Phil Marshall & Brett Cline perform “Lifting Me Up” Live at the AMBERGRIS Album Release Party at the Charline McCombs Empire Theatre on 10.13.12

Good morning, and Happy Fall Back Day, VP friends!  (Do you know what time it really is?)  All righty, then.  I believe that we promised some party favors to those attending the concert.  So here you go.  FREE MP3 download of the song written for you for the concert – the Live Cut version of “Lifting Me Up”-

….and along with it, a beautiful, beautiful live video capture of the moment. Thanks, Ed Ybarra and our awesome sound and video team!!!

And don’t forget, the whole AMBERGRIS EP is now available on iTunes and Amazon (and everwhere else, it seems, thanks to CD Baby’s terrific distribution…..). Ambergris (feat. Phil Marshall) – The Vergence Project

Love you all, and have a wonderful day!

-Sue

Thank you, everyone, for a FABULOUS concert last night!  Phil and the band left it all out there on the stage in it was AMAZING!

I’m so wiped today, but I did want to say a big HUGE thank you to everyone who helped make this event so successful.  I’ll be posting pics as they come in, and please feel free to post yours or links to yours in the comments below.

Also, thank you to our video and audio team, and the guys from StageIt, who allowed us to share this night with friends from around the world.  Small world.  Big fun.

In the upcoming weeks, we will be posting the video of the concert, along with lie cut releases, so stay tuned for more info.

I’ll be working on continuing to grow our web site and community.  Thank you for being part of it.  Thank you for helping us draw a bigger circle, because love does that.

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So.

This is all quite new to me.

I’ve never heard any piece of music I’ve written played live, full band, before.  Only tracked in the studio or stripped down piano/guitar while writing.

And sound from tracking, the whole production, is much different than a live performance, so by definition, we’re going to be hearing something new.  An evolution of the songs.  I wonder what they’ll sound like, especially in the Empire.  The theatre’s got amazing acoustics.  Anticipation.

To tell you the truth, I quite favor the live band vibe over tracking.  Maybe it’s from so many years of sitting in the center of an orchestra.  You get really good at learning not just to hear, but to feel the other musicians as you play.   Music en masse takes on a life of its own, and the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts.  There’s an organic movement to live group music, and I’m looking forward to having live cuts of all the songs. (Which, btw, will be available for sale here and on iTunes the week after the concert.)

Anyway.  There’s something special.  Something relational about the live band music experience.  And it includes the audience.  You just don’t get that tracking to yourself in a studio.

So, I keep wondering how the heck we’re gonna make some of it work on stage.  I think about the orchestral parts and some of the more complicated guitar layering and I’m just so curious.

How’s Phil gonna pull that off live?

I’m sure he’s got it all figured out.

But this one, I just gotta see…..

The picture at the top of this post is my favorite pic from our last recording session at YellowDOG.   In fact, it’s taken during the actual tracking of the very last note of the very last song we wrote for you guys, “Lifting Me Up,”  for the concert.  It’s the closer of the closer.

Dave Percefull is playing, and the dang guitar we were using – such a gorgeous tone, but so fricken unstable – kept drifting out of tune on the last note.  So Phil reached over to the tuning peg and turnsed it just enough to tweek the pitch and make it right.

The last note was tracked by the two of them playing it together.

Kinda poetic, now that I think about it.

But how the heck are we going to do that live, Phil?

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“Love draws a bigger circle.”

I had been free-diving, holding my breath in waters that were clear and the deepest blue you have ever seen, with a calm and peace seldom seen above, on land.  As I finished my dive, and turned upwards to surface, I marveled at the sparkle of the sun on the surface far above.  How incandescently beautiful were the rays of light filtering down through the dark.  I moved towards the light. It got brighter and brighter as I neared the air above, but I couldn’t reach it.  It was like I was on a water treadmill, and as fast as I was kicking to get up before my held breath expired, the surface stayed there up above me, just out of reach.  It took so much longer than I had calculated.  The water went on and on and on. And even though I could see the light above me, I was still in the depths of the sea.

Then I started to panic.
Started to feel I would run out of breath and faint, and drown there, just feet below the air so desperately close.
So, I kicked harder, and harder.
And with one final flip, felt my face break the surface as I gasped in a giant breath.

No air.

There was no air above the surface. Just an empty vacuum, as if I was breathing in a plastic bag, puckered around my face. I sucked in nothing but the staleness of my own exhale.

