might you let me and my family back in? I don't like authority, but I swear I'll stay home and wear a mask and pay taxes and stuff.
UK friends: Oddly, thanks to Brexit (which is a 99% terrible thing), I COULD sneak away and come quarantine with you. Europe isn't allowing Americans in the country, but as of this publication, Britain is... (hence the 1% thing that is okay about Brexity).
But of course we are going nowhere because I wouldn't dare bring my dirty American germs to you. Nor would I consider getting on a plane.
2020.
I saw a meme or something last week that talked about "Good enough for 2020," and I feel like that needs to be a WHOLE new thing for EVERYONE. Whatever book you are writing. Whatever song you are mixing. Whatever painting you are creating. Whatever bedtime routine you are [not] following. It is good enough for 2020.
I grew up a perfectionist. I got an A- in an NYU philosophy course, and I was devastated. To be fair, I was hit by a car halfway through the semester, and I only actually attended about 60% of that philosophy course.
But guess what, y'all, none of that matters!! Parents, quit being hard on yourselves because your kids have a lot of screentime now. A lot of that screentime is plenty educational. Non-parents, quit fussing at parents for complaining. Parents, quit fussing at non-parents for "not understanding." Let's all try to be a little more empathetic.
Remember that guy who's parked across three parking spaces might actually be hauling his parents ashes across town or something. We're all having bad days.
Let's be kind.
Let's be understanding.
Mostly, I'm talking about how we treat ourselves because maybe then that'll translate to other people. If we ever see other people again.
And this is my blog at 3am on a Saturday morning from the bathroom while the rest of the family snuggles and snoozes.
I've got some REALLY exciting content to release this month. One is an orchestral arrangement I did of a popular song, but all 25+ parts are played on the musical saw. (I've decided to embrace my love of arranging!) The other is the final mix of "18 Months Later," a song about sitting around with your life on pause because there is something horrible going on that you know will end but you can't really make plans until you know the outcome. Familiar feeling, eh?
I think I'll also finally take the time to edit and publish the travel diaries from various trips I've taken, but I was trying to live in the moment, ergo did not blog them. I snapped photos and took notes, though, so i've got tips and tales for you. Stay tuned. This blog is BACK, friends!