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catsittingstillI took Saturday Off, and yesterday I started the first songbook (which will be available as a pdf download--I couldn't afford a lyric booklet for the cd and besides that way lies madness when you have 20 songs) for the new CD. The first songbook will be just lyrics and chords, because I expect that's what about 3/4 of filkers want when they ask for the music. (There will be a second songbook with sheet music but I was in the mood to start with the easy one.)
I have decided I like templates. I set up a template for the songbook page in Open Office, and then one by one opened my lyric files, selected everything, pasted it into the template page, put the title, song credit, body of song, and notes into the appropriate styles, and saved them into a songbook folder. I did 21 songs in 2 hours. (I'm not sure if I will put the bonus song in the songbook, but the pdf of it will be available for those who download it.) Now if I decide I want the song titles in Garamond instead of Arial, I think I just have to update the template and then re-open the files.
I had to do some tweaking on a song by song basis--some songs had lines so long they wrapped in 15 point courier. (Yes, I know courier is ugly; I'm sorry about that. But courier is readable, and chords that are properly aligned in courier stay properly aligned, and that is extremely important. So courier it is unless I find a nicer monospaced font that will work with Open Office on a Mac and that I don't have to pay money for.)
So if the lines wrapped I selected everything in the body of the document and started stepping the points down. I wanted 15 because, hey, my eyes are getting old too, and I like big fonts. But It's important to me that the lines not wrap. In one case I had to step down to 12 point but mostly 14 or 13 worked. I'm going to stick with 15 where it fits--I think big size is more important than making every page the same size.
I'm trying to decide whether I should make the Songbook one big pdf, or whether I should make it 21 pdfs of one song each. The former would be simple. The latter would be a folder with a possibly confusing bunch of files that would make assembling a complete King's Lute songbook a pain in the ass, but would make putting one's favorite songs in one's own songbook easy. So, hmm.
I printed everything out today. And carefully listened through half the songs on the album, looking at the lyrics to make sure I had them all right. I found three words that I had changed without updating the lyric sheets I had, and marked them.
Then I put them on the music stand and played through the chords and made sure *they* were all correct. I found one place where I had marked all the B flats as being B minors, and marked that. I had to work out chords for several songs where I just have countermelodies and had never worked out chords, so I wrote those in. In some cases the chords that work nicely with the melody don't work with the countermelody (either a more complicated set of chords would be necessary in some places or a less good-sounding chord would work in others.) I also had a couple of places where the chords were easy for mando but probably pretty hard for a guitar and in some cases I had a work around (capo 2 chords, for example) but had to actually test those and make sure I hadn't done any of the transpositions in the wrong direction. And in some cases I didn't, and those will just have to be hard.
I quit early. It is still part of my weekend off, after all. I will do the other half of the checking of the first songbook tomorrow, and probably enter the corrections then. And the day after I will start on the sheet music. I will probably have to enter sheet music for several songs, and I will have to decide whether to include all the arrangements or just the melodies. So that's going to take some time and I should start on it early.
And for the upcoming Library concert, I need to enter sheet music for Laundry Line, because I am having trouble working out the countermelody. I've *almost* got it. And sheet music for I Meant To Do That wouldn't be a bad idea and a lead sheet for Bin There Dun That.
I also spent some time designing business cards. I would like to have some for the library concert, for people who express an interest in my CD. And it would be a good idea to carry some at ConFluence for people who can't afford it but want to get it later. I probably need to order the cards from Zazzle pretty soon to be sure I will have them by June 8th. My current design says
Cat Faber, Ph.D.
Singer-Songwriter
Folk Music for SF/Fantasy Fans
Watch for my new CD, released August 2012
The King's Lute
($email) ($bandcamp page)
And I badly need to update my Bandcamp Page, which doesn't show my name anywhere on it, because apparently they expected everyone to make a picture of their name for their banner, and I just have a picture of a hemlock branch and there's no way to type my name into their pretty limited form interface. So I need to find a free or cheap image editor that will let me type my doggone name on a picture. This music business is going to run into money if I am not careful.
