The Green Pages - The Official Mark Greenawalt Newsletter
VOL 15 ISSUE 4  

April 2020

 

New Song and Music Video For "Don't Cry Angel" 
by Mark Greenawalt

Creative Designs in Lighting advertisement photo of ballarina Amber Skaggs.

The crowning achievement for this month was song and accompanying music video for the song "Don't Cry Angel." I co-wrote this song with my friend Angel Pizarro. He wrote the first pass of the lyrics abour a dear friend of his who took her own life unexpectedly. We gathered around the piano and the song seemed to miraculously come to us from mid air. There have been a few passes at refining the lyrics, but the music seemed to almost be there before we reached for it.

The initial tracks were recorded back in 2011 as a student project for Daniel Armijo at the Conservatory of Recording Arts in Phoenix, Arizona. Angel played the drums and my friend Webb Pickersgill dusted off his bass to add a beautifully melodic bass line to the song. I played piano and then did overdubs of the vocals, guitars and synth. The song was then trapped in the vault of "when I get around to it" before I finally took some time to re-work several of the lyrics and re-record some of the guitars and vocals in my home studio. 

Once the music was complete and the song was uploaded to Spotify and all of the other music streaming services, it was time to work on the video. I wanted the background to be a stained glass window. I came up empty trying to thing of where I could find one to film in front of, so I decided to make my own. The footage of Angel playing drums was actually shot in the studio when we were at the Conservatory of Recording Arts. The footage of Webb and I there was not as presentable. Webb has since moved away to Colorado, but he was kind enough to film himself playing the song and send me the footage to include. All of Greenawalt's footage was shot in his piano room except the keyboard solo shot in the recently tiled bathroom. The stained glass window was taken to Savanah's house to record her parts and I reached out to my friend Glen Goldblatt for the incredible footage of aerialist Dakoa O'Kane. 

This video was mostly filmed during the Corona virus pandemic in March of 2020. Hopefully the message can be comforting to those who have experienced loss from this unseen menace. Please take a moment to check out the video and leave I kind word if you feel driven to. Here is the link: https://youtu.be/OoXkmsLRoA8

 

 

"Yesterday" Cover With A String Quartet In Quarantine     
by Mark Greenawalt

Cover song of Yesterday by the Beatles with a string quartet performed across the internet.

Although there are over 2000 cover version of the song "Yesterday" by the Beatles, I am hoping the world will accept one more into the fold. While the world was under quarantine from the Covid-19 pandemic, I started this project by playing acoustic guitar and singing this song. I thought it would be incredible if I could record the string parts and for a brief moment I considered playing the string parts on my relatively new violin and the viola and cello that I have yet to buy. Feeling that the song is too important to me to fumble through at my novice skill level. It was time to call in the professionals.

Violinist, Heide Riggs, was the first one that I reached out to and I was totally thrilled that she was interested in joining me on this journey. Next up was violinist, Carrie Caruso. She is only one that I have actually met in this quartet and that was many years ago for a body art project. Carrie reached out to violist VerRona Grandil and cellist Melanie Yarger (who are both part of Urban Electra with Carrie) and we suddenly had a string quartet.

Through the magic of the internet we were all able to collaborate online. Using their smart phones and earbuds, they filmed themselves playing along to the song and sent their videos to me for final assembly. While we've been under lock-down, many people are sharing their talents on-line and giving everyone some solace in these very trying times. We hope this project will give you some peace from the gloom of the virus and the social distancing. From our homes to yours, Thank you for watching.

 

Time For A New Logo To Help Build My Brand     
by Mark Greenawalt

Mark Greenawalt logo for music, art, writing, and anything else I care to try my hand at.

Introducing my new logo. It is a graphic design that incorporates several of my "hobbies." The top bars represent the black keys on a piano. The six vertical stripes are guitar strings. The outer four "strings" actually turn in to running drops of paint at the bottom while the other two create a sharpened pencil. The pencil is symbolic for so many things I do that involve drawing and writing, such as art, songwriting, writing, etc. The central circle is a light bulb that is symbolic for my day job as a lighting designer, but also more generically for ideas. The light bulb is surrounded by the aperture fins of camera lens to give a nod to all of the photography projects that invigorate me. The light bulb and the aperture fins also make up the sound hole on an acoustic guitar with the six strings passing over. I made a small order of green guitar picks with this gold logo and a couple of white picks with the logo in black.

 

E-ya later,
Mark Greenawalt
Mark@MarkGreenawalt.com

Upcoming events:

Nothing. Waiting for COVID-19 to go away. 

copyright Mark Greenawalt, Future-Class X Publishing - Phoenix, AZ 85044

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