And so I woke, drenched in sweat and gasping the real air of the room around me, struggling to re-orient myself from the deep-dive of my dreams back into the reality of this world.

Crazy.  Crazy dream.

And then I started trying to figure it out.  I’m open to interpretations, if anybody’s got a good one.

Then, I started trying to calm myself down and settle my hurting heart.
As I was sitting there, processing it all, one of our AMBERGRIS songs came back drifting through my mind, the one I’m going to share with you today.

“Diamond in the Rough.”

One of the most amazing discoveries I’ve experienced about songwriting, is that it tends to circle right back around to you. What we write and care about and send out in the Universe has a way of coming right back to us. And so this song came back to heal me today, when I needed it.

“Diamond in the Rough” was written in January of 2012, as a 5th wheel throw-away almost-didn’t-happen add-on at the last minute. Musically, we took the chord pattern of “Rough Diamond” and threw in a different time signature and style to convert it from masculine to feminine and we set out to write a complementary song about a Virtuous Woman.

As in most songs, the inspiration for the lyrics came from many places, but this one came mostly from 4 sources: my friend named Crystal, the woman in the Vermeer painting “Woman Holding a Balance,” the Proverbs 31 woman, and the staff & patients in my clinic. The lyrics came together in the most amazing way, and it was one of the first times Phil and I consciously utilized what we have now come to call our Brain Dump technique for lyricizing.

Vergence Project Brain Dumping goes something like this:
1. I spend a bit of time – maybe hours, days, weeks, months – considering everything about the subject we’ve chosen. I think through all kinds of word plays and metaphors, every crazy thought association.
2. I dump every bit of that ADD information into an e-mail and send it to Phil.
3. He laughs – but (and this is important) – he hangs with it and digs into it as if it is a much needed challenge.
4. Then he Marshallizes it. He sorts through all the crazy, bizarre ideas, and he brings them into focus to match our vision, and drafts the lyrics.
5. He brings the lyric draft back to me and we apply it to the music – him on the acoustic, me on the piano – and we see what fits and what doesn’t, usually writing pieces of chorus or verse together. “Diamond in the Rough” was different. He had it pretty much all written out and I added very little modification.
6. Lastly, we run it all through several times, let it marinate a bit, then come back and see if there’s anything that doesn’t quite fit the way we mean it to. For instance, in DitR, the lyrics “Those who doubt her fade.” was originally “Those around her fade.” Didn’t really fit what we meant, so we made the switch.

In order for us to work together like this, there are a few rules we follow. I’ll call them the Vergence Project’s Collaborative Songwriting Rules:
1. There are no bad ideas. This one is really important for a collaboratively creative environment. Creativity & innovation occur in an environment only when people are given space to really reach for the bizarre without fear of criticism.
2. If there is anything that either one of us really hates, or is even uncomfortable with, about any of it – lyrics, instrumentation, composition, production, final product – it gets tossed out without debate.
3. Know when to let go of stuff, even if it’s good stuff, if it doesn’t fit where the music is leading. It’s OK to end up in a different place then we started and a good bit of the process is working through the pieces that hit the cutting-room floor that are important only to get us where we need to be. I have a notebook of scrap pieces to work into new pieces after being salvaged from the cutting floor.
4. Don’t work too far along on any part without coming back together and sharing. This keeps the song on track and not heading off in 5 different directions.
5. Believe in yourselves and your work. If you don’t believe in your own brilliance, the light shining through you, then who will?
6. Follow through. Do what you’ll say you do and complete the execution of the project.
7.  Know when to quit.  Leave it alone when it’s done and quit editing.
8. Be trustworthy. There is a lot I’m sharing with you here, in this blog, but there is a lot that will stay in confidentiality. That’s because collaborative songwriting is a type of relationship. One that we are inviting you, the audience, to enter into with us with your comments, sharing your artwork, or choosing to hire us for a songwriting project of you own. Relationships, by definition, cannot flourish with trust. And this one is no different. The main difference between this and some other types of professional relationships is the heart-nature of the work. And that’s a valuable thing, worth protecting and respecting.  It’s something Phil and I take seriously with each other and that we will value with anyone else we write with.

Heart & soul & relationship.  That’s what it’s all about.

And I think I’ve wrapped myself back along to taking care of my hurting heart this morning. The heart and soul we put into “Diamond in the Rough” came right back and spoke to me today so I thought it might be a good day to share it with you all.