Plus I owe you guys an Alice Day post or two. So I don't expect to be bored.
I have decided I like templates. I set up a template for the songbook page in Open Office, and then one by one opened my lyric files, selected everything, pasted it into the template page, put the title, song credit, body of song, and notes into the appropriate styles, and saved them into a songbook folder. I did 21 songs in 2 hours. (I'm not sure if I will put the bonus song in the songbook, but the pdf of it will be available for those who download it.) Now if I decide I want the song titles in Garamond instead of Arial, I think I just have to update the template and then re-open the files.
I had to do some tweaking on a song by song basis--some songs had lines so long they wrapped in 15 point courier. (Yes, I know courier is ugly; I'm sorry about that. But courier is readable, and chords that are properly aligned in courier stay properly aligned, and that is extremely important. So courier it is unless I find a nicer monospaced font that will work with Open Office on a Mac and that I don't have to pay money for.)
So if the lines wrapped I selected everything in the body of the document and started stepping the points down. I wanted 15 because, hey, my eyes are getting old too, and I like big fonts. But It's important to me that the lines not wrap. In one case I had to step down to 12 point but mostly 14 or 13 worked. I'm going to stick with 15 where it fits--I think big size is more important than making every page the same size.
I'm trying to decide whether I should make the Songbook one big pdf, or whether I should make it 21 pdfs of one song each. The former would be simple. The latter would be a folder with a possibly confusing bunch of files that would make assembling a complete King's Lute songbook a pain in the ass, but would make putting one's favorite songs in one's own songbook easy. So, hmm.
I printed everything out today. And carefully listened through half the songs on the album, looking at the lyrics to make sure I had them all right. I found three words that I had changed without updating the lyric sheets I had, and marked them.
Then I put them on the music stand and played through the chords and made sure *they* were all correct. I found one place where I had marked all the B flats as being B minors, and marked that. I had to work out chords for several songs where I just have countermelodies and had never worked out chords, so I wrote those in. In some cases the chords that work nicely with the melody don't work with the countermelody (either a more complicated set of chords would be necessary in some places or a less good-sounding chord would work in others.) I also had a couple of places where the chords were easy for mando but probably pretty hard for a guitar and in some cases I had a work around (capo 2 chords, for example) but had to actually test those and make sure I hadn't done any of the transpositions in the wrong direction. And in some cases I didn't, and those will just have to be hard.
I quit early. It is still part of my weekend off, after all. I will do the other half of the checking of the first songbook tomorrow, and probably enter the corrections then. And the day after I will start on the sheet music. I will probably have to enter sheet music for several songs, and I will have to decide whether to include all the arrangements or just the melodies. So that's going to take some time and I should start on it early.
And for the upcoming Library concert, I need to enter sheet music for Laundry Line, because I am having trouble working out the countermelody. I've *almost* got it. And sheet music for I Meant To Do That wouldn't be a bad idea and a lead sheet for Bin There Dun That.
I also spent some time designing business cards. I would like to have some for the library concert, for people who express an interest in my CD. And it would be a good idea to carry some at ConFluence for people who can't afford it but want to get it later. I probably need to order the cards from Zazzle pretty soon to be sure I will have them by June 8th. My current design says
Cat Faber, Ph.D.
Singer-Songwriter
Folk Music for SF/Fantasy Fans
Watch for my new CD, released August 2012
The King's Lute
($email) ($bandcamp page)
And I badly need to update my Bandcamp Page, which doesn't show my name anywhere on it, because apparently they expected everyone to make a picture of their name for their banner, and I just have a picture of a hemlock branch and there's no way to type my name into their pretty limited form interface. So I need to find a free or cheap image editor that will let me type my doggone name on a picture. This music business is going to run into money if I am not careful.
Plus I owe you guys an Alice Day post or two. So I don't expect to be bored.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-29 05:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-30 10:53 pm (UTC)However apparently Open Office Draw will do what I need so I'm set.