New Song - 2nd cut off album

Hellooooo everyone! Thanks for checking back in here to see whats up on this musical journey of mine.

Well I will tell you what's up - I just completed my second song off of my album. The song "I Know" is really revolving around the idea that, although so much has changed, what would it be like to go back to the way things were? I'm sure everyone in the world has felt that way before about something or everything. That feeling of nostalgia? C'mon, we all know it!

It was fun in the studio, even more fun than recording the first track because this time I was able to work with a few great musicians - one of them being my producer Derek playing bass, keyboards and guitar, the others being lead guitarist Chad Stevens and drummer Eric Anderson. Each of the musicians recorded their parts separately, just listening to a scratch track. So cool to watch. I wrote the song so I know exactly how it's supposed to sound, but to have someone who has never heard the song before just come in, listen to a skeleton melody and add some of their own creativity is just awesome. Obviously this is what makes a musician a good musician, but I just can't imagine how much undiscovered talent is out there. It's amazing. 

Basically, this is what went down. Derek and I were working and fiddling away with "I Know" and it was turning into a little fluffy tune. Fluffy is not the adjective I was hoping for for this song. I was constantly being told that it sounded "pretty." And it got prettier and prettier. I knew it was pretty but I wanted it to be a feel good jam song - something you can sing along to and jam to at the same time. You can't jam to "pretty." I'm sorry but it's just not possible. I heard Delta Goodrem's song "In This Life" many times before but one Saturday morning on my way to the studio I was feeling defeated with the direction of "I Know." While listening to "In This Life," I realized her chorus in that song is something of the idea I was hoping for - where the guitars just blow it up. Make it jammable. When I played it for Derek I watched it click in his head of what exactly I was hoping for. From that point on, we turned the direction of the song and it took on a life of its own. I re-sang the vocals on the track, giving it much more strength and feeling and VOILA! "I Know" was reborn. 

Both songs - "All These Years" (the first track I completed at Mockingbird Music Studio) and "I Know" - will be released on iTunes, Rhapsody, Napster, Amazon, etc... in just over a month. 

Stay with me - 3rd track to begin soon!

dreamBIG,
Arlanna

Let me introduce myself...

Hello everyone! My name is Arlanna Snow, pronounced (ARE-LAH-NAH) and my friends call me Lana; but whatever you want to call me works - Just please do not call me ArWanna. For some reason I get that from people. Where does that W come in? I have no clue. I was named after a great musician (Rod Stewart)'s ex - Alana Stewart. So I mean, obviously I was meant to be in the music world right from the git-go.

So I am a musician - singer/songwriter, altho what would describe me better is a songwriter/singer. Here are the facts:

1. 3 years old + Wizard of Oz + Judy Garland + Over the Rainbow = obsession with music.

2. I started playing piano at a very early age. That is when my parents bought me a little casio keyboard. I remember I figured out how to play Van Halen's "Love Comes Walkin' In" and thought that I was a rock star. I played by ear for a long time, then started taking lessons.  

3. My parents decided I needed the real thing, enter my best pal, Everett, the piano. This piano was built especially for me - special pedal, easier to press keys. I will never give him up!

4. After a couple of different teachers and realizing that I had terrible stage fright in recitals, I quit my lessons and continued on alone. I was never good at reading music, but I still played the best way I knew how.

5. Here and there I began creating my own melodies and writing a lot of poetry, that eventually ended up combining to create - what! - a song...and then another...and then another...

6. As my song library grew, I carried on with the normal things - school, work, Bryant College, accounting positions... 

7. Throughout the years, my obsession with music became stronger and stronger. Beginning with my first concert in 1988 - Tiffany with a little opening act some people may now know as New Kids On the Block - until just ten years later in '98 seeing Matchbox Twenty (then they were known as matchbox20) my head finally started to become a little less cloudy. 

8. My world changed as I knew it the night I saw Matchbox and met the guys that chilly March evening in 1998. Rob Thomas became my "reason for reason," and that reason was that I was meant to write music and make my world revolve around it.

9. I saw Matchbox Twenty (and Rob Thomas and Kyle Cook in their solo careers) more times than I can count and thank goodness because I realized that my poems weren't poems - they were song lyrics! And all of those little melodies I wrote all of these years on my piano weren't just happy little ditties - they were songs.

10. I went out and bought myself a Mac, starting recording my songs and haven't stopped. I have my own little recording studio here at home, but that was just to make some demos. I wanted to make a more marketable album so I could share my music with all of you. So that is when I decided to head into a real recording studio.

11. Mockingbird Music has become my second home and Producer/musician/engineer Derek Pisano and I have been creating some really, really good things. And all the while I keep on writing and recording my songs...they pretty much pour out of me without stopping. I like to refer to my songs as my diary - maybe its a little cliche, but writing and recording music is therapeutic for me. 

You may think you know me pretty well now - but you won't until you listen to my music. I dont think I'm comparable to many artists out there, but I can tell you that a very small few of my influences are Rob Thomas, Alicia Keys, Judy Garland, John Lennon. I am such a huge fan of music and have so much respect and admiration for so many songwriters. It's impossible to list them all.

So take a listen, it won't hurt, right?  And follow me through my Musical Adventures - it should be quite a ride!!!

dreamBig,
Arlanna