June 31, 2006
Another month with many hours in my little home studio, most
of it spent recording a singer/songwriter demo for a friend.
He brought in an acoustic guitarist to play on the track and
that gave me something new to work with as I continue to learn
the Pro Tools recording software.
I finally finished the addition of drums and bass to the previously
recorded original song demo that I wrote about last time. So
many hours put into that project! I could have made several
new recordings of the song in the amount of time it took me
to get that done! It was another good learning experience, I
guess.
I am enjoying working with my musical toys very much and believe
that it will be only a short while before I am finally at work
recording my own songs and doing some more writing. I suffer
from the curse of perfectionism and have yet to meet my own
demands for a certain level of quality, in my singing in particular.
Actually, it has always been the singing that has caused me
to give up in frustration in the many attempts in years past
to produce something I felt good about. There may be some light
at the end of that tunnel,though, (being able to appreciate
my own singing) in that I have been making some substantial
progress lately.
I had the good fortune, some twenty years ago, to meet a remarkable
person who very quickly became like a brother to me . We are
both Italian-Americans from the East coast of the United States
and are very similar in many ways. Our Italian ancestors even
come from the same small area of Italy. When I met him in Venice,
California (a part of Los Angeles) he had not yet made a name
for himself but he is now one of the most famous voice "teachers"
in the world. Gary is not a voice "teacher" exactly.
He is a BUILDER of voices using a method of his own devising.
The list of his clients include some of the most famous singers
in the world, MANY of the most famous singers in the world.
I could list some of them here but I won't. If you are interested
in learning more about Gary, you can visit his website
www.garycatona.com.
Over the years that I have known Gary, he has given me a number
of lessons and through our many conversations about singing,
singers, the voice itself, and other related topics, I have
learned a great deal. Working effectively with Gary's method
on one's own, however, is not an easy thing to do but very recently
I was reached an understanding of how to work with the method
that I did not have before and after only one exercise session
using this new awareness, my singing voice made a dramatic jump
in quality. This was only a few days ago and I am very excited
by the promise that this new development holds out to me. I
hope that you will enjoy listening to my (finally) completed
recordings in the future. :)
May 31, 2006
Things have been pretty busy around here. This month I produced
two singer/songwriter demos for a J-pop artist who has management
and is seeking a new record label. For myself, I have been spending
many hours adding midi drums and bass to a demo of an Italian
song that I co-wrote some years ago with a buddy of mine. We
had the style of Andrea Bocelli in mind at the time. We are
hoping to place the song with a recording artist or three who
sing in Italian. Because there are tempo changes in the original
demo and no click track to guide me, it is taking a long time.
It has, though, helped me learn a lot more about working with
the Pro Tools recording software.
Although I receive many song requests on my gigs, last night
was the first time that anyone asked me to play "Crazy"
(Patsy Cline's great hit recording, written by Willie Nelson)
in the entire three years that I have been playing in piano
lounges in Tokyo. I was quite surprised by the request and very
happy to play it as it is a favorite of mine. Though it was
a Japanese woman who asked for it, I figure the reason she was
familiar with it is because she lives in The United States.
She and her whole group had come from the US for two days of
business meetings in Japan. They all work for one of the major
airlines and live in either New York or New Jersey. Nice folks
one and all and they really enjoyed our trio's performance at
Atago Green Hills where they had come to relax and have a drink.
All three Japanese women in the group were involved in the experience
of "Crazy." Mika-san requested it. Ami-san cried when
I sang it (she said it touched her heart, not because my singing
was so painful to listen to) and Mutsumi-san laughed at Ami-san
for crying. Fun :)
Another couple of Japanese ex-patriots living in the US came
up to Atago Green Hills this month because one of them is a
saxophone student of my friend Bill Harris, one half of the
very fine horn playing siblings known professionally as The
Harris Brothers. Bill had suggested that his student look
me up when he was in Tokyo on a business trip and he did, in
fact, send me an email and attend one of my performances. I
really enjoy this kind of visit from folks from "back home."
This month also marked the first time I had the pleasure of
having Andy Hagerman with me on electric bass for one of my
trio gigs. Andy is a wonderful bassist, a very nice person AND
the digidesign (makers of Pro Tools recording systems) representative
for all of Asia. I met Andy four years ago when we were both
performing at Tokyo DisneySea. Andy was taking a break from
his regular job as a Pro Tools teacher at Full Sail Recording
in Florida. While working at Tokyo Disney, Andy met and married
his lovely wife Junko, who was playing saxophone in the same
band that Andy was playing Tuba for. (It was fate!) They went
back to the US together, their daughter was born there and then
they moved to Tokyo. It is great to have him here in our network
of foreign performers. He's a great guy, a very fine musician
and a Pro Tools expert!
Blessings to one and all.
March 30, 2006
Still learning to work on this website. After many hours of
messing around (and a couple of phone calls to my friend Christine
who built this site) I finally got a photo page up with some
shots of the beautiful cherry blossoms down at the Meguro river
in Nakameguro. This is such a special time in Japan, when spring
is in the air and the cherry blossoms are in bloom. It is a
time for combining two of the most favorite pastimes of Japanese
people: viewing the lovely cherry blossoms and drinking alcohol.
They will call it a Hanami (flower viewing) party but what that
really means is "let's sit under (or near) the cherry trees
and drink sake!" And why not?
