1 Juicy Tidbit & 2 Kansas Christmas Concerts

In December, we did a couple of Kansas Christmas concerts. 

Whadjaknow. The cold weather decided to travel with us! Sleet, ice, raining at 27 degrees, snow... stopping several times per hour to bang/scrape/knock off the windshield wipers...

It's a good thing we have an all-powerful God to protect us, a great dad to drive for us, and an interesting story tape to listen to as the hours multiply and the speed divides.

Recording update: It's practice mania around here, so watch out! You'll get your ears blasted. If you want some quite time, go sit in a vehicle outside - it's pretty warm out there!

One juicy tidbit: We  will soon have a Johnson Strings logo! It is super cool. Very unique, and lots of fun. Interested?

It's an ice sun!

 da big one.

da little one.

Our new website is scheduled to be released in LESS THAN 7 DAYS!!!

Have a wonderful day, serving our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

Our NEW CD - Phase #1

A nice, long post to catch you up on the goings-on around Eighth Note Acres.

We are back! ...from our Christmas travels to Kansas, Missouri, and finally, Iowa again. It is good to be home... Not to say that we aren't extremely busy. We are. With our 5^th Johnson Strings CD being recorded this month and next, our practice times have not decreased at all. On the contrary: they will be happening all the more often!

News flash: our new website ran into a few snags, so it will not be released until the end of January. This also means that you don’t get to see our new pictures for a while.  :(

This is the first of many posts, striving in a way to bring you along with us in the long journey through preparing, recording, producing and finally releasing a new CD. You’ll get the inside scoop.

Phase One in the CD making process:

We have decided on the list of songs we will be recording and have divided those into 3 sets for the 3 days we’ll be at the recording studio. The songs need to be grouped so that no one has two solos to several of their hardest numbers to record on the same day. All the singing must be recorded on the same day, and is done after the instrumental parts are recorded.

After we have the list of pieces we would like to include on our CD, we have to go through the very long and tedious process of tracking done all the copyrights, owners, composers, and arrangers in order to pay all the royalties. Some songs change hands so many times that it takes hours or even days to track down which publishing company administers the royalty rights, who we have to pay, how much, and anything else we need to do. Whew!!! What a job. It’s probably our least favorite step of the CD making process. All those royalties add up too.

The three studio recording dates are now set and the deposit paid. We like to schedule the dates a couple weeks apart so that we don’t have to get all the songs ready at the same time. That was learned the HARD way!!! Living close to a state-of-the-art studio is a huge blessing! Very little traveling, no hotel bills, and all the comforts of home – how can you beat that?

Basically every evening, we are practicing together as a group. During the day, we are practicing by ourselves. Soon, we will be having multiple group practices per day and keep building up until our recording date. It’s a lot of practicing. And yes, it does get old sometimes, but the result is worth it. Once we are in studio, we have to get it right - ALL AT THE SAME TIME – all eight of us. Challenging? Yes. Since we have to communicate visually with each other, we are all in the same room and each person’s sound bleeds into the next person’s mike. Picture this: it is the fourth take of a certain song. Five of us do a fantastic job and are thrilled. We want to keep the take. Then we hear that the other 3 of us made a mistake and the take isn’t usable. So, we start over. Take 5. Each “take” is important. It just might be the one to go onto the CD. Because of time constraints, we can usually only record a song up to about 5 times max. We better know it well. We better have done all our practicing at home. It is wonderful to finally listen to a good take and know that we did it. By the end of 5 hours, we are worn out mentally and physically and have hopefully recorded 1/3 of the songs for our new CD.

Pray for us!

At the Oak Tree Opry

Silas, a few months back when he was still on crutches. 

Sightseeing downtown before our concert.

I hope you have a wonderful day, praising the Lord for His goodness to us!

Until next time!

A day in the life of a performing family

~ Le Mars Bluegrass Festival, Le Mars, Iowa ~

After driving for several hours, we made a quick stop at Walmart before our first performance.

It's always good to arrive with plenty of time to spare beforehand! You never know what might happen on the road. Our van has over 230,000 miles on it. We are praying it holds out until we can get another vehicle!

Studying the performance schedules for the many different stages... 10, I think.

After lugging all the equipment across the field (We made it in ONE trip!!), through the people (hey! it's good promo!), to "back stage" behind this building before our first set, our next job is to get everything as ready as possible for a quick and smooth transition onto the main stage for our time slot.

