Elliott Music Studio

6.23.2010

Video of the Week: Sarah McLachlan Times Two

This week's video of the week is a two for one. I thought it would be neat to see two videos, one old and one new, from one of my favorite artists, Sarah McLachlan for a comparison.

“Angel” is one of my all time favorite songs and I had the awesome opportunity to sing it this weekend during a worship service about angels for the first time. I bought the sheet music in 2001 after I had finished my first full year of college. That song was my best friend Katie and I's favorite to sing while in the car. We even got creative and sang harmony parts along with Sarah McLachlan. Katie died that year in a car accident so this song also has special memories for me.

It took me awhile to decide which version of this song to include today but when I stumbled across a performance with Carlos Santana in 2007 I knew this was the one. Santana is a fantastic collaborator and lends his musical talent as an accent.

This is a brand new video of the song "Loving You Is Easy" from her new CD “Laws of Illusion” available right now. I am loving this fresh, upbeat sound. This is the first CD in a long time that I might just run out and buy. Enjoy!

6.21.2010

Long Time No See

I know I promised to get back into the groove of writing here on the Elliott Music Studio blog but my schedule has been a bit hectic recently both personally and musically. I thought for today's update I would share with you some of the highlights.

On June 6th my youngest, Oliver, turned 1 years old. Our theme was ducks and bubbles. I had a great time designing his invitation and including some of the lyrics to the rubber ducky song. We had a really nice time celebrating with family and friends. I still have a hard time believing that my littlest baby is already one. Time has really flown for me.

I continued work this month on the Raytown Arts Council sponsored "Evening of German Lieder - Selections from "Romanzen" in a Recital of Songs on poems of Heinrich Heine". The Music was composed by Don Forsythe and performed by: Don Forsythe as Bass Baritone, Emily Elliott (me) as Mezzo Soprano and Vania Todorova on Piano. I had been working on this music off and one for over a year but these last couple weeks were crunch time as we worked to pull it all together. We performed our evening of German Lieder on Friday, June 18th at the German American Club of Kansas City which is located at the Richards - Gebaur Air Force Base in Belton, MO. I can't wait to hear the digital recording we were able to get of the performance. I'm eagerly awaiting my CD.

During all that time practicing I continued to work on my Music Studio and we started Summer lessons. Our practice incentive program this summer is our "Have a Ball" practicing contest to see how many days we can practice from June 1st - August 1st. We will celebrate in August with a fun music party and give out prizes to the winners.

I am active in the music at One Spirit United Methodist Church of Kansas City and have kept up my weekly rehearsal schedule and singing for two services on Sunday. I have sightread more music in the last couple months than I have done a long time. Sometimes I just have a couple hours with a song before I have to sing it. It's been a bit crazy at times but I have learned a lot and have grown as a musician because of it. I am getting to sing some of my favorite songs that I have always wanted to share with the world which has been fantastic. Look for some of my recent favorites in upcoming video of the week posts.

I just love tabbed browsing with color tabs in Firefox. When I see an article that I want to look into with more detail or a video I want to save for a potential blog post I just open up another tab. I am notorious for opening dozens of tabs at a time and leaving them up for days until I can go through them. Yesterday I decided that enough was enough and that I wasn't going to be able to get to all the tabs that had been sitting there for days. So, I decided to create a link list and share with you the highlights that I so wanted to share. Enjoy!

"Mane Nobiscum" – New CD from the Taizé Community. "Kyrie 21" is a new favorite. Many of these beautiful songs would make wonderful simple anthems for your church choir.

Beat Lab - Lay some tracks and create your own beat and battle with your friends. I had fun checking this out this weekend.

Performous - an open-source Karaoke game

Action Method – Organize your life with this neat online tool and only spend time on what you love and what will help you achieve your goals. Life's too short.