Caitlin Smith will perform with The Alan Brown Trio: Alan Brown - Fender Rhodes, Dixon Nacey - guitar and Josh Sorenson - drums at 5:15pm Sunday November 9th, Main outdoor stage at the Whangamata Area School

The festival runs from November 7th - 9th 2008 Other Festival artists include: The Kevin Clarke Trio, Renee Geyer (AUS), Soul Sax Plus, Gahu, Katy Soljak, The Dan Papirany Trio

CD Baby said ……We love your “THE CAITLIN SMITH GROUP: Aurere” CD so much that we’re
featuring it in our Editor’s Picks section from now on.

We’re *really* picky about what we feature. We get about 200-250 new
albums a DAY coming in here now, (about 200,000 total), and yours is
one of the best we’ve ever heard.

HERE’S THE REVIEW

“Sophisticated and jazzy, yet with elements of pop and even a little
drum & bass - it’s great when an artist’s music doesn’t lend itself to
easy description. Caitlin Smith’s music is reminiscent at times of the
slightly off-beat songwriting Carole King, at other times of the late
night lounge singing of Norah Jones. Some songs are closer to Joni
Mitchell’s folk-jazz period, while at other times we can hear the
influence of Sting’s mature, composed pop (though it’s nothing like
what counts as pop on Top 40 radio). Smith has the same effortless,
yet powerful voice that Eva Cassidy had, and what’s better still is
that Smith writes her own material. The band she’s assembled does a
great job of providing a solid, melodic foundation for her songs,
while not overpowering her vocals with their obvious talent. The
multiple dynamic shifts in tunes like “Comfort Song” are pulled off by
the band with ease, shifting from 70s funk to sparse, fluid groove,
down to bass and Rhodes only, and back to the funk. Meanwhile, there’s
something very dark lyrics going on in “Brother”, belied by the
powerful layers of harmonies and laid-back groove. The electric piano
solo on this one is something that must be listened to with
headphones, and the mix through the rest of the album is fantastic as
well. This album feels like the result of a love of the past 70 years
of pop music, from Tin Pan Alley, to 70s singer/songwriters, filtered
through a 21st century band featuring electric guitar and spot-on
production”.

My CD Baby page where you can listen and buy ::: http://cdbaby.com/cd/caitlinsmithgroup

121 Ponsonby Rd . Confirmed artsts include: Andy Gibson, Brendan Turner, Nina McDuff, Michelle Johnson, May Levei Tigifagu, Allen Levis, Phillip Gluckman, Ivy Rossiter, Mahoney Harris, Karen du Plessis

Later Ron….. (and in fact DURING!) you can go to Cafe 121 (121 Ponsonby Road, The Ponce) for Chris Preistley’s Folk Central night which lasts until 11pm and is just jam packed with the country’s finest folk musicians all letting it all hang out and the hair most definitely comes down (if it hasn’t already fallen out yet!!!)

Imagine you’ve just been born and you don’t know how your voice works or what anything means or is supposed to feel or sound like. You’re just experimenting with a new toy like a baby does with their voice!. Experiment with the sound as it sits in your body, the room, the feel of the vibrations, the breath and the air around you. Every time you practice it’s like creating a ‘clean slate’ - no fears or expectations.

Think of the traumas you’ve put your voice through. This will help you develop a sense of compassion. Your voice is your friend – treat it like one. Don’t confuse ‘awareness’ with hypersensitivity, fear or over-analysis. Practice a non-judgmental compassion towards your instrument. If you pay attention (by keeping a practice log and curiously experimenting with vocal techniques as applied to your voice), you will soon discover that there are things your voice does and doesn’t like. Register how using your voice in different ways makes you ‘feel’ rather than listening out for how it sounds only.

Listen out for the qualities you like in your voice – even if they are currently just faint flickers or seeds of voice qualities you like (depth, beauty, expression, character). Don’t listen to the parts you don’t like. Amplify the good. Be honest. If there are qualities you don’t like, be courageous enough to name them and then systematically remove them. As you practice, it is pointless looking at the problem, only focusing on working the solutions will move you forward and away from self consciousness and limitation.

Don’t be concerned with WRONG or RIGHT or how you’ve done things in the past (or how little practice you may’ve done). Just focus entirely on the task at hand – the solutions to problems and your enjoyment of the sound you make and the expression it provides. If for example, you are practicing using an open throat, make it your sole focus and remind yourself of this task if your mind wanders. If you find yourself thinking of other techniques, then allow them to be ‘added’ to the open throat rather than seen as unwelcome distractions.

Don’t expect anything out of your voice or compare it to how it sounded before (yesterday, last year, when you were a teenager!). Don’t compare it to how other people sound unless you’ve got your ‘healthy comparisons’ hat on! Accept every single little crunch and crackle in your voice with good humour and a giggle. (Like a fart or a burp).There is no need for shame in self critique.

Use the contrast of being super-critical of your voice for a few minutes. Delibertately listen to its faults and register how this self-judgment makes you feel (e.g. where and how much tension, fear, constraint, rigidity). How does this effect your vocal performance?

Do not strive for perfection – strive to have character and be yourself.

Notice how your voice feels when you sing in the shower, or surrounded by heavy traffic, or when you’re doing the vacuuming. When we don’t listen to ourselves with a critical ear (or half an ear to how we sound rather than 100% meaning and expression) we are freer, more open and enjoy our voices more.

Think about the ‘ego’ in its reaction to our ‘true self’ (or ‘intuitive self’) as similar to the ‘throat’s response to our use of the ‘head’ when we sing. Both ego and throat take on the role of ‘controller’. They like to believe themselves as the sole creator of sound or experience, when they are in fact ‘in the way’ of those things they wish to create

Envisage your ‘well’ of emotional history and reference as seated in your tummy. When we sing, we must draw from this ‘well’ in order to colour the sound and give what we sing meaning. Try to remove all the blocks to the access of this ‘well’: tummy tension, chest tightness, stiff shoulders and unaligned neck, jaw tension, tongue tension, facial tension, throat tension or a furrowed brow. Use a relaxation exercise to pinpoint exactly where you hold unwanted tension in your body. NB: Relaxing these areas doesn’t go far enough. We must open them in order to resonate the sound there and to provide an open channel for the sound from the ‘belly’/’well’ up, and out.

Allow the voice and get to know it rather than constantly keeping it at arms length with brute force, denial, unconsciously sounding like others and worshipping volume. Enjoy the journey.