Thought I’d share a little with you about the making of a song, in this case, “Must Love Cats”. I started the lyrics a few months ago and decided to dig my notes out of a folder of “future songs”. Lyrics to my songs usually start on little pieces of paper and/or in journals, like the yellow colored sheets of paper shown in the picture here. I then type up the lyrics. Next I create the melody to the song. The melody to the cat song was written in about 2 hours on Saturday morning. Once I record the melody line, I come back in and add the chords to accompany the melody line on the typed version to help me be able to fully orchestrate the song. In this case, I woke up at 4:00 Sunday morning hearing flute and cello in the mix, and had to add it right then – even though I “dont’ do mornings”. – Check out that song sometime!
I have to tell you, my awesome recording program does have sound effects, however, there was only one pre-recorded cat meow clip that I have to say, was pitiful at best. I went to the internet looking for free cat sounds and couldn’t come up with anything. I then set out on a quest to capture a recording of a cat meow myself. I started with Callie, my pride and joy. I have to tell you, it’s hard to get a cat to talk on command! I prompted with “kitty kitty” and some food and got a weak little sound from my sweetie. If you listen to the video, her little voice can be heard in the mix at the very end, when she is running to the food bowl. It’s more like a little growl. You will hear the little sound when she turns her head before she runs down the hall. Having no success with a real “meow”, I moved on to cat #2, Christmas. Christmas showed up on our doorstep on Christmas day about 7 years ago. She’s primarily an outside kitty and although a very small cat, has a big appetite so I enticed her to meow with food. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the “meow” sound I was looking for. Christmas’ voice can be heard in the video at the very beginning during the purring sound. It’s a little growling sound. Now the purring sound, I did acquire from sound effects on my program.
In a quest to still get a good “meow”, I called my parents who live next door and asked if the new cat they have is a talker and explained I needed a meow for my new song. I actually talked my dad into walking out with the portable phone into the garage and holding the phone up to the cat trying to get her to meow while I had my I-phone ready on the other end of the phone line to capture any sound that came over the line. Dad wasn’t successful. (I can’t believe I was that lazy, but it was 9:00 p.m. and I was trying to avoid walking over in the dark in my pj’s) I decided to walk over anyway and see what I could come up with. When I arrived, their cat, Socks, was not cooperative – no meow. 🙁
I visited with my parents for a little while and on the way home, I pulled out my Iphone recorder and started petting Socks out in the garage. Finally, I got my MEOW!!! She meowed 3 times. I recorded them all! Came home with my feline recordings and held my Iphone up to the microphone and then threw it into the mix of my song. My parents cat ‘s voice is the only official “meow” and can be heard at the end of the video. It’s actually not Callie meowing, that’s Socks voice that you hear when Callie starts running down the hall after I call kitty kitty. Amazing what you can do with technology! Hours spent on trying to acquire a few cat meows….. I loved every minute of it though and am thrilled with how it all turned out. My only problem was trying to figure out which photos of Callie to use. I have hundreds and just couldn’t fit them all into the video! If you think I’ve got a thing for taking cloud photos, my cat takes priority with the camera. She’s always doing something cute and her expressions are just priceless. She follows us around the house like a dog, plays fetch with a Q-Tip, and lets me know when she’s hungry. She waits until the alarm clock goes off in the morning and then comes to snuggle under my armpit and be held – it’s super special when she stretches her little paw up and wraps it around my neck. Yesterday, I tried to get up and she grabbed me with both paws to pull me back down. I rescued Callie from the animal shelter a few years ago. She’s truly been a blessing to me. Thank you God!