Monday, September 13, 2010

General Update

My goodness. The months have just flown. It's not that I haven't been busy; what with the camp, tourism lecturing, the family, the finances, the filming, the performing and generally developing many fronts at the same time, time has just slipped away. But, have we been productive? Yes.
We've filmed more interviews for 'Old Mary's Ride' but not much else. Folks have been away on holidays; others have been busy earning a living and generally some things have simply not fallen into place yet. The City of Mt Gambier have got behind this project and supported us purchasing footage of the Blue Lake from the late 1920's from the National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra.
The development of the new 7 piece 'Brenton Manser and The Vanguard' and its new sound has been a major achievement. After the success of Kapunda as a four piece, we were greatly inspired to increase our practices and increase our numbers and our sound. We have introduced new material and I have been learning to use the Sibelius software to compose new arrangements. One of the products of this new push is the song 'Watch on the Kerb'; a poem by Henry Lawson that I have converted to song. It is the most complex piece of work I have ever developed and yet we are only using three chords. Add to those three chords the unusual combination of sounds of marching drum, electric violin, trumpet, double bass, organ, guitar and four part harmonies over counter melodies and lyrics and I think it will be a song that is like a slow release pill. Listeners will discover something new in it each time they listen to it.
It's really exciting to announce that all of my family (my wife and three sons) are now members of the Vanguard.
The remainder of the year will be spent on filming for Old Mary's Ride, increasing our repertoire as a 7 piece, continuing the recording and looking for opportunities to perform live.
We have just purchased an ex-school bus which will double as our band bus and our holiday camper.
That's all for now
Cheers