University of California at Irvine

Student Call-Back for Studio Work Experience

by Gary Powell

As an alumnus of the University of California at Irvine, Ted Kryczko, VP of A&R Catalog Development at Walt Disney Records, has rekindled a close relationship with the Claire Trevor School of the Arts at UC Irvine. As an distinguished alumnus, Ted offered a recent opportunity to the singers from its School of Performing Arts where they could be heard and critiqued by industry professionals. This studio session was a callback from an audition we held on the UC Irvine campus on November 17, 2007. In 2005, Ted and I offered a similar vocal workshop for singers at the “Buffalo Summer Institute in Media Writing and Production” in Buffalo, New York.

Most of these singers from UC Irvine had either never sung in a professional recording studio or had not performed as a soloist in a studio before. For this session Ted chose the studio Soundworks, which is owned by engineer and long time associate Jeff Sheridan. Soundworks, located in North Hollywood, is well-known for providing audio production services for a wide range of recordings for television, radio and music projects.

Just singing in the studio with headphones on and re-learning how to sing in tune in this unfamiliar environment is a major adjustment for any singer, but on this day, the singers were also challenged to learn a song in under fifteen minutes. Each singer was then given about thirty minutes to record the song with my vocal coaching set on speed-dial. I can attest that these vocal performers are being taught something wonderful at UC Irvine. I found each of them professional in their demeanor with an excellent set of ear-training skills as well. I was amazed at how comfortable these singers were in being coached at this level of detail while under pressure. Let’s hope we all will get to know these names as they move forward in their performing careers.

My special thanks to all of the UCI singers for a really fun day: Katie Horwitch, Mazie Wilson, Kristen Rude, Laura D’Andre, Melissa Dunham, Julia Goretsky, Zach Reiner-Harris, Ian Stuart, Ryan Farnsworth, Jeffrey Benson Parker and Kari Hall

All Content of Gary Powell’s Site is Licensed Under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License
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The Struggle of Becoming & Creating

samuel barber hermit songs
by Gary Powell

At 22 years of age in 1973, I was simply too young to connect with this lyric below viscerally, but nonetheless, somehow found it intriguing. I performed Samuel Barber’s “Hermit Songs” in my senior recital as a vocal major in that year. Loneliness at that time was neither in my experience or aspirations. Now, understanding, accepting and living the solitude of composing music has recently brought this lyric closer to my heart and to a more complete knowledge of myself. Despite the sacrifices and compromises in almost every lattitude of my life from having chosen a career in music; it has been a good decision, and if for nothing else, the fullness of the experience. It is almost impossible to imagine myself being outside of the struggle of becoming and creating; both the quintessential archetypes held within the psychology of the composer. Within each composition, if looking, we can find the expression of a single life and how artistically that life has been lived. And now, how cool to actually be fully living what once was only a young man’s intrigue found within the prose of fourteenth century monks and our “desire for hermitage”.

Loneliness is the absence of the other, but solitude is the company of the self. – May Sarton


(Aniyia Williams, who is not a student of mine, here nicely sings “The Desire for Hermitage” from Samuel Barber’s Hermit Songs)

The Desire for Hermitage

Samuel Barber, Composer (1910-1981)
The Poetry of 14th Century Irish Monks

Ah! To be all alone in a little cell with nobody near me;
Beloved that pilgrimage before the last pilgrimage to death.
Singing the passing hours to cloudy Heaven;
Feeding upon dry bread and water from the cold spring.
That will be an end to evil when I am alone
In a lovely little corner among tombs
Far from the houses of the great.
Ah! To be all alone in a little cell, to be alone, all alone:
Alone I came into the world
Alone I shall go from it.

All Content of Gary Powell’s Site is Licensed Under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License

.

Obscura la Noche

Dark the Night

Guilty Movie Posterby Gary Powell

As a creative strategy in scoring Glendalough Studios’ movie Guilty, I first composed the song “Obscura la Noche”. Although the movie is in English Gabe Folse, the director of the film, and I agreed that the lyric played more emotionally when sung in Spanish. In the truest sense, this song is a “theme song” in that the melodic content and harmonization reflect the Latino culture and the layered internal compromises of the characters. Many of the film’s musical cues quote themes taken from both the harmonization and the melodies from the song itself. These musical components of the song are indeed inner-woven into the score which purposefully presents itself as one piece of music. The end effect of this compositional technique is that as the song is finally revealed at the end of the movie, audiences will already be familiar with it like an old friend you haven’t seen in years.

Hank Olguin, who masterfully translated my English lyric into Spanish, introduced me to singer Sara Traina of Indart Music. Sara is a native Spanish speaker and as Hank suggested, was the perfect singer to deliver the emotional impact of this song using her haunting and soulful voice. Sara is a principle player with Indart Music and Sound Productions in Los Angeles and Hank Olguin also works within this impressive music group from his home base in Mountain View, California. I offer many thanks to both Hank and Sara for working on a very short deadline and for delivering such a beautiful performance and also to audio engineer, Danny Osuna, who recorded Sara’s vocal.

