SYNOPSIS:
Tina, Tom, Sue and Dan are the four main characters in One Little Kiss. Tina is a busy Nurse Practitioner married to Tom. Tom has his own business and is struggling to make ends meet. Their marriage is also struggling to survive in a busy, distracted life. Sue is looking for a normal man and takes us through her endless sagas of men, changing her haircolor with each one. Dan is a new doctor at the clinic and has eyes for Tina. The story develops as Tina struggles with her personal desires of wanting a child and wanting more attention. She also finds herself attracted to Dan, but wants to build a life with Tom.

Through a few stolen kisses, dramatic and humorous incidents, the characters grow to know themselves better. They find that things right around them and within them help to define their definition of what love really is.

PRODUCTION NOTES:
These production notes are included not only for interest, but for education. I feel that if someone can learn from the process I've gone through on this project, I will have doubled it's impact. I first started writing this musical as a songwriting project. I was working with a coach that encouraged me to think outside of the box I was writing in--from different points of view. A musical would give me that opportunity to write from the perspectives of different characters. I never realized what a huge project this musical would grow into and how much fun I would have actually finishing it. (It was really fun after it was all done!!) I'll be forever grateful for getting turned on to writing a project as this as it not only made me push to the limit every area of my abilities as a songwriter, arranger and storyteller, but turned me on to writing in a totally new genre that I hope to continue in.

RECORDING THE SONGS:
I'll start with the first 7 songs recorded, as I took detailed notes on these for a Research Creative Activity Grant I received. The rest of the notes are more general.

I worked with Rich Callaci and his studio (Callaci studios) It was a great experience. We both work very fast, he even faster than I, and I feel with a great deal of accuracy. (I tend to be a big-picture person) With the amount of pre-production that I had done, the process went fairly smoothly. I came to each session with the charts completed and I had e-mailed the Digital Performer tracks to his computer. I also had a backup disk in case anything didn't transfer correctly. With compatible computers, programs, and equipment, we were able to talk the same language and I learned a great deal, as his experience working on his equipment was much more in-depth than mine. I was inspired to update my studio equipment slightly to make better demos before bringing songs into a larger studio as his, and to have the capabilities of recording on to a hard disk, as I was using my studio mainly for private vocal students and scratch demonstration recordings. (At the present time, I recorded onto DAT or cassette)

So much growth in using technology and equipment in the music studio is very hands-on. The hours upon hours spent working through the different approach to each song, using a little something different for each one, is an invaluable experience. Knowing the questions and requests to ask an engineer/ arranger/programmer takes the experience of having been in the middle of those problems before. I enjoyed working with Rich so much, as he communicated what he was both doing and learning as we went along. There were several things I asked him to do within the Digital Performer program that he hadn't done before or in a long while. A few of those things were to time-stretch out an ending, pitch bend to bring up a vocal note slightly that I didn't want to re-record, (cheating for a vocalist!) and velocity change on a digital track (loud/soft). But he was able to do them with ease, as he quickly found the solution. I feel as if I really grew in my knowledge and experience while working on this project. It will not only increase my abilities for studio work in the future, but as an instructor, guiding students through their studio experiences. And I realize that future experience is also very important, as the technology is constantly changing and improving in this and other related fields.
Studio notes on Song Production:

Until Next Time

This song was chosen to record first, since it would be a fairly simple arrangement. As in all the songs, I worked out the arrangement at my home studio on Digital Performer and made arrangement markings in the sequence, as to verse, chorus, bridge, tempo, instruments, etc…. , then e-mailed the files to Rich Callaci. Rich re-played the piano on this piece first. This song was very much in his expertise, jazz, so he ended up re-playing all the parts I had recorded and notated, keeping the same song form, tempo and markers. He put a guitar solo in the track, as a saxophone solo from a sampler is very tough to sound real. I have performed this live with a solo saxophone, which works wonderfully. Rich also made a couple of chord changes that helped with a consistent bass line.

I'm Not That Romantic

After changing the basic drum pattern, (my drums are always very simple and boring!), Rich added a sampled cha-cha loop and increased the speed of the loop in Digital Performer from 101 bpm to 145 bpm, creating three separate loops to add in different spots for the percussion track. They were cut and pasted in as the track progressed. While re-doing the strings, he added some octave parts to add depth, but give the track space. On the 2nd verse, we took out everything but the percussion and piano to add a contemporary feel. For the piano part, Rich played the choruses and I played the verses, replaying the original parts after the drums were re-done, so it was a team effort. As this project went along, we lost track of who played what on the piano, but any very "cool" parts, I give Rich credit for.

Lullaby (Sleep Little Baby)

We worked with the original flute and piano I had programmed until the very end. We actually ended up keeping my original flute part. We added upright bass, replacing my original electric bass to add lightness and more character. Rich then added English horn and oboe to go with my flute part. I played the new piano part in last, actually in 2 separate takes, since the first attempt felt too rigid with the metronome. The last and final was smoother and lighter, then Rich increased the velocity on the piano to blend with the other parts.

