Here is some Pairings trivia for you:

• 11 musicians
• 8 instrument arrangements
• 3 recording studios
• 3 recording engineers
• 4 recording sessions
• ? types of microphones (4 types on my voice alone, never mind the instruments, which all required multiple microphones)
• 17 potential songs, each with multiple takes

 

By the time I got home from Toronto last fall, this is how the numbers stacked up. This list might give you a sense what an enormous job it was to give Pairings a cohesive feel. (And it truly does!)

 

But wait! Somehow, 17 songs weren’t enough because I still hadn’t recorded anything with my long-time musical collaborator, Daniel Janke. Daniel and I had developed a lot of new repertoire together over the past three years. We knew there were songs that we could record together that would be a great fit for the Pairings theme, so we added another three recording sessions and another three songs to the tally.

 

So that makes:

• 7 recording sessions
• 20 potential songs, each with multiple takes

 

After that, we started wading through the accumulated recorded material together because Daniel was the mix engineer for the album. That Pairings has turned out sounding so seamless, I owe to Daniel’s sophisticated aesthetic and sensitive ears.

 

Of the songs we recorded together, I’m particularly fond of our version of “Tea for Two”, which uses prepared piano. A prepared piano is simply an acoustic piano that has had its sound altered by putting objects between or on the strings. The type of object is limited only by the musician’s imagination: screws, washers, marbles, coins, forks, golf tees, rubber, felt... The sounds produced by a prepared piano can thus vary widely, but I always find it somewhat dissonant, other-worldly, and mysterious.

 

Daniel has used prepared piano extensively as a composer and performer, but I had never heard of it until he indirectly introduced it to me four years ago. One day, while I was waiting for him to start a pre-production session on a demo recording, I sat down and played his piano. It’s one of the nicest pianos anywhere in the Yukon, but that day it sounded strange. As it turned out, Daniel had prepared it for another recording project he was working on at the time. We ended up using a lightly prepared piano for one song on Bedroom Voice, the beautifully haunting song “The Gentle Rain”.

 

For Pairings, I wanted to take the innocent sweetness of “Tea for Two” and give it just a little grittiness, like a burst of salt in a caramel. I also added a set of German lyrics to the song. I love singing in German because there are always people who are surprised at how beautiful the language is. I think the result is still very sweet, but refreshing.

 

We also recorded Bob Dorough’s evocative “Small Day Tomorrow” (which has charmingly celebratory lyrics paired with a melancholy melody), as well as my original, “Can’t Find My Way No More”.

 

Daniel will be playing piano at my CD release concerts at the Old Fire Hall in Whitehorse this Saturday. In fact, we have a rehearsal at his studio tonight! I can’t wait to get there and make some music.

 

THREE days until Pairings is released. FOUR days until the first release concerts. Oh myyyyy….!