Kickstarter

Dear Backers,

Greetings from a cold and stormy New York!

The holidays, travel, and illness have conspired recently to prevent the members of Importango from seeing each other every week, but we are dutifully chipping away at the album. 

We have a few more rehearsals scheduled, and then we're on to step #2, the recording phase.  Look for updates in the coming weeks - we plan to have some good tidbits for you.

In other news, we've had some great conversations about ideas for the artwork and design - we think you'll love the results.

And finally: the buttons and video interviews are almost ready to go!  They're pretty special and we have a feeling you're going to enjoy them.

Thanks as always for your support - back to work!

Warm Regards,

Adam

Dear Backers,

Greetings once again from New York.

Rehearsals for the Importango album continue at full speed.  We thought we'd give you a peek into what's going on.

Game Plan Update - Rehearsals (a continuing series)

Here is a recap of our latest rehearsal from December 2nd.

We decided to spend this rehearsal concentrating on two pieces, El Diecinueve and Vals Mío, both originals by Adam Tully.  We are using a completely different arranging process for each piece, which you'll see as we take you through the summary of each:

1. El Diecinueve

This is the original that we've been playing the longest.  It's never had a formal arrangement, but we've been playing it week after week for about two years in the style known as 'parrilla' in the tango tradition.  This means that instead of having every note written out, we have only the most basic information - 32 measures of melody and harmony.  To this information we add all of the stylistic elements of the language of tango: phrasing, rhythmic variation, dynamics, and feel, along with certain conventions (things you can just 'do' in tango) and we decide in the moment who is going to play what part (melody, accompaniment) during which section.  Parrilla-style playing is not unlike what jazz musicians did when they first started playing instrumental versions of pieces from the American Songbook, many of which are also based on a 32-bar form. 

Parrilla style is a lot of fun, and many of Importango's live arrangements live somewhere between this style, arrangements we've played, and well-known interpretations by the greats.  With El Diecinueve we are slowly turning our parrilla version into an arrangement. 

We started by distributing melodic duties to the three instruments.  Then we began to play through the piece, and each time we played we would stop and try new ideas - an counter melody, a change in rhythmic accompaniment, tempo, dynamics, register, etc.  Each of us worked from the same basic lead sheet containing the simple melody and chords, making notes of each idea we tried.  We've been working this way on El Diecinueve for two rehearsals now.  The arrangement thus develops organically.  You could even call it that - the 'organic' approach to arranging.  Stay tuned for more...

2. Vals Mío

The second and last piece of the rehearsal is also Adam's original, Vals Mío.  The method of arrangement is the complete opposite of the above - Adam wrote the entire arrangement out, the way you would with 'classical' or 'composed' music.  Even with this approach there is much work to be done in rehearsal: interpretative decisions, experiments with dynamics, tempo, feel, etc.  Also, since the arrangement is so new (we played it live for the first time at our last show) there are a lot of elements that need to be changed, polished, or slightly modified to work better on each instrument.

Sometimes you need to simply play through a section several times as a group and try different approaches to phrasing, articulation, and tempo in order to understand what needs work.  We did this with a number of sections including the 16th-note variation, which occurs at the end of the piece.

In the rehearsal video you'll see how worked on the variation in this way.

In the next few rehearsals we'll use the 'organic' and 'written' methods on the rest of the pieces and continue the process of selecting about 10 pieces out of the 20 we are considering. 

We've got some holiday travel planned but we'll keep in touch with updates.  Rehearsals will start again mid-January and as soon as possible after that we'll begin the tracking (recording) phase.

Reward Updates

-Buttons are almost ready to go out!

-Video interviews!  We've seen a preview of one, and we are told that the others are following shortly....fingers crossed!

Happy Holiday Season to all and we look forward to sharing our continued work with you.

-Machiko, Octavio, and Adam

Dear Backers,

Greetings from New York! 

Importango is back in action after superstorm Sandy.  We were among the fortunate who only suffered minor inconveniences.  However, because so many here lost far more, we've used the last two Tango Thursdays to raise money to help relief efforts - our fans have generously donated $200 to American Red Cross and $165 to the Red Hook Initiative.  Thank you sincerely for helping out your neighbors.

Many in our region continue to suffer the loss of heat, power, and their homes, so please consider donating or supporting a Kickstarter project that will benefit relief.

Game Plan Update - Rehearsals

Now that most things in our lives are back to normal, we have begun our rehearsal schedule.  We're happy to report that rehearsal #1 on November 13th went very well.  Here is a recap:

First, we took some time to narrow down the repertoire list for the Album and are slowly moving from about 20 pieces to about 10.

