Hi everyone,
I hope you're all well and looking forward to next season. I haven't been on here for a while, but I thought I'd stick my head in to tell you about a charity Christmas single I've been involved with on behalf of Viking FM's Cash For Kids Mission Christmas 2014.
I was first approached by the proprietor of the Haltemprice School of Rock (who, in the interests of full disclosure, also happens to be my brother) in late August of this year with the idea of recording a charity Christmas single with his children's rock choir and our own function band. From there, a huge amount of planning, fundraising, musical arranging and rehearsal took place in order to make the idea a reality.
In the autumn half term, we took to the Fairview Recording Studio in Willerby with our instruments and 20-odd kids in tow to record the audio and some of the video for the single. We finished off recording the video a few days later at Swanland Nurseries in front of their festive displays.
The children of the Haltemprice School of Rock choir did a remarkable job in the studio, behaving (for the most part) like model professionals over the course of two very long and tiring days. Although it looks like they had a great time on the video (which, of course, they did), they also spent a lot of time sitting around in silence waiting for their turn to sing, which is far from the most exciting way for 7-14 year olds to spend large parts of the day. Hats off to them for making the process run a lot more smoothly than it might have done with less patient, well-behaved young people. I have to say, as well, that the engineer at Fairview was absolutely top-notch. It's always gratifying to work with someone right at the top of their game who makes really difficult tasks look totally effortless.
After all the hard work was finished, we were pleased to learn that Viking FM had adopted the song as the official single for their Cash For Kids Mission Christmas 2014 appeal.
I, and everyone involved in producing the single and video, would be extremely grateful if you could watch the video on youtube (
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS89sGGzUic ), donate as much as you can afford to the appeal, and, if you wish to, download the single from the Viking FM website (
www.vikingfm.co.uk/charity/get-i ... ty-single/ ). It'd also be great if those of you who like what you hear would be kind enough to share the links with friends, family and social media contacts.
Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for your generous support.
Ian.