(SITE TIP: Click on the script “Listen” to hear the music described in each post throughout this site.)

Composer & Lyricist: Gary Powell
Translator from English to Spanish: Hank Olguin
Vocalist: Sara Traina
Vocal Recorded by: Danny Osuna
Recorded and Mixed by: Gary Powell
Piano & Percussion: Gary Powell
Guitar: Larry Seyer
Upright Bass: Larry Seyer’s Acoustic Bass Library featuring the samples of Spencer Starnes, bassist



“Obscura la Noche”
Music and Lyrics by Gary Powell
(Spanish Translation by Hank Olguin)
Copyright 2007 Jesmax Music, BMI

Dark the Night

(Obscura la Noche)
Words and Music by Gary Powell

When the day is gone
And the night is long
There’s no way to live
Nothing’s left to give

Wash the day away
Hold the pain at bay
Settled for a knife
Settled for my life

Dark the night (Obscura la noche)
Dark the day (Obscuro el dia)
On the lonely path of only hurting
Loving souls when I once loved in light

Just below the skin
Looking deep within
There’s a place to rest
Where I’ll pass the test

Fluid threads are creased
Fragments cloak the peace
A dark soul to bear
Masked from all who care

Dark the night (Obscura la noche)
Dark the day (Obscuro el dia)
On the lonely path of only hurting
Loving souls when I once loved in light

When the day is gone
And the night is long
There’s no way to live
Nothing’s left to give

Dark the night (Obscura la noche)
Dark the day (Obscuro el dia)
On the lonely path of only hurting
Loving souls when I once loved in light

(Copyright 2007 Jesmax Music, BMI)

All Content of Gary Powell’s Site is Licensed Under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License

.

Guilty Movie Posterby Gary Powell

As a creative strategy in scoring Glendalough Studios’ movie Guilty, I first composed the song “Obscura la Noche”. Although the movie is in English Gabe Folse, the director of the film, and I agreed that the lyric played more emotionally when sung in Spanish. In the truest sense, this song is a “theme song” in that the melodic content and harmonization reflect the Latino culture and the layered internal compromises of the characters. Many of the film’s musical cues quote themes taken from both the harmonization and the melodies from the song itself. These musical components of the song are indeed inner-woven into the score which purposefully presents itself as one piece of music. The end effect of this compositional technique is that as the song is finally revealed at the end of the movie, audiences will already be familiar with it like an old friend you haven’t seen in years.

Hank Olguin, who masterfully translated my English lyric into Spanish, introduced me to singer Sara Traina of Indart Music. Sara is a native Spanish speaker and as Hank suggested, was the perfect singer to deliver the emotional impact of this song using her haunting and soulful voice. Sara is a principle player with Indart Music and Sound Productions in Los Angeles and Hank Olguin also works within this impressive music group from his home base in Mountain View, California. I offer many thanks to both Hank and Sara for working on a very short deadline and for delivering such a beautiful performance and also to audio engineer, Danny Osuna, who recorded Sara’s vocal.

(SITE TIP: Click on the script “Listen” to hear the music described in each post throughout this site.)

Composer & Lyricist: Gary Powell
Translator from English to Spanish: Hank Olguin
Vocalist: Sara Traina
Vocal Recorded by: Danny Osuna
Recorded and Mixed by: Gary Powell
Piano & Percussion: Gary Powell
Guitar: Larry Seyer
Upright Bass: Larry Seyer’s Acoustic Bass Library featuring the samples of Spencer Starnes, bassist



“Obscura la Noche”
Music and Lyrics by Gary Powell
(Spanish Translation by Hank Olguin)
Copyright 2007 Jesmax Music, BMI

Dark the Night

(Obscura la Noche)
Words and Music by Gary Powell

When the day is gone
And the night is long
There’s no way to live
Nothing’s left to give

Wash the day away
Hold the pain at bay
Settled for a knife
Settled for my life

Dark the night (Obscura la noche)
Dark the day (Obscuro el dia)
On the lonely path of only hurting
Loving souls when I once loved in light

Just below the skin
Looking deep within
There’s a place to rest
Where I’ll pass the test

Fluid threads are creased
Fragments cloak the peace
A dark soul to bear
Masked from all who care

Dark the night (Obscura la noche)
Dark the day (Obscuro el dia)
On the lonely path of only hurting
Loving souls when I once loved in light

When the day is gone
And the night is long
There’s no way to live
Nothing’s left to give

Dark the night (Obscura la noche)
Dark the day (Obscuro el dia)
On the lonely path of only hurting
Loving souls when I once loved in light

(Copyright 2007 Jesmax Music, BMI)

All Content of Gary Powell’s Site is Licensed Under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License

.