2 - Heart Song Album

-Introduction-

-Report-

-Summary & Intentions

-Why this Project? And What it Means to me

-What Happend?

-Watch & Listen

-Conclusion

-Promo Video

In this Output i will describe my experience over the past 2 months as I have been working towards completing a 12 track heart-song album at my home in Laguna Beach, California. While completing this task I have also been interning at an elementary school garden, and learning to prioritize my life in alignment with my values, intentions, and goals.  I am practicing newfound time management and organizational skills, and am learning to create my own structure of routine and daily living, while building relationships, fostering connections, and cultivating consistent practices to remain in optimal health and balance with my body, mind, emotions, and spirit. Within this page you will find: 

1. The story of this project and how it came to about, along with what it means to me and how I intend it to serve earth and humanity as a whole. 

2. Information about my creative process with completing and recording songs, including the methods I utilized to insure that the project was completed in an organized, integrated, and timely manner. 

3. Commentary on the relationship between myself and dear friend Paul, the recording engineer, producer, and project mentor for this Album. 

4. Pictures and video from our time in the studio. NOTE: my original intention was to have the whole album available for listening on this page but the song formats are too large for my profile at this time. A link to the album will be provided soon :) 

5. Un/Learnings, new skills and inspirations, reflections and insights.

Beginning in mid June of 2012, directly after returning home from 3 months in kauai (WWOOFing for the first time) and managing/organizing a weekend gathering memorial in honor of a close friend that had recently passed, I ventured deeply into the school of sound, recording, and musical production. This was an adventure of completing my first full length music album, the tracks of which are centralized around the common themes of universal love, nature connection, personal empowerment, spiritual unfoldment, and transformation. Embarking on this journey with me, was my fellow sonic comrade, production assistant, recording engineer, and musical magician, Paul Olsen. Overall, the process of working with him has been wonderfully rewarding, insightful, and coherent. Paul posseses an amazing motivation for maintaining stability through highly structured (yet fun) organizational techniques. He has quite a knack for mapping the progress of priorities and goals before and during their outward manifestations. This was incredibly refreshing for me due to my lack of proper organization with project management in the past and my newly awakened joy for the design process, goal setting, and written reference making (journaling, task lists, & vision mapping), very much inspired by my experience with Gaia U.

With the inception of our recording sessions, I also started a month long internship with a school garden program. I practiced basic garden stewardship and learned more about implementing permaculture methods such as building burms and making compost/tea. This was an enriching experience because it gave me a chance to work to benefit a larger community (the land & feeding the school children with local organic produce) and tied into my work with the album as I was "getting my hands in the soil" relating to the theme of nature connection emphasized in most of the tracks on the CD.

I have learned so much through recording this album regarding my own creativity, organization, commitment, partnership, time management, and a multitude of subtle dynamics that flow though my awareness. This project is not fully complete as I am learning the many diverse factors that are at play with the process of co-creating a full length album. The process has been very fun, sometimes challenging, incredibly rewarding, inspiring, and fulfilling. Though the external format of the CD is yet to be finalized, which I intend to be in november, most of the fully mixed songs are available for your enjoyment through a downloadable format found on this page.  

-Why Make a Heart Song Album?-

On a collective level, I made this album because I wanted to share something positive with the world; something that could inspire my fellow earth family to live with love and reverence for all life everywhere, to experience a deeper connection with nature, the human soul, and the universal spirit that breathes through all creation. And what better time than now? Especially in this most auspicious year of 2012, in which so many of us have been waiting to experience some great shift, moment of singularity and/ or opportunity to harness our co-creative human potential to build a thriving world for all. With the human family so ripe for its next step in evolution, I feel that music is a wonderfully fun and powerful way to inform and imprint the emerging paradigm of planetary consciousness with a message of peace, community, love, and universal abundance for all.

From an individual standpoint, I imagined that undergoing this process would:

1. Be a lot of fun. 

2. Provide me with experience in recording a full length album, which could be beneficial for my future work and for helping other artists and musicians.

3. Could act as a promotional tool, instead of handing someone a business card to promote my services, I could hand out a CD :)... 

4. It could act as a catalyst to even further develop myself as a musician and facilitator. This could manifest through more opportunities to play live prayer-formances and gather with fellow sonic co-creators that share harmonized intentions for building a just, sustainable, and fulfilling world for all. I feel that having a CD and webpage providing more info about my mission and intentions could lead me closer to my larger visions and goals to be a conscious music facilitator, community organizer, and embodied leader.