I played a fun gig last week that was particularly interesting
because the performance space was the location where the Sumo
wrestling matches are held in Tokyo. I had been to the building
three times in the past to watch the Sumo matches but never
thought that I might one day be playing the accordion in the
same spot that the wrestling platform is set up. The other thing
that made the gig interesting was that I was only one of six
accordion players there that day, along with two saxophone players,
three guitarists, a violinist, pianist, two bassists, a drummer,
and several vocalists! It was a special event put on by the
Hermes company, apparently for their Japanese clients. The featured
performer and music coordinator for this spectacular was the
French singer and accordionist Patric Nugier, who did a wonderful
job. Some of us played solo and some in small groups but the
grand finale was ALL of us playing together, with a group of
musicians in each of the four corners and Patrick and most of
the singers in the center. Fun! But I think the most fun was
had in our large dressing room where there was almost constant
jamming going on with all those musicians. A wonderful change
of pace, that one.
Wishing you a lovely springtime.
Al
January 2, 2006
Happy New Year! Blessings to one and all in 2006.
I was in Seoul, South Korea for a few days last week, taking
care of the processing of paperwork for my current Japanese
Entertainer visa. There is a part of Seoul known as Inso-dong
that I find very enjoyable to visit. This is the most traditional
section of Seoul, the equivalent of Asakusa in Tokyo. The place
has a very cool vibe with lots of art galleries, artist supply
stores, restaurants, outdoor food kiosks, etc. I have been there
four times now and I always have a great time when I am there.
The food is wonderful, the people are very friendly and I always
meet people who can speak English and Japanese besides their
native Korean, which makes verbal communication possible. I
find it fun to use the few Korean words I know and pick up some
new ones too.
My goals for the new year include getting involved with the
Japanese record/management/production companies in whatever
way that I can. I have recently developed a number of contacts
in the Japanese music business and I am hoping to place one
or more of my original songs with a Japanese pop artist this
year. The bigger goal, of course, is to establish myself as
a musical artist here and abroad. It's a big goal, at this point
still a dream, but definitely within the realm of possibility,
as I see it.
The trio gigs that started a few months ago at the two XEX
restaurants have really been fun and they keep getting better
as we go along. This month has three trio gigs in it and I am
very happy to have that many on my calendar. I hope that this
trend will continue and I will be doing more and more trio gigs
in the future. I enjoy playing my solo gigs but the trio is
really big fun for me.
I had a couple of accordion gigs recently which had me practicing
on that instrument almost every day for several weeks. It was
good for me to get back in shape on the accordion. I really
do love the instrument and I am going to try to keep my playing
level up even when I don't have accordion gigs on my schedule.
Bye for now :)
Al
December 3, 2005
Wow, the first time writing some news on
the site myself! My dear friend Christine Glade built this
site for me with the idea being that I would handle the maintenance.
I finally got around to learning something about doing so when
I got tired of asking her to update my performance schedule
every month. I dug into the program and learned how to do a
little bit for myself. I have been updating my performance schedule
for the past few months and now I have moved on to actually
writing something more. Fun!
My bio has also been updated and I will continue
to work on bringing the site to a point of reflecting what is
currently going on in my life . It will be a while before I
am able to bring the site up to date and so I will write about
some of the changes since the site was built.
My site is heavy on the accordion side of my
musical expression because that was focus at the time it was
built. Since finishing my 16 months of accordion performances
at Tokyo DisneySea, however, I have mostly worked as a pianist
and vocalist. I do perform on accordion from time to time but
it is rare in comparison to the amount of piano/vocal work I
do. I intend to represent my piano playing and singing more
in the future.
Within a few months of my finish at DisneySea,
I was fortunate enough to have been directed to a talent agency
that secured a work visa for me and some months after that had
gotten to the point where I was working six and seven nights
a week. I was this busy for almost two years and it was great
for me, of course. But when things changed (as they always do)
and I was suddenly looking at only four nights a week of work,
I made a decision to let that be as it was. I did not go looking
for more work by contacting other agents than the one I had
mainly been working with. I felt that it was time to get back
to creative work and I began putting together my home recording
studio. The income from all the work I had been doing made it
possible for me to move from the small one room studio apartment
I had been living in to a much bigger place with two bedrooms.
One of those bedrooms is now my music studio.
I am very excited by the fact that, thanks to
a VERY supportive Japanese friend, I now have a Hammond B3
and Leslie 122R speaker in my studio. I had offered
to buy it from my friend, knowing that she hadn't actually played
it in many years, but she said that she really couldn't sell
it for sentimental reasons and instead suggested that I hire
a moving company and have it moved to my place! "Someone
should be playing it," she said. Oh, my God. I still look
at it in wonder. You B3 fans understand, I know.
It took some months to get the studio up and
running,, including the shipping to Japan of the musical equipment
I had stored in Los Angeles. At this point the studio is fully
functioning with a small but useful setup based around an old
iMac running Pro Tools Free for audio and midi recording. Not
very sophisticated or high end but I can get a lot done with
it, especially for songwriting/arranging ideas and preproduction.
Over the past few years I have had the great
pleasure to perform here in Japan with some of my American friends
who came to do some shows. They include guitarist Sean Harkness,
bassist/vocalist/songwriter Chad Watson and guitarist/singer/songwriter/
Craig Nuttycombe. I will put up some photos and maybe some video
of these folks and the shows in the future.
Hair news: Alas, I guess it had to happen
at some point. I allowed a hair stylist to talk me into letting
her cut my hair short. I got so many compliments on the shorter
style that I had to acknowledge that she was right about the
shorter style being better for me at this point. I probably
will not being going back to my long hair style again. I liked
it a lot and will miss it but, with the continual disappearance
of my hair due to the dreaded Male Pattern Baldness, it is for
the best, appearance-wise.
That's it for now! More to come. Blessings to
one and all.
Al DiMarco
