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Saturday, 7 February 2004

Christopher's debut CD

Christopher has really taken an interest in the studio of late - he loves to play with the gadgets and instruments I keep in there. His favourites have included an old tape recorder that's seen better days, and the various guitars that are arranged on their stands around the room, which he enjoys 'retuning' for me.

I've recently bought a microphone pre-amp with some money I had left over from Christmas (a bit of a bargain - it's a Behringer Tube Ultragain Mic100 which does the same kind of things as much more expensive equipment for about a tenth of the price) but I hadn't had much of an opportunity to get it out of the box.

As a bit of an aside, on-line musical equipment stores, such as Digital Village and the Guitar, Amp and Keyboard Centre offer fairly competitive prices, until you look at the shipping which is often close to ?10 - a third of the cost of the product if you're buying a single, fairly inexpensive item. It was great, therefore, to be able to wander along Oxford Street to the Virgin Megastore towards Tottenham Court Road, and visit Sound Control which lurks noisily in the basement. It saved me a few pounds delivery, anyway!

Christopher noticed the 'new' box and, with his characteristic curiosity and tenacity, persuaded me to unpack it and demonstrate what it did. He couldn't wait to make use of it, so I took out my 'proper' vocal microphone (a Beyer MCE 90) and set it up on its stand so he could sing into it, and hear his voice through the speakers with a little reverb. He then asked if we could make a pop band - unfortunately, with only two of us, it would have been difficult, so I suggested that he might prefer to make a CD for Mummy instead.

He didn't take much persuading (in fact, it's taking more to keep him from returning to the studio!) so in two brief recording sessions, Christopher has cut his first CD. It's only six minutes long, but wonderfully uninhibited. I have to admit to having recorded, produced and occasionaly co-performed on it, but the rest of the music is all his own work. If anything, I feel a little awkward listening to the parts I sang on, as it drowned him out - for this, I apologise.

I'm sure Christopher wouldn't mind the fruits of his labour being made public, so I've put links to MP3 versions of the songs next to the picture of the CD. The disc artwork was drawn by him during the hellish drive home in the snow last week.

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Track list (click to hear) 1.  Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (480kB) 2.  Moony Moony (600kB) 3.  Gonna Build a House (460kB) 4.  Oo Dee Doo Dee (90kB) 5.  Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (430kB) 6.  Moony Moony (620kB) 7.  I Love My Boots (400kB) 8.  I Love My Boots (290kB) 9.  Bananas (810kB) 10. I Love You (1MB) 11. Doo Dee Doo Doo Doo (570kB)

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The songs range from traditional nursery rhymes, through songs from television programmes (principally Dora the Explorer), to improvisation - a bit of everything, really! For completeness, the artwork for the front and back of the cover is below. Christopher chose the photos (he really knows how to pose for pictures!), the colours and - most importantly - he came up with the title, with which I was most impressed. I, of course, was solely responsible for the typo! (Have you spotted it?)

All in all, a fine achievement - Mozart composed his first concerto at three, but Christopher recorded his debut CD at 4! I'm sure, given time, there'll be more - perhaps Ella will have a similar interest in music, and they'll be happy to work together. I do hope so. If you want a copy of the CD, I'm sure (as his agent!) we could come to some arrangement - just leave me a note.

Posted by james at February 7, 2004 10:23 PM

Comments

Posted by: Auntie Cath at February 10, 2004 7:32 AM

Posted by: Mother/Grandma at February 13, 2004 11:10 PM

Posted by: Uncle Rob at February 14, 2004 10:29 AM

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