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.

Holidays and Faerie Tales news…

Greetings fellow internetians,

I completed all the mixing, mastering, artwork, etc in July but didn’t crack on with getting it all sent off for printing, duplication, etc because I was going away on holiday.

I went for a night in London, followed by a cruise from Dover to Barcelona, and then finished it off with 3 nights in Barcelona. I was with my family and we all had a great time – of course now that I’m back I’m keen to get Faerie Tales & Other Stories released… so the good news is that I’ve got my master disc created, barcode purchased, everything registered in various places… and so now I’m just sitting here listening to the master disc before sending it off for replication. And then it’s down to how quickly the postman can deliver things to various places around the world!

I’ll leave you with a picture from my hols… jealous of a piano that I couldn’t play while I was on the cruise…

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.

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.

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.

In A Nutshell

Hi,

Well 2009 is almost over and 2010 hovers on the horizon just beyond New Years Eve… and I’ve just about finished another piece of music. I’m working on tracks for my next album, tentatively titled Faerie Tales and Other Stories, and I thought I’d share a track called ‘In A Nutshell’.

The track is finished musically and structurally but hasn’t been mixed or mastered properly yet and there are a couple of pops and clicks due to an overworked laptop.

I’ve uploaded it to SoundCloud (should be a widget on here somewhere) and also to ReverbNation and MySpace.

In A Nutshell by Purple Rhapsody

I’d be grateful if you could share your thoughts on it with me.

Wishing you all the very best for the coming year.

Cheers,

Terry.

Soundcloud and a new track

Hi,

As always… I’ve not been blogging enough!!!!

Anyway, I’ve discovered a new music sharing site called Soundcloud. It appears to be similar to other music sharing sites but is more accomodating of different file formats and seems to be built for sharing music (by streaming only if that’s what you want).

I think it seems like a good site to use so I’ve put a new track up there to try it out…

The new track is called ‘November Wind’ and was inspired by the currently lovely weather (!) we’re having in the UK right now.

It’s approximately 3 minutes long and is completely solo piano.

The link to the track is:

http://soundcloud.com/purplerhapsody/november-wind

Hope you enjoy it… Soundcloud is supposed to enable comments to be made so feel free to do it (I don’t know if you have to register first).

Cheers,

Terry.

Different Style

Hi,

Just had some fun mucking about with a slightly different approach to arranging my music.

I usually lay down a piano track with my ideas as a framework and then start to layer things on top - sometimes the piano stays and sometimes it goes. Tonight I started off with more of a ‘pad based’ approach and built it up from there.

The result might not be worth hearing but I had fun anyway!

Cheers,

Terry.