And I thought, this would be an incredible memory (for them, but also for us as parents) to have these recorded. So, I embarked on a project of recording an original children\u2019s album back in 2012, and in 2019, I finally released it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That begs the question\u2026\u201cWhat took so long?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, before we get there, have a listen to it now on all streaming services!<\/p>\n\n\n\n I admit, I could have recorded many of these ditties with a handheld recorder and could have called it done in a fraction of the time. But I decided on some important goals right from the beginning of the project:<\/p>\n\n\n\n For #1, this was important to me for a few reasons. Through the first decade of the 2000\u2019s, I had mainly used Sony\u2019s ACID product to record and arrange music, and although I was still proud of the product (as a Sony employee and former programmer on the product), I was also transitioning into a Mac-oriented world. I saw the writing on the wall: ACID was a Windows-based application, and updates were infrequent. I had to find and learn a new DAW.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I decided (back in 2010) to learn ProTools. At the time, this made a lot of sense to me – it is (was?) the industry standard, and knowing ProTools seemed like an important skill for any producer to have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I put dedicated effort into learning ProTools, recorded all the basic tracks, and edited and produced final versions of 3 of the tunes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But a few key main reasons caused me to move away from ProTools \u2014 too long of a story to go into now. The bottom line, against all advice from leading experts, I switched DAWs in the middle of a project\u2026but couldn\u2019t be happier with my choice of moving to Logic Pro X in 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although I have some background creating audio software, knowing how a compressor works compared to actually knowing how to use a compressor is akin to reading how to ride a bike vs. actually riding a bike. You need to have hands-on experience, and move through the process of experimentation, discovery, frustration, and success. Basically, learn what works and what doesn\u2019t on your own terms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And for me, it came down to the whole mastery topic again<\/a>. To learn something well, it takes dedicated practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So even though I could have quickly recorded some parts, do some basic mixing and apply a preset-based maximizer plug-in on the output buss, I decided that I\u2019d take the time to build some audio production muscle. Recording, arranging, editing, and mastering would all be stages that I wouldn\u2019t rush through, but use as a learning opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although the two goals above are certainly very important to me, this last goal was potentially the most critical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I joke with my friends that my first album was an album of \u201cchildren\u2019s music\u201d, and the plan for my next album would be an album of \u201cadult music\u201d (cue the wah wah guitar). But the truth to that joke is that I have literally notebooks full of ideas and \u201creal\u201d songs that I one day would like to record and release, but always felt encumbered by the questions: \u201cWhat do I sound like?\u201d<\/em>, or \u201cWhat is my voice?\u201d<\/em>, or \u201cWhat is my style?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I have interests in a wide gamut of musical genres \u2014 ranging from jazz and blues, rock and pop, funk and gospel. I play mostly keyboards, but have trained on a variety of instruments and on voice. And I value the acoustic song (performed in one take) as much as the artistry that can be demonstrated by an expert producer using modern audio software tools, synths and plug-ins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To summarize, I have a lot of musical inputs, and I wanted to find out which ones really resonated with me. What works, and what doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I felt like the only way to do that was to leave the playing field wide open. I didn\u2019t want to lock down a genre, or instrumentation, sounds, and production techniques, but instead let myself try anything to ultimately find my voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The result including songs that were simple (piano and voice) and songs that were fully produced. Songs that challenged me on different acoustic instruments, and songs that had beatboxing, vocoder effects and drum machines. Songs that were jazz and blues, and songs that were pop and reggae.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Was it fun? Oh yeah. Did I learn a lot? Oh yeah. But did I find my voice?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, now that the album is done, I\u2019d like to suggest that finding your voice is a continual journey, not an ultimate destination. But I think I have enough to springboard off of when working on that next album\u2026(cue the wah wah guitar)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Out of the Short Stories album, I had an alternative version of the song “Pancakes” that didn’t have my kids names in it. That became “Makin’ Pancakes”, a single from the album.<\/em> You can listen to that version on all streaming platforms as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Album art by my daughter, age 7.