Even kids love medieval music.
Local violin teacher Shula Kleinerman and Jacob Breedlove stopped by last weekend to a few medieval tunes featuring vielle, hurdy gurdy, and a chorus of young early music enthusiasts! It was a real treat to see the kids’ interest in singing this repertoire, even working hard to make sure they pronounced each Middle English syllable correctly. The recordings turned out really well. :)
Recording with Martha Scanlan & Dirk Powell…
So much has been happening at the studio in the past few months that I’ve been guilty of not keeping my blog up to date! I can only take solace knowing that I’m hardly the first would-be blogger who has found themselves falling behind.
There are a lot of stories to tell about the more than 20 shows we’ve hosted in the past few months, but I’ll start with the story of recording one of my favorite rootsy singers, Martha Scanlan. You may know Martha from her role as frontwoman for the Reeltime Travelers, where she first recorded her original tune, “Little Bird of Heaven.”
So as it turns out, prolific novelist Joyce Carol Oates liked Martha’s song so much that she decided to name a book after it. That seemed like an apt time to re-record the song, and so, together with her good friend Dirk Powell, Martha visited Empty Sea to lay down a new version.
Now as it happens, “Little Bird” is my favorite song from the Reeltime Travelers’ album Living Reeltime, Thinking Old-Time. So I will admit to being a bit star struck by seeing one of my favorite singers walk through the studio door to record one my favorite songs of hers! The recording took place the night before Dirk’s show with John Doyle (the first in our Folklife Masters concert series), so I was meeting Dirk for the first time as well.
To make a long story short, it took longer to set up mics and check levels than it did for these consummate musicians to record a killer version of the tune — in one take! The result was a new version of “Little Bird of Heaven” that is a bit older and wiser than the zeal and youth of the Reeltime Travelers recording. First-take serendipity was the name of the game here.
It was a real pleasure to work with Dirk and Martha to put this together. You can download “Little Bird of Heaven” here to enjoy it yourself!
Lots of bookings!
Seems like word is getting out that Empty Sea is a great place to play! In the past few weeks we’ve been finalizing a number of seriously exciting performances…stay tuned for more details.
And we’re off!
Hi all,
Our first two shows (Coyote Grace and the Cantrells) were amazing! Check out some pictures (thank you, Carolyn Waters for the top-notch photography.)
I’m in the process of booking shows for the rest of the summer, so stay tuned – we have quite a lineup on the way.
How to succeed at stage construction (while really trying)
Pam and Karl finish framing the stage
As it turns out, building a stage is difficult.
But it’s awfully nice to play music on one. Pam and Karl took this challenge head-on, spending a good chunk of last weekend framing out a generously proportioned stage for the studio. The frame is a large, basically trapezoidal shape made from screwed-together 2×6’s, all of which rest directly on the floor. The joists are on 16 inch centers, an echo of typical floor construction techniques despite the fact that the structure will simply rest on the existing floor.
See the holes in the joists? The stage will sit directly atop the room’s main heating vent, and the holes help allow air to flow under the stage and out the 5 rectangular openings on the stage’s front edge. Clever, huh?
I returned from a weekend out of town to find the frame in a basically complete state. I have some amazing friends :)
The great flooring debate
While the framing design was fairly straightforward, I had a few more headaches about what to put on top of the frame! Initially, I had intended to just use plain plywood sheeting on top, probably painted black. But as time went on, this sounded less appealing as I considered the possibility of using hardwood flooring instead. I love the look and feel underfoot of hardwood floors, and I love playing music in a room with one – so why not treat the stage as if it were a room under construction and floor it with real hardwood?
I thought this might mean being able to skip having a plywood layer altogether, but my coworkers quickly disavowed me of that idea – the plywood subfloor makes it much easier to nail down hardwood, as well as providing a stiffer, more robust floor surface.
So the current plan is:
- Install plywood subfloor
- Install ’stairnose’ trim around the edge of the stage to give a reasonable looking transition
- Install tongue-and-groove hardwood!
Now, I’ve done some instrument building projects and know my way around hand tools, but actual carpentry and construction is something I’ve never really done. How thick should the plywood subfloor be? Should I use nails or screws to attach it to the frame? What’s the best way to choose flooring and trim? Guess what? I still don’t know the best answers to these questions – but one by one, I’m taking a reasonable guess :)
The Subfloor Show with Karl and Michael
Rest on his laurels? Not Karl. Not content with having spent his entire weekend framing with Pam, Karl clocked in for Round 2 to help me install the subfloor on top of the frame.
This actually went surprisingly quickly – in stark contrast to the large amounts of geometry and paper calculations that went into framing the stage, sheeting it with plywood was mostly a matter of directly marking cut lines and circular-sawing a few sheets of plywood into submission.
Karl marks another piece to cut
There’s a bit of puzzle-piece action in figuring out how to most efficiently use the 4′x8′ sheets of plywood to cover this odd shape. But basically this was a matter of drill, screw in a screw, saw off the overhang (after carefully marking a saw line and setting up a 2′x4′ as a guide) and repeat until exhausted.
Plywood subfloor complete, stage lighting for dramatic effect. Ready for the hardwood layer!
