December Songwriting

Apologies for a lack of blogging from me through December. I have had a few PC issues that I have now had by my uber-menschen technical advisor Jimbo explain to me in colourful language(read: "Fisher, you are an utter, utter utter....")

I have spent much of December finishing a series of songs I am planning to spend the early part of 2007 placing with recording artists. I have been working on recording a Demo CD to this end, and spent 18th and 19th December in the studio with the singer Sam James, a long-standing professional colleague, and owner of an incredible near 3 octave range, to sing 12 songs. I have also spent much time working up pre-demo treatments with Tony Reeves, a former student whose expertise has been totally invaluable on all matters technical. I was also very happy to again have the awesome Jon Gingell in the studio working as an enginer on the session. Another friend and professional colleague, Chris Donelly also popped in, and will be helping me develop how I use the vo-coder. I have more songs to record in January, but I will talk more about that later.

I also performed with the improvised Comedy group Sprout at the Comedy Store at Covent Garden and the 10th and 17th December, which is always a real blast. I have worked with Sprout on and off since 1998/9, and it is always a highlight of any week to be part of their fantastic synergy.

Decemeber has also been a month where (as sometimes happens in life) there has been a rash of engagements of friends of mine. I went through a phase in my mid-twenties where it seemed everyone was getting married, and that demographic impulse is on a second wind it seems. Congratulations to Ben and Helen (married 30Dec), Jim and Marie (engaged), John and Mary (engaged), John and Rebecca (married 6th Jan), Esteban and Katie (engaged), and all the others!

I also have a big band ballet Fantine in the pipeline, which will be premiered by the Southampton University Jazz Orchestra at the Turner Simms Concert Hall, Southampton on 24th (I think) February 2007, and am very much enjoying completing the orchestrations at the moment, and listening to Maria Schneider and Gil Evans.

If you happen to be reading this, I wish you a very Happy New Year!