I Was a Princess

I explained to Rich that this needed to be a dance number. We used my original track as a guide, then added percussion to help it move. We decided the feel was an "Irish-type" dance, like the "Dixie Dregs", except their song "Little Feet" is in 6/4 time. Rich re-did the drums and expanded the last pre-chorus to build rhythmically. We were able to cut/paste a lot, as I had put all the markers in the tracks. (for verses, choruses, bridge) Rich then added trombones to fill out the lower section, doubling some bass notes. I added the Pizzicato string counter -rhythm parts on the second session of the song, after hearing the rough mix we had put on tape. It seemed to add more life to the song. This is one of my favorite tracks--there's a lot going on.

Carousel

Rich started all over on this track, except for using the markers I had in the sequence. I played in a new scratch piano part, then Rich added the pan flute, regular flute and piccolo. He doubled some of the flute/glock parts with high piano. The flute was on melody lines and counter melodies. The pan flute was for more of a pad sound and rhythm. The fade ending was created by cut/pasting and taking out the top strings. Rich built up to the last chorus, then cut out the drums and percussion to help build the track back up again.

The Easiest Thing

I had forgotten to label the instruments in my e-mailed midi-track, but they were easy to see when we played the track back. My demo track was very simple on this one. We used my piano track as a reference. Right away, Rich added a strat guitar--we'd decide whether to keep it later. Rich then added a synth sound from the Roland JV880 module. Usually he begins the arrangement with the verse, but he went ahead with the intro first to get the feel. In the 1st verse, Rich added percussion, drums and bass, then changed the piano into a Hornsby-style with more octave cross-overs and rhythm for getting the groove of the song going. On our second day of recording this song, Rich added much more of a groove in the drums and bass. The piano part played off-beats and jumped notes to give it more rhythm.

Nothing But Love

The first day we started this piece, we just established the feel for the 5/4 rhythm as a 3+2. The chorus goes into a 4/4, so the transition measure needed to be very strong. We got the full outline of the verses and choruses, leaving the bridge and finish work for another day. The second day took quite a bit of cut/pasting and added rhythmic feel. The bridge goes back and forth from the 5/4 to the 4/4 and the rhythm changes had to be hand-entered to really feel right. Also, there are several key changes in this piece and Rich built the instrumental track slightly to add volume and intensity. When the piece is performed as a duet, it adds quite a bit to the intensity of the bridge and last choruses.

After these first 7 songs were completed, I recorded solo vocals on all of the songs for a demonstration CD of the songs and for a final report on a Research Creative Activity grant I had received from Cal Poly Pomona University. I would later change many of those vocals as I brought in different character voices.

NEXT STEPS: These steps will seem to go more quickly, as I didn't take copious notes. At this point, I got ready for another couple of read-throughs at Cal Poly Pomona University. The first step was to get all the music down on paper using Finale, a music notation program. Before this, I had just had vocal/rhythm charts for the studio. I not only needed to edit the lines we had changed in the studio, but notate the piano accompaniment so I could use the staff accompanist for the read-through. This was a laborious task and I didn't bother to count the hours it took me. At this time, I also made more Digital Performer scratch tracks for the students to hear a rough demo of more of the songs. After this read-through, both the students and faculty had many good comments and suggestions for me and I went to work further. For the next read-through at the University, I wrote down all the instrumental transitions and added some duet and chorus parts, as well as revised the script a great deal. I also made more more demo tracks, singing most of the parts myself. I had purchased a MOTU 828, enabling me to do hard-disk recording and overdub a number of tracks. These rough demos really helped the students, further confirming my belief at how important it was for me to finish recording all the parts of the musical to be better utilized by any performing group.

At this point, I'd like to extend a special thanks to the music faculty and the music theatre students at Cal Poly Pomona University for being involved in this project. Their feedback and support was invaluable. And all the students involved communicated what a wonderful experience it was for them as well.

After the next complete read-through, I felt that the songs were ready to record. I re-listened to all the songs, meanwhile taking a songwriting class from Harriet Schock with a mini-grant I received from the college. I re-analyzed all the song words and form to make them the best they could be. Then I started getting all the tracks ready to bring back to Rich. This included finalizing the arrangements and form on Digital Performer and putting in song markers on every song to make it easier for him to cut-paste sections. We had 19 more songs, including several reprises, 27 instrumental transitions and an Overture, tag endings and a Finale to finish the project. I knew it would be a monumental task to finish and I wanted to do as much pre-production as possible to cut down on Rich's actual studio time. At this point, I didn’t feel as if I had the time to sit through his final production of the songs and I knew how efficiently and quickly Rich was able to work--and I trusted him. I communicated my budget and asked him to work within the time allowances my budget would allow. That meant that he couldn't do everything he wanted to on each song, but within that time, he was still able to take each song to a higher level and still bring each song to life. Rich did the final production all 19 songs, keeping most of my original piano parts, and gave them to me on a disk with the Digital Performer files. Within each file was a rough digital mix that we could later record vocals to, as I would use my studio to record the vocals.