At festivals, everything is timed and the more time spent setting up, the less time you get to play. Soooo... get ready to FLY! Everyone has a job, and things are set up in a jiffy.

After our first time slot, everything must be hauled all the way back to the van.

Then it's time for a watermelon break. :) Hot and tired, we rested for a while.

Then it's off to jam with some friends, listen to other musicians perform, and talk to many people - old friends and new.

 After jamming and talking, it's back to the van to grab the rest of the equipment before our second time slot. 

Unpack. 

Play.

Pack up.

After that performance...

Daddy treated us to Culver's. Thank you!

Then it's back to the van to get the equipment, unpack, play, and pack up once more.

Then it's.... ice cream time!!!

 At Blue Bunny.

Le Mars is the ice cream capital of the world.

See that huge bowl of frigid goodness? If you can eat it all by yourself in 15 minutes, you have conquered the Goliath! (Plus, you get a free T-shirt.) Any takers? 

This is only SOME of the grand array of flavors they offer.

One of our family favorites is huckleberry, only available at ice cream parlors.

Need the time?

Talking to friends and fixing the world over ice cream.  :)

~ Back to the van for the hours of driving. ~

And we're home!

And that is one day in the life of a traveling musical family.

Come back next week to hear about more of our adventures. Life is never dull around here.

Behind the Scenes Christmas Prep

A lot is happening around here as we get ready for the Christmas season. Practices are vamped up – beside the usual group practice almost every evening. We also have group practices on Monday and Friday on the songs just the 6 of us younger ones play. For each of those practices, goals have been set, metronome markings have been picked for the next practice, and we spend time working individually beforehand. (Check out our Christmas concert schedule starting December 1st at http://johnsonstrings.net/ under the "Schedule" tab!)

To get into the spirit of Christmas, we are already enjoying batches of English Toffee and Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Balls – a couple of the 8 or so recipes we make every Christmas season.

You can hear Christmas CD's playing at different times throughout the house. (Karen and Abigail have been working on finding and arranging our new Christmas music since July/August, so for them, the Christmas music is nothing new. They do try to be nice and save the majority of the audible Christmas CD playing {a.k.a. without headphones} until at least October. J ) By the way, our house is never silent unless we are gone – so much happens all the time. Then again, I don’t really know if the house is silent when we’re gone.

Karen is making supper right now and it smells absolutely wonderful! I’m getting hungry just sitting here and waiting, writing this for publishing tomorrow morning.

Here are some pictures from a concert we did earlier this year…

Lots of the old churches we get to play in have neat architecture. 

The “perfect” angel? ... complete with a halo

Oh, it’s supper time!

See ya later!

“And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.” – Matthew 1:21

“He shall be great, and shall be called the son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.” – Luke 1: 32-33

Sneak Peak Behind the Scenes and a Whole Day of Concerts

After playing at our home church in the morning, our next engagement was at Antique Acres.

In our spare time, we enjoyed looking around at all the working old machinery on display such as this one where they were making boards. I can totally understand how so many people were injured in the old days! This thing is dangerous! If you aren't careful, your hand could be sliced off.

Quiz Question: Know what this thing is?

Answer: It's either an old thresher, or a combine, or a different old piece of machinery... anybody know for sure?

Horns can be annoying things I'm sure! It looks like the weight of those horns would make his head off balance. 

 To boost our energy in between concerts, Daddy got us some ice cream. Go Daddy! It certainly helped.

Our next stop was in Readlyn, Iowa to give the concert at their special Farewell to Summer event in the park.

 Both the band shell and park were very nice. As you'll see later, the one downside was the heat and the sun.

 Making the jump.

Rosining bows before the concert.

That sun was powerful and it was shining straight into our eyes, reflecting off the walls, and generally making it an oven on stage. Thankfully, our audience could sit in the shade and enjoy refreshments while we played.

In fact, it was soooo hot that my chin rest cushion melted and turned into a gooey mess.

 Over half of us ended up wearing shades to cut down the glare.

It was a good day. In fact, some heat would feel pretty good now, wouldn't it?

"In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you."

P.S. Some of you may wonder what we do behind the scenes on our concert trips. Here's one example of the things we figure out to entertain ourselves with. Believe me, we have a hilarious time!