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When my children were very little, I\u2019d make up songs to sing to them \u2014 songs about every day life as a toddler. In fact, I have a habit of making up little ditties about anything really. My opinion is that any activity is worthy of an internal soundtrack! But busting out into a chorus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,19],"tags":[16,21,17],"class_list":["post-234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","category-songs","tag-music","tag-songs","tag-songwriting"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Short-Stories-Album-Cover-1600x1600-1.jpg?fit=1600%2C1600&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2jXdF-3M","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":50,"url":"https:\/\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/23\/new-songs-by-buster-fayte\/","url_meta":{"origin":234,"position":0},"title":"New songs by Buster Fayte","author":"Brian","date":"July 23, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"My good friend Gary Rebholz (aka Buster Fayte) is a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, author, and multimedia producer based out of Madison, Wisconsin. In 2009, I recorded piano and organ parts for three of his tunes in my home studio, and one of them - \"I'm goin' home\" - was featured in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":237,"url":"https:\/\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/2021\/10\/30\/ben-folds-songwriters-retreat\/","url_meta":{"origin":234,"position":1},"title":"Ben Folds Songwriter\u2019s Retreat","author":"Brian","date":"October 30, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"For four days in October, I joined 48 other musicians in a songwriter\u2019s retreat hosted by the phenomenal Ben Folds. It was intense, it was educational, and it was incredibly fun. The retreat was designed to help all the songwriters try new ways of writing songs, break out of habits\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Ben-Folds-and-Brian-Orr.png?fit=1200%2C816&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Ben-Folds-and-Brian-Orr.png?fit=1200%2C816&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Ben-Folds-and-Brian-Orr.png?fit=1200%2C816&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Ben-Folds-and-Brian-Orr.png?fit=1200%2C816&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/Ben-Folds-and-Brian-Orr.png?fit=1200%2C816&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":303,"url":"https:\/\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/2024\/05\/16\/ghost-of-the-light\/","url_meta":{"origin":234,"position":2},"title":"Ghost of the Light","author":"Brian","date":"May 16, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Ghost of the Light is now available on all streaming services. Listen and learn more about this song, written and produced by Brian Orr.","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ghost of the Light","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/GOTL.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/GOTL.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/GOTL.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/GOTL.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/GOTL.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":249,"url":"https:\/\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/2022\/11\/19\/sidelines-a-new-song\/","url_meta":{"origin":234,"position":3},"title":"Sidelines","author":"Brian","date":"November 19, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Sidelines is now available on all streaming services. Listen using the links below, or head down to the bottom of this post to read the lyrics. Spotify Apple Music YouTube Amazon Music SoundCloud This song came from a songwriting challenge that one of the writers from the Ben Folds Songwriter\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/sidelines-%E2%80%93-for-web.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/sidelines-%E2%80%93-for-web.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/sidelines-%E2%80%93-for-web.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/sidelines-%E2%80%93-for-web.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/sidelines-%E2%80%93-for-web.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":262,"url":"https:\/\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/2023\/03\/26\/me-lagavulin-and-a-slide-deck\/","url_meta":{"origin":234,"position":4},"title":"Me, Lagavulin, and a Slide Deck","author":"Brian","date":"March 26, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"New song by Brian Orr: \u201cMe, Lagavulin, and a Slide Deck\u201d","rel":"","context":"In "Music"","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cover-art-%E2%80%93-final-web-1.jpg?fit=800%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cover-art-%E2%80%93-final-web-1.jpg?fit=800%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cover-art-%E2%80%93-final-web-1.jpg?fit=800%2C800&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cover-art-%E2%80%93-final-web-1.jpg?fit=800%2C800&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":70,"url":"https:\/\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/2011\/08\/22\/teamtris-a-4-player-dos-tetris-game\/","url_meta":{"origin":234,"position":5},"title":"Teamtris: A 4-player DOS Tetris Game","author":"Brian","date":"August 22, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Teamtris is one of the best and most fun multi-player Tetris games that you've probably never heard of. This year (2011) marks the 20th anniversary of when Teamtris was finished. Twenty years later, it has finally been made free for all you retro gamers and Tetris addicts! Yes, it's a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Compositions"","block_context":{"text":"Compositions","link":"https:\/\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/category\/music\/compositions\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":360,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions\/360"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Spotify\"](\"\/img\/icons\/icon-spotify.svg\"){kind=icon}
\n Spotify\n <\/a>\n \n ![\"Apple](\"\/img\/icons\/icon-applemusic.svg\"){kind=icon}
\n Apple Music\n <\/a> \n \n ![\"YouTube\"](\"\/img\/icons\/icon-youtube.svg\"){kind=icon}
\n YouTube\n <\/a>\n \n ![\"Amazon](\"\/img\/icons\/icon-amazon.svg\"){kind=icon}
\n Amazon Music\n <\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\nThe Making of Short Stories<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
Learn a new DAW<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Practice proper production techniques<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Experiment with different styles (find my voice)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n\n Spotify\n <\/a>\n \n \n Apple Music\n <\/a> \n \n \n YouTube\n <\/a>\n \n \n Amazon Music\n <\/a>\n \n ![\"SoundCloud\"](\"\/img\/icons\/icon-soundcloud.svg\"){kind=icon}
\n SoundCloud\n <\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"Makin'](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.brianorr.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Album-Art-1600x1600-1-1024x1024.jpg?resize=625%2C625&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n