Faerie Tales & Other Stories released

Hi,

As this post title says… my new album, Faerie Tales & Other Stories, is now released.

Go to the albums page (http://purplerhapsody.co.uk/albums.html) and listen to all 15 tracks if you want. And, if you like it you can even buy the CD!

In a couple of weeks the album will also be available from iTunes, Amazon MP3, CD Baby, etc but they need time to add it to their databases. I’ve asked them to give it a release date of September 1st so I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed for then.

So… I really hope you enjoy the album – please come back and comment to let me know what you think.

Cheers!

Terry.

Transition Period – Arrggghhh!

Well, Faerie Tales & Other Stories is going in the post tomorrow to be replicated ready for distribution… and I’m currently in the middle of backing up 17.8GB of files (every file related to the album – including every audio track, MIDI track, mixed version, and mastered version… it’s my curse for recording live piano, guitar, bass, etc that the files are so large – if I just used virtual instruments for everything the total would probably less than 2GB.

So… while I’m doing all this preparation for the release, backing up all my files, and generally doing a bit of spring cleaning on my music folders on the hard drive… what do you think I actually want to be doing…?

The answer, of course, is that I want to be creating more music for the next album after FT&OS comes out. How contrary am I…?

A little bit of news about my preliminary thoughts on the next album…. it will probably be solo piano because both myself and my wife really enjoy listening to solo piano music when relaxing. It will be a challenge because a whole hour of solo piano music has to be varied enough to hold interest – but with the piano being such a versatile instrument I’m hoping it won’t be too difficult.

Anyway… I’m getting ahead of myself! Faerie Tales & Other Stories should hopefully be available by the beginning of September – it isn’t solo piano but it’s still marvellous…! Really, honestly… not just in my opinion but also according to my Dad

Cheers,

Terry.

Possible Cover for Faerie Tales & Other Stories

Hi,

I’ve been toying with a few ideas regarding the artwork for Faerie Tales & Other Stories. My current favourite is on my personal Facebook photos – I think everyone should have access to it regardless of whether or not you’ve got me as a ‘friend’ on there.

Direct link to the image is : Terry Robinson’s Facebook photos

Cheers,

Terry.

Update – Empty Stage now available

I promised you an update and here it is…!

Empty Stage is now available to download from iTunes, Amazon, and CDBaby – more download stores will be coming soon and it will also make it’s way onto Napster, Rhapsody, etc.

You can listen to it on the Purple Rhapsody home page, on MySpace, or on the player below.

Empty Stage by Purple Rhapsody

Enjoy!

Cheers,

Terry.

Empty Stage – being released as a single

Hi,

There has been a huge amount of interest and praise for Empty Stage since I first put it online last year. I was going to include it on my next album (Faerie Tales and Other Stories) but it didn’t really fit in with the rest of the tracks.

So, I’m releasing it as a single.

It’s just been submitted to CD Baby and should be available on iTunes in 2-5 weeks (!), and on other sites anywhere from 2 weeks to 4 months (!!!!).

You can listen to it on ReverbNation and SoundClick free and I’ll post an update when it’s available to buy.

Cheers,

Terry.

Faerie Tales and Other Stories – getting there!

Well, this weekend I’ve been tidying up some of my tracks and starting to piece together how my next album is going to fit together. I always dislike this part of the process. I’m much happier when it’s a concept album I’m putting together (with music flowing from track to track) because the music has already pretty much decided on it’s own order. However, I’m getting there and it looks like there will be about an hour of music when I’m done.

14 tracks is where the tally stands at the moment but I’ll be adding a couple more (see later in this post…) and some of that 14 need tweaks and fixing before they’re ready for the album.

I’ve had an idea about doing a slightly different kind of musical variations. There’s going to be a track called ‘Chinese Whispers’ which will introduce a theme – probably the 2nd or 3rd track on the album – and then there will be another 3 or 4 tracks which take that theme and develop it or present it in a different arrangement. The tracks won’t be long – they’ll mostly be almost like ‘intermissions’ or the ‘walking between pictures’ tracks from Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. I’ve got 2 of the Chinese Whispers tracks completed with another 2 or 3 to complete.

You can here some Work In Progress versions of a couple of the tracks on my SoundCloud page – Dervish is going to be one of the Chinese Whispers tracks and In A Nutshell has been renamed ‘Once Upon A Time’. Remember that these are Works In Progress and so may change.

Anyway – another blog post later on me joining Ourstage to be judged!

Cheers,

Terry.

Dervish – a new piece of music!

Hi,

In between family life, work, days out, and generally having fun I’ve had a little time for my music hobby and the result is Dervish.

It starts off slowly, but picks up pace after a few seconds and turns into a capricious whirlwind of devilish mischievousness!

Well, having set your expectations so high I hope you still think it’s good when you listen to it…Use the SoundCloud player below or listen to it directly from the link above.

Dervish by Purple Rhapsody

Cheers,

Terry.

Big Purchase – Complete Composers Collection

Well… those that know me will realise that my love and respect for my wife know no bounds. So I can’t say that I love her more than I did, however she has made me a very very very very happy musician!

It’s my birthday next Sunday and after prevaricating for roughly 9 months about whether or not to get more East West Quantum Leap software she has persuaded me to take advantage of the current 70% off the Complete Composer Collection.

I have customised it slightly because I already have the Orchestra and don’t need the Pianos so I’ve replaced them with Ministry of Rock and the Stormdrum 2 PRO upgrade so when it arrives I’ll have almost the complete suite that they produce.

The quality of the Orchestra is absolutely superb, the care and attention they take over recording the sounds and creating the samples is unsurpassed so I’m immensely looking forward to next weekend when FedEx will hopefully have delivered them.

Anyway, enough of an advert for East West and back to figuring out how I can thank my wife for my birthday present…

Cheers,

Terry.

My Music is on Jango.com?

I was surprised to find my music on Jango.com while surfing the web the other week. They’ve managed to get one of my tracks – Empty Stage – on there but I know that I didn’t upload it and I hadn’t signed up to them.

I’m not complaining! Any outlet for my music is welcome… but I am curious as to how they got my details. The profile picture they’ve got is from my ReverbNation page but I didn’t think ReverbNation would have allowed another site to stream my music…

Anyway, I’ve associated myself with the account and updated some Bio details on there but if anyone knows where they source their music from I’d be grateful if they could explain it to me!

Cheers,

Terry.

Productive Day + Album News

Hi,

Just had a very productive weekend!

Managed to finish 2 tracks – a ‘spy’ theme and a ‘monsters’ theme. My next album is tentatively title ‘Faerie Tales and Other Stories’ but I might need to rethink that as there seems to a bit of movie ideas in there.

The spy theme is based on my Devil May Care (http://soundclick.com/share?songid=6345006) track that I wrote for a competition a while ago. Listening back to it now there are so many things I could have done better… so I have!

The monsters theme started off as an idea for a spooky start followed by nightmarish percussion and orchestra but ended up as a spooky start, followed by techno style bass, and then an orchestra on top of it! Sounds a bit mixed up and I’ve yet to sort out the mixing and mastering of it so it might all change again, but I’m happy with the recording so far.

Also planned to be on the album are:

Empty Stage (http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_1365619)

In A Nutshell (http://www.reverbnation.com/play_now/song_3059503)

In total I’ve got 30 minutes in a decent state and another 30 minutes waiting for me to arrange, record, etc so it’ll be a 60 minute album!

Anyway, back to real life now… got to do some ironing

Cheers,

Terry.