Friday, December 26, 2014

Happy Yuletide, Claudio!

I have been hard at work for the last five months learning new music production skills, and I'm proud to say that my latest song is the result. It's a tune I just wrote, called From Me To Yule. You can actually buy it and the whole Christmas EP on Bandcamp for $4. I added another song to the ever-expanding oeuvre too, my arrangement of Camille Saint-Saens' The Swan. Fun fact: On that song and From Me To Yule I play piano.

Me To Yule is a one-woman effort: I composed and arranged for full band and five-part melodica (originally it was horns, but I decided to go with melodica for logistical reasons), played keyboards and percussion, and sang all the parts. I owe a debt of inspiration to the women who unapologetically kick-ass in the music creation business, such as Rebeca Mauleon, Lisa Englehart, Anne Sajdera, Terrie Odabi, Mara Fox, Rhonda Benin, Kim Nalley and many more.

Now, though I've gotten great feedback on the song itself and its production quality, as far as the video goes I must warn you that this is possibly the silliest music video ever made. As always, for reasons of financial necessity or simple incompetence, I mash everything I do into one big mess, so this became a family deal as my kids started photobombing the video. We had so much fun while we were doing it. I figure this is good parenting, right? You want to give your kids memories, so one day they'll be like, "Remember the time Mommy put on a bathing suit and wrapped herself in Christmas lights and started to make a video and we started twerking in it?"

Yeah. Good times!

 

Did I mention you can buy this song and the whole album on Bandcamp?
PMO at the Fox Theater in Redwood City

SF Guardian Best of Bay favorite Pacific Mambo Orchestra benefit concert will support more than 5,000 elementary school music students on Jan. 10 at the historic Fox Theatre in downtown Redwood City. All proceeds support the Music for Learning program funded by the Redwood City Education Foundation (RCEF), a nonprofit organization dedicated to enriching and advancing education opportunities for all children in the Redwood City School District. Come on out and tell your Peninsula friends!

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