Kickstarter

In honor of this year's "One World, Many Stories" library summer reading theme, we are making 2 songs available now which will eventually be on our next CD, "Sing Me Your Story".  Think of them as advance "singles"!  The songs are:

Yesterday, we skipped ahead in the recording process to mix just one song which will later be on our full-length CD: "One World, Many Stories".  Think of it like the advance "single"!  We wrote this song for this year's library summer reading theme of the same name, and since our season of library summer reading concerts just started, we wanted to make this song available for download.  We will be sending the song for free to all of the Kickstarter backers, and we will let people know when it is available to purchase on SongsForTeaching.com as soon as possible.

This song is a real tour de force, featuring more tracks than we have ever had before on a Two of a Kind recording.  The lyrics celebrate the ability of books to take us to many lands (France with Madeline, India with Mowgli, Spain with Ferdinand, etc.).  Along with the references to various countries, we have international instruments in the mix including Highland bagpipes, didgeridoo, sitar, koto, shamisen, cuica, kalimba, dumbek, shekere, djembe and Spanish and Mariachi trumpets.  The Chorus, sung in unison as well as a round in 2 and 4 parts, sounds great with our Kids' Chorus.  The verses are sung not only by David & Jenny, but by many guest vocalists including Billy Jonas, Hope Wesley Harrison, Justin Solonynka, our sons Ari & Jason, and members of the Kids' Chorus.

We hope you enjoy the result!

On June 17, our friends and musical cohorts Hope Wesley Harrison and Justin Solonynka joined us in the recording studio.  Hope & Justin often perform with Two of a Kind as "The Give 'em a Hand Band", and are also in our grown-up group, Acoustic Blender.  In fact, we recorded two Acoustic Blender songs, "Birdhouse in Your Soul" (by They Might Be Giants) and Jenny's "Coconut Trees" with Hope & Justin for this Two of a Kind CD.  In addition, we worked on:

• Purple Glasses - vocal harmonies
• Polar Bears - Justin: keyboards (harpsichord)
• One World, Many Stories - vocals including solos; Justin: melodica and didgeridoo
• Family Harmony - vocal harmonies

On June 20, eighteen friends and fans ranging in age from 5 to "I'm not telling" graciously gathered at the studio to lend their voices to the ever-growing grand finale Choruses of "Family Harmony".

One June 22, Lynn Warner generously came to the studio to play Highland bagpipes for 4 measures of "One World, Many Stories" - the part about Wee Gillis.  If you don't know this wonderful book set in Scotland, by the same author/illustrator as Ferdinand (the gentle bull), we recommend you check it out!

Tomorrow, 6/24, we are going to mix "One World, Many Stories" so that we can make this song available as a downloadable single, since this song was specifically written for this year's library summer reading theme.  We are planning to give this single to our Kickstarter Backers!

We've been so busy with this new recording that we are bit behind on our updates, but we'll get caught up eventually...

On Monday, June 13, a group of 9 wonderful kids ranging in age from 9-13 joined us in the studio to sing on our CD.  They raised their voices on:

• The World is Not Your Garbage Can
• Hello 'Round the World - echo on "hello" in many languages
• Tell Me Your Story - both melody and descant parts on the Chorus
• It's a Long Way
• Read a Book - all 3 parts of this converging song
• One World, Many Stories - helping make the Chorus a round in 2 and 4 parts, as well as singing various solos on the verses
• Pitfalls - in addition to doing a great job on the Chorus, individual kids did solos in the "rap" section

And then a bunch of their parents and siblings joined them for "Family Harmony" - we had 16 voices in all for that one.  More to come!

On Sunday, June 5, we were graced by the presence of our friend Billy Jonas and his sweetie Adrian Deal.  We have known Billy since college, and in addition to being a great friend and a wonderful human being, he is one of the most talented and creative people we know!  If you aren't familiar with Billy's "bangin' and sangin", check out his website: http://www.billyjonas.com

Billy did both some bangin' and sangin' on our recording, engineered this time by Dave Schonauer, including:

• Billy and Adrian joined the growing chorus for "Family Harmony"
• Billy sang one of the three parts in our "Read a Book" converging song
• Billy sang a short solo in one of the verses for "One World Many Stories"
• Billy played his cool re-used/recycled drum set (see photos) on "The World is Not Your Garbage Can", including a solo section culminating in a Keith Moon-ish crashing drum set!  It looked like Billy was having loads of fun "trashing" his set...

We have been rehearsing kids for the the Kids Chorus, and practicing with our friends Hope Wesley Harrison & Justin Solonynka of Acoustic Blender for their parts in this project.