-What it Means to Me- 

The process of co-creating this CD has been an abundantly rewarding journey on multiple levels. For many years I have intended to complete an album of various original songs that would be woven into an inspiring and colorful tapestry of groovy heart felt tracks with soul-centric lyrics, diverse rhythms and melodies, exotic instrumentation, and an empowering message as a whole. A soulful dose of sonic medicine that could inspire fellow kin to live in joy with their fullest potential, presence, and power. Though I have held this vision over the years, I did not commit until now. Why? For various circumstantial factors I suppose such as travel and school, but mostly due to procrastination, lack of consistent organization, and potential fear of failure. To overcome these factors, my first step was to commit to making the project happen THIS YEAR. Then I had to set the time aside to produce the desired result (a physically sharable/digitally downloadable CD of original soul-songs), secure the space (my home in Laguna) for the time needed, contact Paul and ask for his assistance (Paul is a dear friend and amazing recording engineer/musican whom I have worked with in the past), and to complete the unfinished songs that I had been subconsciously using as an excuse to "begin the album after I completed the songs"... I also received rigorous encouragement from my sweetheart Mallika whom inspired many songs on the album and lovingly pushed me to dedicate myself to finishing this project (Mallika sings on many tracks in the album as you will hear :). My gratitude radiates to her infinitely.

So as a whole, what this project means to me on a personal level is akin to a right of passage, an initiation of sorts, something I have known for a long time that I must do and that my life would be somehow changed by doing... I see it as a sharable source of media with the larger family of earth, a sort of sonic business card, encoded with my vibration, and potential source of income, sent forth in the energy of love. Even at this point in the journey i can say that I have been transformed positively by the experience, but more on this later ;)

-In The Beginning-

In a way, this project really began two summers ago in 2010, when some friends and I were working on completing a 5 song EP entitled 'Ecstatic Union'. Paul was the prime recording engineer for this process as well and it was our first time working together. We recorded intensively for two weeks as we were attempting to complete the project before a short tour we would embark on later that summer (see OP1A L&CR  - Musical Life - Ecstatic Union section for more details). We started the project with a lot of steam but burnt out quick from rushing the process and trying to do too much at once without proper organization. That album was put on the back burner and has not been picked up since. So in June of this year while designing my LIPD and planning my next move from the island of Kauai, I felt a strong urge to finish an album as I had been dreaming about for so many years. When thinking of how to accomplish this in a good way, and with an engineer with whom I resonated, I immediately thought of Paul. I called him and he joyously accepted my invitation, agreeing that he could move his studio into my house and basically live there with me over the course of the project (he lives right down the street so everything works out quite nicely). Early one morning around the 27th of June Paul and I rounded up his recording equipment, interface, monitor speakers, desk, and all, and hauled it down the road to set it up in a loft at my house, where the gear, as well as Paul, would live for the rest of the summer. Catching up on each others' lives over the past two years and sharing intimate conversations about a myriad of topics, we did not move deeply into the recording process until about two weeks after the move.    

 -Birth of the Progress Board-

On July 14th, Paul and I sat down to begin outlining and mapping our progress for completion of the Heart Song album. We created a progress board that would map our overall work-flow to provide healthy structure and ensure stability for completing the project in a timely and organized manner. It felt so liberating to visually represent the project as a whole, so I could see the unfoldment of the process in a clear and concise way. But of course, as we know, the map is never the journey itself. It is so cute remember how much we relished the moment of drawing an 'X' through the section that had been tracked, It felt like a microcosmic right of passage every time! With small steps, we draw closer to the next plateau, gradually completing this mandala of sonic love. This process of creating the progress board helped me to fully commit to all of the tracks I wanted to be on the album. Before this I was certain with around 7 songs and had not yet completed 5 of the ones that I felt strongly about reserving a spot for. Just through this task I learned a lot about the power of goal setting in a way that has revolutionized my relationship to project management. For further details regarding the inception and recording process of the songs them selves, please view the "songs" section to the right  of the page.

-Green Smoothies & Red Velvet: A Short Story-

Many a nights did we go to bed, holding an intention to wake up and begin recording early in the morning. In the beginning, with both of us staying up late, sleeping in, then taking care of individual morning rituals and health practices, It was rare that we would meet our goal of rising early to jump into recording. One morning we actually began recording at around 8:00 am. I felt vibrant, energized, and full of life. Paul made some breakfast choices that may not have been in his best interest for preparing to work patiently and diligently as a recording engineer that morning. He felt low on energy and decided to eat a red velvet cupcake, corn chips and guacomole, a protein drink, a nespresso, and a green smoothie I made filled with fruit, spirulina, and cocoa among other potent superfoods. After 15 minutes of tracking vocals for the song "All The way", I noticed Paul becoming impatient, his leg was shaking, and his upper body was hunched over his keyboard, head in forearm, grumbling with dissatisfaction as he played back the vocal tracks. Becoming swiftly aware of his perturbed state, I felt a bit offended and bluntly suggested that he take a moment to step outside and breathe or lie down. I realized what was happening as I heard Paul enter The bathroom, located beneath the loft (recording studio), where I could hear, faintly behind the the vocal track I was replaying, the disgruntled and painful sounds of Paul 'getting well' (aka vomiting), relinquishing his breakfast and will to continue recording through the morning. I made him tea and brought him a blanket to rest with on the sofa. I learned much through this experience about patience and expectation. It felt humorous and slightly frustrating to me that the first day we began recording at a decent time, due to these circumstances, we didn't end up tracking until around 9:00 that evening. Instead on this day I dove deeply into a chi kung book, practiced asana, and meditated, feeling grateful that I could utilize the time for deeper self care. After accepting that we wouldn't be recording until later, and that everything happens in its proper time, I was able to surrender my expectation and move more easily with the flow. I think Paul learned a lot through this experience too :)