“Diamond in the Rough” is the first single release off AMBERGRIS, and Phil and I would like to dedicate it to Every Woman.  Every women who has ever held the line in a tight spot.  Every single mom struggling to make ends meet for her kids, and every strong and capable woman getting through the tight spots in life, whether it be poverty, or health issues, or grief, or pain.

We are all that woman.
We are all the Diamond in the Rough.

It’s so much fun to say, “Rock.” I wasn’t prepared for that little joy when setting out on this journey.  Makes me smile from way down deep in my belly.

It’s pretty funny to watch happens in the space of the next milli-second, as people try to figure out where to go with that unexpected answer.  It’s still awkward to me.  But also,that answer is pretty dang incomplete.  How many kinds of Rock Music can you name?  Test yourself.  Click here to see the Wikipedia list of Rock Genres.  How many did you name?

Anyway.  I wanted to take just a second and talk to you about musical influences and styles, and give you a better idea of what you might hear at the concert. First and foremost, if you haven’t listened to Phil’s voice, take a second and listen to the clips on our home page.  And you can hear more of his work on his website here.

So, definite Britpop influence.  Good bit of Blues/Roadhouse as well.  Some of the acoustic versions would fit on the Sirius Coffeehouse Rock station.  Some of the larger songs are more suited to Cinematic Soundtrack.  Most have a tinge of Melancholic Soul that we both naturally gravitate towards, and are frequently trying not to fall into!

As we work on each song, we usually started with an idea to write about, and a songlist about 5-10 songs long, which includes ideas about various aspects that we are thinking of including in the new work.  Some songs have been chosen for point-of-view or lyrical content.  Some for a musical style, instrumentation, or beat.  One or two for production ideas. Usually we’d start with a basic few, then Phil would add one and we’d flip open the mac to youtube to listen, and then I’d add maybe one or two more ideas.  Back and forth like that until we thought we pretty much had a concept design.  Then we’d use that list to remember some of the sound ideas we had in wanting to generate a song.

One song I remember choosing for a single really low, rich, bass note sound that I wanted to build into a song.  I think it was that  David Gray song, “Please Forgive Me” – the Hammersmith live version from 2006, at the Apollo Theatre.  Listen in at 4:30-4:35 ….or maybe it was that cool bass rip-up with the dead space drop-out that Lifehouse does in “Had Enough” on this video from  2:37-2:38.  OK, so you can’t hear it all that well in the youtube stripped out audio version. Trust me.  Crank that piece off a CD through a set of Bose with a decent sub-woofer and that one single second of music will literally move right through you. Powerful.  Inspiring.

So, I was in my diggin’-on-rich-bass phase, and I challenged Phil to see if we could replicate that sound in music in the studio on our equipment.  Could Dave do that for us at YellowDOG?  Turns out, the answer is Yes.  Should have known.  Dave can do just about anything we can think up and then come up with 3 more ideas to try before tracking.  And you can hear that influence idea – the deep, rich bass – all through “Evolution for the Heart” on AMBERGRIS. (Coming on iTunes – 10.11.12)

You’ll probably be able to pick out some of our most common influences as you listen to AMBERGRIS -  Beatles, Coldplay, The Fray, Rob Thomas/Matchbox Twenty, Sara Barielles, Dave Matthews, Joe Cocker, Radiohead, Switchfoot/Jon Foreman, Brandi Carlile, John Mayer, Train, Third Day, David Gray, Stevie Ray Vaughn, U2, Eddie Vedder/Pearl Jam, Lifehouse, Phil Collins/Genesis/Peter Gabriel, Glen Hansard, the Commitments, anything Clapton.  But there were a few outliers that might surprise you (I got more than one funny look from Phil as I produced a song list)  Slash, Grieg, Muse, Elgar, Santana, Mozart, John Newton, Zeplin, Barber.  (Slash?  Really?  Yeah.  Check out “Starlight, feat. Myles Kennedy” if you get a chance.)

Pretty varied list.  And there are lots more.  Phil, who’d I leave off from your list?

The point is, ideas for art….the creative elements that we use to influence our own creative processes – are taken from the world around us.  And the world around us includes those influences above, but they mainly include you.  Our friends and family.  It’s your stories and your influence on us that gives us pause to think, and write, and create.

So thank you for being part of the bigger picture.

And I’ll leave you with this thought tonight…..I’ve been listening to their new album, North, quite a bit this week, but this older song from Matchbox Twenty’s, More Than You Think You Are, seems just perfect for the day….