It took about 4 hours to buy all the material and complete the project. Not exactly blazingly fast, but not too bad either. Now the stage is ready ti be covered in hardwood!
Stay tuned for more exciting updates. A lot has got to happen in the next 9 days :)
Going public
How many Seattleites does it take to screw a sign on?
What’s new since my last post?
Well, one big thing happened: It was finally time to hang up the Empty Sea Studios sign outside the studio on Phinney Avenue. The sun was getting low in the sky and was simply amazing to watch this dreamed-about place suddenly seem “real.”
Actually putting the sign in place was an extremely quick process – just four screws on each side, and you’re done. I would call the process anticlimactic except that the result looks so good that it actually was quite climactic!
Neighborhood reaction
Overall, the neighborhood reaction seems very positive. The sign generates a lot of traffic to the website, and definitely its fair share of double-takes for pedestrians on Phinney! I’ve been giving out a lot of business cards and having a lot of fun conversations with neighbors and community folks who are all excited to have a new music venue to get to know.
and the show approaches…
Now being just days away from the first concert, things are really starting to come together. There’s still so very much to do, but I think we’re actually going to make it to the finish line in relative style.
And now, I believe it's time to drill. Also, I'm straddling a couple of live wires that are currently loose in the grass! Awesome.
Nailed it!
Stage planning and other developments.
What’s new in the studio this week?
Trina, Pam (plus sister), and Karl came over today and helped finalize the layout for the stage. It looks like the stage layout will seat about four musicians comfortably – it’s an interesting exercise in figuring out how to fit the lighting, sound, stage curtains, and stage itself all in a small (whoops, I meant to say ‘intimate’) space without feeling crowded.
One exciting thing: Karl pointed out that we could use reclaimed flooring (from Ballard’s Re-store) to build the decking for the stage. I like this idea much better than using plywood! It’s going to look better, not require painting, and somehow have a better vibe than playing on plywood.
In other news: I’ve been talking this week with the Seattle Folklore Society – they are interested in producing shows at Empty Sea! This is exciting news, and I will actually have a show to announce shortly. Stay tuned…
The pipes, the pipes…
The pipes are calling.
3/4″ inch schedule 40 pipes, that is.
In order to showcase performers at the studios in dazzling incandescence and deep, passionate washes of color, we’re hanging some black iron pipe on the walls.
One pipe is up already, and it’s enough to clearly see that this is going to look very, very cool. There’s a few more left to do – basically, by covering a couple of walls, you can project light from a bunch of different angles, which yields the appropriate color sculpting and luminosity dancing that all real lighting designers understand. Stanley McCandless, here I come…
What else is new: Trina and I figured out a plan for finishing the light rigging, where to hang acoustic treatment, and how to hang a curtain behind the stage. It’s going to be beau-ti-ful.
It’s a sign of things to come…
So after much slaving back and forth with the focus group (also known as family and friends), I finalized a sign design for the front yard and had it fabricated by our local Fastsigns store. Here’s the design from Illustrator.
In the process of working on this, I learned a lot that I wish I’d already known about the CMYK color space and how it differs from graphic design for the web. Specifically – apparently basing my entire brand around a dark, intense blue is just about the worst thing I could have done from a color-matching perspective. It’s been pretty instructive to look at the color matching between an onscreen image, the business cards I recently had printed, and the sign itself.
So, without further ado, here’s what I got back from the printer last night:
I was very, VERY excited when I saw this peeping through the window at me from inside the sign shop. I knew that the spec’d size of 5×3 feet was going to be large, but I don’t think I was really prepared for just how large that is. I felt almost like I was going to fall into the f-hole!
I have a bit of pride about that part of the design, actually; the f-hole is traced from the fiddle I built last year. There are some irregularities to it and I went back and checked: yes, they’re really part of the instrument itself.
For some scale, that’s a 34-string harp next to the sign, which is itself close to 5 feet tall! The sign comes up to my chin or so. It looks huge inside, but it’s actually the perfect size to go over the existing lawn sign (which doesn’t look all that large in context.) Thanks, visual perception!
I hope to get the signs (one for each side of the stand in the front yard) mounted soon.
Mailing list now active!
Today’s IT project was installing and configuring PHPList, a cool mailing list program which integrates nicely with Wordpress. If you’re interested in heaving about our progress as we get things set up here, just subscribe to the list using the new link in the sidebar!
First things first…
Opening this space has meant facing some steep learning curves: lighting and sound design, Seattle business licensing, and not the least of all, Wordpress configuration. I think it’s really that last one that’s been the hardest. But the website is now up and running.
Since I moved into the space on February 1st, a lot has already taken place: Trina, Pam, Leslie and Khaled all helped me get the main floor painted and decluttered (thanks guys!), and the same crew plus Jeff and Shula helped move over piles of clothes, music gear, and woodworking tools last weekend.
First likely headache? I may have to take a look at how clean the AC power is in the main room – I’m getting a fair amount of 60 hertz hum that I need to track down. Oh, and if anyone has any drywall tape & mud skills, now would be a good time to pipe up…
There are boxes to unpack, lights and acoustic treatment to hang, and so much more!
February was all about getting moved from my old place in Shoreline, and March will be the Month of Studio Bringup. Stay tuned – it’s going to rock.