Second, we read through some of our originals that are new or newly arranged.  One of those is Vals Mío, by Adam Tully.  We've been playing this one on Thursdays for about a year or two, but the arrangement is brand new and we plan to roll it out on an upcoming Thursday night.  It was sounding pretty good tonight and we think you are going to like it.  Here's a picture of the guitar part from this evening's rehearsal:

We read through a few more pieces and ended by doing some arranging work on another Adam Tully original, El Diecinueve.  This is the first original we ever played at Tango Thursdays, but we've never had a formal arrangement.  Our version has plenty of personality, since we've been playing it for over a year, but we need to add some tweaks here and there to make it really shine on the recording.  It's a fun process to arrange 'organically' as a group and we look forward to sharing the results with you.

Below are two more snapshots from the evening: Machiko asking for a pencil and Octavio producing a whole collection of them.

Rehearsal #2 is slated for the last week of November.  More updates to follow shortly after!

Yours Musically,

-Adam, Machiko, and Octavio

PS - the video elf was also hit by the storm but is back on track.  The button elf is putting the finishing touches on early next week...

Dear Backers,

On October 19th at noon Eastern time, our fundraising campaign closed with an incredible total of $11,878.  This means that after the service fees are paid to our administrative partners, we will take home about $10,000: exactly our target budget. This is truly an honor - thanks to you we have everything we need to make a first-class record!

From now until completion we'll be sending you regular updates about our creative process.

Game Plan

I'd like to take this opportunity to describe our 'game plan' to you.  Here are the steps we'll follow:

1. Rehearsals.  At this point we've chosen about 20 pieces that we'd like to record.   In the coming weeks we'll start a series of rehearsals, specific to this recording, so that we can a) choose the final list of pieces and b) tend to the details of arrangement and performance.  We are estimating that this process will take place during November and part of December (but it is subject to our travel schedules - fingers crossed!)

2. Recording sessions.  Known as 'tracking' in the business.  We'll spend about 3 days in a great recording studio recording the raw material.  With an acoustic trio like ours this usually means settling in to a good 'live' sound and then doing a series of takes.  More on this process in future updates.  (This step happens as soon as possible after step 1).

3. Mixing/editing.  After taking some time to listen to the raw material, we'll regroup and spend several sessions choosing takes and working on the mix, which for a group like ours usually means figuring out the correct balance and picking the best takes.  We'll also make the final decision on the order of the set.  (This will probably happen a week or so after step 2 is completed).

4. Mastering.  After a mixing engineer has worked some magic by optimizing the sound that came through the microphones, we'll take the whole product to a mastering studio so a mastering engineer can create a finished product that sounds as good as any record in your collection.  A good mastering job helps a recording sound like the real deal, not an amateur venture. (This could happen a week or so after step 3)

5. Design.  We'll aim to begin the design process simultaneous to steps 2 and 3, so that we can put the finishing touches on it as soon as step 4 is complete!  Hopefully step 5 can happen very shortly after step 4.

6. Release!  Once the final product is 'turned in' there are some to do's on the distribution side, as the audio and metadata have to be indexed and delivered.  Once step 5 ends and we deliver our product to the label, we'll be able to deliver the release date (and the release party info) to you!

Future Updates:

Now that we've described the 'game plan' we'll be documenting our progress along the way and sharing it with you on a regular basis.  The idea is to give all of our backers an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the way a professional recording is made.  We hope to include as much commentary and photography as possible so you feel as if you are here with us.

Yours musically,

Adam

PS - A reward update: The filmmaking and button-making elves are hard at work!  They hope to ship buttons and video interviews in the coming weeks!

Dear backers,

Yesterday morning we reached our goal of $10,000 thanks to your generous support.

On behalf of Machiko, Octavio, and myself I want to offer our sincere thanks.  We are now going to be able to make the best album possible and move our beloved project, Importango, to the next professional level. 

We have 24 hours left until the campaign closes.  If you know anyone who's been wanting to jump on board, please tell them that this is their last chance!

Question:  You've reached your goal, of $10,000 - why do you need more funding and what will you do with it?

Answer:

1.  Our partners Kickstarter and Amazon take an aggregate of between 8-10% for their hard-earned services.  That means our actual target is $11k.  We are almost there!

2.  Another amazing video - the next several thousand dollars we raise will go to making a video as amazing as the first one.  If you want to see what we can do, tell your friends to support the cause in the next 24 hours!

3. A publicist -  after that the next several thousand dollars will go to hiring a publicist.  For an emerging music project this means a chance at:

-reviews

-interviews

-radio play

-greater performing opportunities and a greater chance we'll perform in your area!

Once again, thanks to all of you - we can't wait to deliver this album to you.  See you at Tango Thursdays!

-Adam