“We all know there’s always something tearing you apart
It’s always so much longer than you counted on
And it hits you so much harder than you thought
But you don’t worry, you don’t worry
Cause darling, you’ve got so much soul
Darling, you’ve got so much soul.”

Yes, you do, my dear VeePs.  So much soul.  I can see it.

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“Love draws a bigger circle.”

What I’m telling everybody is this – I’m pretty much leaving those decisions up to Phil, as our Creative Director, and what his thoughts on the concert production turn out to be.  If it turns out that it suits the final product as a whole, then I might.  But I’m not intending to.

I will tell you that me performing is not the point.
I’ve collaborated with professionals like Phil and Brett and the rest of the band to do that piece.  They bring their strengths and  I’ve got other strengths to bring to the project.

You see, there’s a difference in between having a talent and being purposed to do something. I’m aware that I’ve been blessed with a modicum of musical talent, and it’s allowed me to connect some pretty special people in my life…..but my true calling is of another nature in a very different theater.   Every Wednesday I get to operate with my surgical team.  We wield a steel of much a different nature than that of guitar strings.  But we do have a tight band of brothers, a killer sound system and awesome lighting. (Thank you, Dean.   ).

Phil & The Band, on the other hand, are called to be musicians above all else.  Artists.  It’s a title of honor that our society has somewhat forgotten, much to our detriment.   I would no more assume to sit in on their team as an equal than they would sit in on mine.

It’s important in life to figure out this differentiation. Sometimes it’s the difference between failure and success, this ability to focus on what’s best rather than what we could do, or what indulgences we would let our egos dabble in.  Knowing one’s self, one’s strengths and limitations, is the first necessary step to successful collaboration.   It frees me up to do what I’m best at, and it lifts Phil and Brett up to do their amazing work on the vocals and keyboard.

Music is a team sport.  Just like surgery.  Just like the creative team at IDEO.  If you haven’t watched this series of videos, you should really take 22 minutes and take a look.  I’ve given you the first of 3.  Follow the links on YouTube to parts 2 and 3.

“Enlightened trial and error (of a team) succeeds over the planning of lone genius.”

-IDEO founder David Kelley, parentetical added by me.

See?  Teamwork. When our team from the Vergence Project work, we create outrageously, focus the chaos, respect each others’ ideas and skills and produce amazing results.

So what’s my role in this team for the concert?  I’ll be narrating the story.  I’ll be your hostess for the night. If I can explain to you how this oddity came to be, tell you our stories, our vision and hope for the Vergence Project; if you can see your part in all of this, how you have come to be part of the music with us, and what you might be able to achieve with us moving forward – well, then I would count that as success.

We’ve decided to make the show about 20 songs long – the six Ambergris songs, a good representation of Phil’s work with a few new ones, and a few very special covers.  And yes, there will be an intermission. House rules.  Cash bar and bathroom break!

The set list is ordered like we would picture a soundtrack for the story of how we came to be The Vergence Project.

How we came to be from there to here.
It’s a story of moving from stuck to unstuck.
From darkness into light.
From isolation into community.
And I will also tell you that it’s a True Love story…..but not of the romantic variety.
And you are part of it.

And yes, it will be webcast & filmed.

Be there or miss out on the start of something extraordinary.

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Ha!  Made you wonder.

I’ll tell you that maybe it has something with mean girls and name calling…
And turning the wheel just a little bit harder in the same direction.
Or one of our music industry’s strategy for staying afloat.
Or the hope of making something sweet that lasts for a long, long time.
Or maybe it’s just a reference to Phil’s hometown.
Or my heritage.
Or we just thought it sounded like a cool name for a rock album.

*shrug*

Maybe I’ll explain it more at the concert.

Layers.
Always layers.

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Well, the dress code was Phil’s idea, so I really should be directing this question to him. But since he’s unlikely to have the time to answer in the next few days, I thought I would take it.

Creatively Elegant Dress = look nice, come dressed, and we invite you to put some thought into it.  Be eclectic if you want.  Have fun.  Be a little weird.  Beautifully so.

I’m thinking leather and lace, denim and diamonds. Not cocktail dressy and not sleezy grunge. Something in between that is fun, but respectful of the venue we’re lucky enough to gather in. What would you wear to a jazz club?

I’m thinking the boyz will most likely be in black.

Me? I’ll be wearing that little number in the pic.  Girls always want to know.  And better nobody show up wearing my dress!

