The Next installment of New Music Spotlight is over on the Music page. Before I tell you about that, I want to give you an update about Fingerprints, the song my neighbor sang on.
Fingerprints was the first New Music Spotlight posted on ClubDaveMusic. I blogged about it at that time and again in my post about releasing a single on Spotify. The song ended up on another artist's (David Berman) Spotify page.
When I searched Spotify for help, I was told I had to work through CD Baby, my distributor. CD Baby would only remove the song and make me to pay for a new single to release it again. Well, since then, I stumbled onto a Spotify support contact to change my single to the right artist page -- mine. And they did. A very interesting turn of events. I can't remember the last time something in the music business ended up costing me less money.
New, New Music That's Kind of Old
One of my best memories of my early teen years is learning enough guitar to play trios with my parents. My Mom could sight-read piano music. My Dad played violin. And I strummed along to Beatles, and Gershwin, and folk songs, and anything thing else we could find with guitar chords written above the staff.
I was already starting to act up (I guess they call it act out, now) by the time I hit thirteen. So, there weren't many other occasions when my parents and I were so completely in harmony. That was a long, long time ago, but I remember it was magical and reverential. That's what the song State of Grace is about.
Musicians on Demand
The song is all about three instruments playing as one. I gave up piano lessons when I got my first guitar, and even though I begged during the beginning of country rock, my dad would not teach me violin. I think he may have suffered some form of PTSD from his experience as a violin student.
When I started recording State of Grace, I knew I needed musicians. I turned to the Internet (where else?), and specifically a website called Fiverr. On Fiverr, I found a pianist in the Ukraine and and fiddle player from Montana who were selling gigs.
Within 2 weeks of starting my search for musicians, I had multiple takes of my instruments at a price that made the work sound ridiculously undervalued. Fiverr is based on a $5 starting price. Most of the offers are above that, but low, low, low.
I imported the piano and violin tracks to Reaper, and in a few more days I had a mix good enough to release as a single on Spotify. I owe a lot of thanks to Rob Mayzes and his Home Studio U for vast improvements in the quality of the final cut.
I hope you like State of Grace, You can stream it on iTunes, Spotify, and other platforms or buy it on CD Baby.