VOCALS: After the tracks were done, (Rich got them to me in 2 sets as he was away on one of his trips between finishing them--he loves to travel), I again listened to each song closely, revising and adding chorus parts. Meanwhile, I made some changes to many of the written score charts for the singers I would bring in. I started recording the vocal solos first with the songs that I had, keeping very little of the main vocal I had originally recorded on the first 7 songs. Then I booked in 2 sessions with 5 singers, including myself. Rich came in to engineer on my equipment and we recorded all the chorus vocals. We used my AKG C3000 microphone which did a fine job and we did as many over-dubs as each song needed. (at least 3 for each full chorus part) I had bought a separate hard drive for my computer to hold all these music files, as they were quite large. And yes, I kept snacks and even provided a hot lunch for everyone. When recording, you need to think as a building contractor. It's important to keep everyone happy and working to get the job done. And you make sure you have all your tools together so no time is wasted. You don't want to have people wait around if you don't have to. Time is money.

Rich brought an extra earphone monitor and a few headphones to combine with mine so we had enough to go around. (If I do more recording like this, I'll buy more, but this worked for these sessions) After recording all the chorus parts, I finished recording all the vocal solos in my studio, bringing in the different character voices. I then gave the project a rest before mixing so I could stand back and listen awhile and wait for Rich to return from a trip to Thailand.

MIXING: I was hoping to just give the completed Digital Performer tracks to Rich and have him mix everything on his own. I told him I trusted him, but would show up the first session, then let him just do it. Well, it didn't end up working out that way. I really needed to be there the entire time. Of course, we mixed this during the winter months and Rich lives down a little fire road in Lake Arrowhead, California and more than a few of our sessions were cancelled as there would be so much snow or fog that it was impossible to drive up. (I'm a typical Southern California driver and don't do real well in fog or on ice) When we did mix, I ended up bringing my laptop with all the Finale music notation files loaded on it so I could edit those files while listening and working on the mixing sessions. I don't think I missed too much by multi-tasking.

During a mix, especially mixing chorus parts, you don't want to mix the chorus parts too loud at the beginning of the song so you can really hear what the main solo is doing. Later in the song, you can bring the chorus up in volume as the ear will automatically hear everything else that it's heard before. There's no formula to mixing--it's really so much a "feel" and a trust in your ears. We did the mixes fairly quickly, as again I was on a tight budget. We mixed the songs with all the vocals, then with the chorus vocals, then just the instrumental tracks. This way, there would be a number of options for performance of the entire musical, or individual songs.

TRANSITIONS: Mixing the transitions was a fairly simple process, as I wanted them to be very simple with just piano, or piano/strings. I recorded everything on one Digital Performer file with markers for each transition. We used pretty much what I had played in and mixed everything to CD. Most of the transitions are only 8-10 measures, so it didn't take terribly long, although we still had to get through all 27 of them.

OVERTURE, TAGS and FINALE: For the Overture, I had cut-pasted the parts of the songs I wanted to include into a separate Digital Performer file. I labeled all the instruments and strung them together. Then I wrote a string line to go on top of everything, connecting the songs together, as there were key changes and tempo changes for all the songs. Rich caught on to what I had done fairly quickly and worked with my lengthy file. (It looked like I had about 50 instruments as I just stacked each section of instruments on the bottom of the previous group--if you know how Digital Performer is laid out, you can understand what I did) I think it was a challenge at first for Rich to understand what I did, but I knew it would work. If there's a better way to do this, I promise I'll figure it out for next time Rich!

I have to make a note that after mixing everything, I wanted to re-do a couple of my vocals. I couldn't stand to listen to myself sing a couple of the songs. I had overshot some of the digital volumes and cringed every time I heard them. So I re-recorded those songs in Rich's studio, even changing the key on one of the songs--I won't say which one it is, but it is much easier to sing!!

THE CHARTS: Finishing the piano/vocal score was quite a laborious process. I had to listen to all the completed songs and transitions and make the changes. And there were quite a few changes that we made as we went along. Many of those, I had notated in my score, but many of the changes were not notated and I had to listen hard before changing them. I also decided I needed rhythm charts as instrumentalists don't like to read all those piano/vocal score pages. They just need the basics. So after finishing the complete piano/vocal score, I then went back to each Finale file and added a separate rhythm staff, extracting the part for these charts. Instead of 215 pages, there are 80 pages for the instrumentalists to read.

THE SCRIPT: The script went through a number of changes. Of course, after each read-through, I made many changes and expanded each character. The Cal Poly students involved really did a great job with their characters and were very insightful. I was also able to attend the ASCAP/DISNEY Musical Theatre Workshop two times through the process of writing this musical. Once with Craig Carnelian and once with Stephen Schwartz. These sessions were very intense and very valuable, as they focused mainly on the book and less on the music. I needed that input for my work. Again, to get the script to the final stage was a laborious process and I know there will still probably be small changes involved with each public performance. But the characters have developed and grown through the many rewrites and it stands as a very solid piece, working together with all the songs and transitions to make for a strong major piece of work.