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P.S. – No, that is not me in the pic!

So….may I present a new blog category, which I’ll add to from time to time, as I come across new stuff.

Favorite New Music -

Dave Matthews Band, Away from the World.  Had a friend share this with me last weekend and I have to admit, I’m smitten.  My iTunes counter says I’ve listened to it 27 times already, and, uh…..well…..although that might be hitting just a little too close to revealing some latent OCD tendencies, I really don’t care.  I just can’t deny it’s been rewarding each and every listen. There is nothing like great art to ease the mind, relax the body, and recharge the soul.  And nothing like a great artist to weave the complexity of rhythms and lyrics into a piece that keeps the listener fully engaged, time and time again.  It’s something to admire.  Something to aspire to.

What my friend didn’t know is that DMB has long been an inspiration for our songwriting, greatly influencing the creative generation of the pair of  Diamond songs on AMBERGRIS.  These two songs, “Rough Diamond,” and “Diamond in the Rough,” (check out the sound clips on the home page and sidebar) were written as a His & Hers song pair in the spring of 2012. We started messing around with the concept of what describes a man or a woman of great virtue, or aadmirable character, and the lyrics for these twin songs were born.

Although they appear in a different order on AMBERGRIS (I think Rough Diamond actually is the opener), the two Diamonds were written together as the 4th and 5th songs for the record.  And, in fact, DitR, which has now become one of my very favorites, and might even be our first video, was initially a throw away.  A last minute add-on that came out of playing around some ideas that came out of deconstructing a DMB song, “Satellite.”

So, the thing about this song that I initially found intriguing was the shifting meters.  The really cool thing about a song structured on measures of six notes, is that it can be broken up into sections that emphasize doublets (three sets of 2 notes – feels like  1-2, 3-4, 5-6), or the triplet beat (two sets of 3 notes, with a feel of two beats per measure – feels like 1-2-3, 4-5-6) .  In this song, the band plays with it one step further, emphasizing the upbeat of the doublets for a very cool syncopated rhythm.  In listening through it, the into and the verse of this song are in doublet, with the meter shifting to triplet on the chorus.  Awesome.  Combine that with the interesting instrumentation and incredible musicianship, and it’s just stunning.

To take my fascination about this song one step further, I discovered that it was actually an evolution from an earlier Dave Matthews song, “After Her.” Similar music, very different lyrics.

When first setting out on this quest to learn about producing music, one of the most important things I wanted to learn was the creative process, itself. Where do the ideas come from?  How do they start to fit together?  What role to the other performers, producer, engineers and mix/masters play in the final piece?  How is great art made? How does it marinate and evolve?

I’m dying to know what made Dave Matthews change the lyrics of this piece into what it is now….

But I don’t have to wonder about our songs.  I’ve been involved in the whole process, start to evolved finish.  And I think it’s fun to be able share that process with you.  Let you see what starts and what finishes and how your ideas could become similar.

What Phil is really, really good at is taking pieces of inspiration, ideas, and crafting them into cohesive poetry with beautiful multi-layered instrumentation – not unlike a classical composer mapping out the scoring for an orchestral piece.  He can do this all in his head, hearing all the different parts and how they will fit together, once recorded.  And then he can play them all too.  Incredible.

As I’ve worked with him, he has he been amazingly open to trying new ideas and has had the patience and the courage to venture into some uncharted territory with this project.  It’s been a working relationship built on trust in unusual circumstances,  and it’s been a joyful thing to get to participate in a process the creates an emerging piece of art.

Like the diamonds.

We finished writing the draft for “Rough Diamonds,” which is in 4, and I asked Phil to start messing around with the same chord progressions, but on a triplet beat, 6/8 time signature.  Out of that sitting came the music bed for “Diamond in the Rough.”  Initially, we played them back to back, one right after the other. Maybe we’ll play them that way at the concert on the 13th…..guess we’ll have to see how the story line comes out on the set list.

Thank you, Dave Matthews. Keep going, and if you ever want to write with us, you can reach me here:  Sue@vergenceproject.com!

And thank you, thank you, Mr. Marshall.
Rough Diamond, indeed.
Rare gem.

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“Love draws a bigger circle.”

Don’t despair, Don, we’re bringing it back! Have you listened to the stories of AMBERGRIS? (No, I guess not, ’cause it’s not release until 10.11.12!) But I assure you it’s all in there. Politics, the American Dream, hope, loss, gratitude…..and yes, a bit of poetry.