-The Songs & Un/Learnings-

 When it comes to the experience of completing songs, this project has been an invaluable teacher in the power of dedicated diligence, allowance, and commitment. Before beginning this process, my sharable song repertoire consisted of a few well loved and coherent originals and more than thirty half-written, incomplete ones. So often I would sit down with sonic inspiration and expression pouring through, but instead of staying with one song or theme that had arisen, I would become distracted by the myriad of possibility and instead write down only fragments for parts of many potential songs. It feels that when the energy of the song is so fresh, it is as though simply imagining the end result is enough for me in that moment. The danger of this process is obvious for me, as I am working towards building an organized sonic mandala of soul-cenrtic heart songs to share with the world. Though this process of hopping between too many songs at once can be limiting, I am learning to focus my energies on one tune at a time commiting to completion, and birthing them as beings that may evolve into what they must become. This has been a wonderfully empowering practice that I intend to cultivate and as my musical horizons continue develop and expand.

A very useful tool that I have learned and applied during the course of creating this album, has been 'invoking the spirit of the song' (presented to me by friend and fellow mystic music maker, Jennifer). This has helped me tremendously while reviewing past song fragments that were once abundantly breathing with life force, but which I lacked the motivation and patience to complete and nurture into a thriving being. Through the exercise of totally dedicating my energy to completing a fragmented song, following the theme of the original spark, and allowing for imagery and emotion to arise naturally, I feel that I have unlearned the limiting belief that I cannot rekindle the fire of a song that was briefly alive and burning within me. I can rekindle the fire of these songs, burning to be sung and grow into blooming flowers of sonic love. All I have to do is start, commit to the process, organize my thoughts and intentions, and allow for the unfolding! It is smoother with some tunes more than others, but nonetheless a valuable, refreshing, and rewarding experience. Listed on the right side of this page is a list of the songs on the album and a brief summary on the writing of the song itself and a short description of the recording process. 

The process of recording this album thus far has been such an amazing experience, filled with inspiration, creativity, joy, determination, diligent work, and valuable life lessons. The whole process has flowed quite smoothly. I have deepened my experience and practice with clear communication and project camaraderie as Paul and I have been roommates and work partners together the entire summer. I am pleasantly surprised with myself and my ability to share such close space with someone through this extended period, as I have felt like my personal space has been totally honored and both Paul and I have been able to express how we truly feel when certain challenges arise. This makes for an ideally harmonious and reciprocal creative environment. My relationship with Paul has deepened immensely over these past months and continues to grow and evolve as we encourage one another to develop and express our inherent creative energies for the benefit of all. His help with recording, mixing, producing, and musical accompaniment has been absolutely invaluable and I am eternally grateful for this presence in my life.

Another gift from this experience has been the awakened remembrance for the absolute joy of recording music to share with the world. Along with developing my personal preferences for the way I like to hear myself in the mix, i have learned tools to be able to continue the recording process on my own (Paul has also become a sort of recording engineer instructor for me throughout this process). I would love to continue this practice and have an entire facility dedicated to recording further albums, utilizing the space as a platform to unite conscious musicians of the world, collaborating as one sonic body of harmonic resonance.

I am so honored to have been able to record in my home, the Ark (the Ark-Portal as my mother calls it). If you have ever been to the Ark, you know that it is a magical place, a kind of hobbit-hut, swiss family robinson-ship-tree house, which has housed artists for nearly a century (this house was built in 1923)... And next to all this, it is perched directly above the beach, granting me the ability to jump in the ocean whenever I wish with such immediate access, is a gift beyond comprehension and I am so blessed to have the opportunity to live in such a nourishing and beautiful home. Not to mention the town of Laguna itself, which I feel, holds a unique vibration of its own, attracting artists and free spirits since its beginnings as a small beach town (side-note: Laguna is where the 'Brotherhood of Eternal Love', led by the late Tim Leary, was formed in the 1960's).

I am eternally grateful for all who have contributed their energy and support to this project! Though this Album is not yet complete, I plan to have it ready for distribution by early november. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my report and listen to the sounds. Stay tuned for further developments! With infinite love and gratitude, may you flow with the river of creation, unto the eternal sea, singing your songs through the ever shifting tides of life in beauty, joy, and peace. Thank you, I love you.