1. Valarie Has To Be E.P
My Music Project

2. Where It Came From
Started nearly 10 years ago when I was studying music at Tafe and recorded a few original songs as part of an assessment. Unfortunately other aspects of life took hold and it got put to the side until I could find the right time to do it again.
When I heard about this subject and what we had to do I thought now would be the perfect time to rehash the idea of me releasing the E.P but with a few differences.

3. Participants
From the end of last semester when we wanted/had to do for this unit Luke Hendon and I said we would help each other out when it came to this project. So Luke has been helping me with sitting in the both pressing record and also with playing guitar tracks.
I have also received help from my dear friend’s Simon Rigby and Tania Rose, two people who currently work in the music industry as composers, arrangers, producers and have also taught me a lot about music and helped me out when it I have needed it.

4. Method
So for my E.P I decided to keep the original title track as it is with a full band and then add in an acoustic version of the song.
Re-recording the second track “A New Hope” because I made a few mistakes the first time round and I also decided to add in a a capella version of one of my songs. My reason for making it a capella is because the song is very soft and subtle and I felt that adding music to it would make the song sound to heavy and harsh.

5. First I had to write out chord sheets for my songs
First I had to write out chord sheets for my songs. As I was working with Simon on other projects he said he would help. After listening to “A New Hope” a few times and we had the chords he started playing.
Once he started on piano I started to realise the song sounded better on piano. Simon offered to play for me on recording day.
Once completed Simon, Luke and I headed into the main studio and recorded the piano track for “A New Hope” At the time I sang along with Simon so he wouldn’t get lost as we hadn’t had the chance to rehearse the song often.

6. Simon recording on the Steinway

7. After we finished that track Luke and I headed into the studio to record the acoustic version of the title track.
This didn’t take very long to do and everything turned out well once we were finally able to start.

8. During the recording process I have been fiddling around with artworks for the E.P cover. My first idea was to draw up 10 different “limited edition” covers for the first 100 made, then get people on my who follow my website and facebook
Page to vote on their favourite one and that would be the E.P artwork but I found that nothing stood out or really worked for me. I ended up looking into Mandala drawings and worked with different types of styles and I found one that I like and one I feel works well.

9. I have been working on the mixing myself and now I just need to book the main studio to again and record the vocal tracks for all three tracks including the some harmonized vocals Due to personal reasons I have not yet been able to do so for a few weeks.

10. Project Outcomes
The out come for this project was to release my E.P on Nov 2nd on sound cloud and have a band camp site up and running ready to release but as previously stated due to personal reason that will be pushed back as well. Once the E.P was released the plan was to have a release night at the beginning of the new year at a Bar I worked at in Rydlemere and enter next years round of unearthed once I had been gigging a few more times.

11. Issues Faced
The main issues I faced in this project were in the studio. It had been a year or two since I had been in the main studio and was surprised to find new equipment in there so that took a while to bet used to and then there was the last time I booked the studio. The previous person that was in the studio turned of equipment that isn’t suppose to be turned off and caused some trouble when it came to starting my session but Noel came to the rescue and sorted the situation.