A million what ?
A million copies of my new cd, "DREAM HARBOUR".
Hi Everyone:
The music industry talks about a million seller but does that mean 1,000,000
individual copies, or $1,000,00 worth.
Maybe someone could fill me in on this.
Regardless, I'm going to accept the former definition as my challenge for this year.
Can I do it alone?
Absolutely not!
Can I get an international record conglomerate
to do it for me?
Absolutely not! I'm not nearly famous enough.
I believe that I can I do it at the grass roots level...that is with your help.
Why do I think that it is possible to achieve, what others might say is an impossible goal?
It's because of the nature of the music in this recording.
The fact that it is an instrumental solo piano recording
is only a very small part of the answer.
The power of this cd lies in the function of the music that lies within.
I originally wrote the music to relax adults after a day of stress at work.
I was shocked, however, to find out that kids love this music just as much as adults.
Furthermore, people who have purchased it have discovered
that they have received many hidden benefits that they, & I for that
matter, never, ever expected!
A grade 8 French teacher plays DREAM HARBOUR
whenever the noise level in the classroom gets to high.
The result?
The whole class becomes mysteriously quiet and her students
settle into their work with renewed concentration.
A gentleman with an"auditory processing" learning disability,
(inability to concentrate with any type of background noise)
puts DREAM HARBOUR in his cd player, and "voila!",
he is able to work with 100% concentration on his administrative
tasks at hand.
Another lady plays it during dinner, and at bedtime.
Good news for Weight Watchers!
I've just heard on the John Tesh radio show that playing slow music while
you dine helps you to lose weight. Try it out for yourself and then please
let me know the results you got.
Like I said earlier, the benefits of DREAM HARBOUR seem to be as unique as the individuals, themselves, who listen to it.
LISTEN HERE
The music of DREAM HARBOUR cuts across all musical tastes,
and generations, because it functions as a wellness tool for
mind, body & spirit, whereas most music is designed purely as entertainment.
Herein lies the subtle power and attraction of this beautiful music.
Because it has such a broad appeal to everyone, I know that the perfect way to
distribute it is through the grass roots level, "by the people".
I do need your help to do this , and with everyone's help, I can circumvent
the big 3 multinational record companies, who dominate the world's music retail industry.
Whatever you can do, to help, I will be most grateful.
Here are a few ways you could be of invaluable assistance,
and make some money for yourself to boot.
1)First of all have a listen.
2)Order a copy for yourself.
3) Tell your friends about it and get them to order a copy through you. I'll reward you
handsomely for your efforts.
How does that work?
E-mail me, telling me how many cd's you need, and I'll send you an invoice via Pay Pal.
Once your payment has cleared I'll send you the required number of cd's, by post.
The cd sells for $20 cdn, but your cost is as follows.
1-4 cd's....$15 each (plus postage/ Canada $1.50, per cd, US $ 2.25 per cd , International $4 per cd)
5- 9 cd's....$12 each (plus postage/ Canada $1.50, per cd, US $ 2.25 per cd , International $4 per cd)
10 plus cd's... $11 each (plus postage/ Canada $1.50, per cd, US $ 2.25 per cd , International $4 per cd)
BONUS! You will always get the lowest volume rate because all sales are cumulative.
eg. You order 2 cd's on day # 1 .
Your cost is $15 each, for a grand total of $30
One month later you order 4 more cd's.
This brings your lifetime order to 6 cd's.
Your cost is now $12 each, and I will credit
$6, for the 2 cd's you had ordered on day #1
Grand total of your new order is $42 ( 4x12-6=42) instead of $48
If you'd rather, you can just direct your friends to e-mail me directly and they will receive the same rates as you at $15, instead of the regular $20.
In the meantime, I thank you for your help in advance. Please
let me know DREAM HARBOUR has personally benefited you,
so we can share the news with others.
Regards
Kory
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
How I became Songwriter
Hi Everyone
Today I'll tell you how I became a songwriter. It was a long time coming...not
that it took a long time to learn how to do it, rather it took a long
time for me actually realize that I have always had this ability.
My story begins way back in elementary school. Remember when the teacher
would make the class write English compositions? ...what a bore...especially
when the topic always seemed to be "What I did on my summer holidays".
Ooh boy! Where do I begin?
Better still, remember those doggone book reports they made you write,
just to make sure you were reading your quota of novels.
Here's a secret.
I never read a novel at ANYTIME during my entire formal education.
Now back to the book reports.
I solved this little problem simply by manufacturing all of my book reports.It was,
as the proverbial quotes says, 'Like taking candy from a baby'. I just wrote
about any movie I'd seen on television. Changed the names of the characters;
conjured up a respectful sounding name for the author;opened up any book and
voila, a publishers name, publishing date, everything you needed to put the
finishing touches on your report were at your disposal. With the millions of
books in the libraries, who was going to check? To work the system, one must
know the system.
What did I do in High School English class you ask? Easy! By then, Coles notes
had been invented. Coles book store, a once famous but now defunct Canadian
retailer,published a synopsis for every major novel that had been set as required
reading in most Canadian schools...including Shakespeare.
You probably think that I grew up rather illiterate. Not so. I could read with the
best of them. I read only when I had to make notes from science,history,geography
texts etc.
My mother was an actress. She was forever quoting lines from Shakespeare,
Dickens, Langston Hughes. Mom just loved poetry. I remember as a young boy,
she would hire jazz musicians to come to the house and accompany her while she
performed her favourite poems aloud.
... and rap and dub poetry think they are the new kids on the block...?
I never consciously shared my mothers enthusiasm for the written word, but I was
always captivated by her performances.
In my last year of High School I had a teacher named Mr. Gillanders, who had a
profound effect on me. He showed me what English literature was all about.
He introduced the class to J.D. Salinger, through J.D.'s short stories, in particular
"To Emily with Love and Squalor", - racy for its' time. He showed us how
' Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-do you' in Vachel Lindsays' poem " The Congo" .
I remember my mother would often recite "The Congo" at home.
Don't assume that all of a sudden I upped and became an English literature freak.
I did,however,complete all of the readings he assigned... novels excepted of course.
Time passes,and I'm in my graduating year as a music major at Wilfred Laurier
University. I had choice of doing a piano recital or a research paper. I chose to do
the research paper (less work). When my prof remarked that I could already
express myself quite well within the writing medium,I took his hint and accepted
the challenge of doing the recital instead.
In hind sight, I realize that I have always been in a literary environment,
surrounded by literary mentors. I do know that I have always had the ability to
express my thoughts,clearly and effectively. As a youngster,I often wrote prose to
the "apples" of my eye, but never thought to connect it to music.
At one point in my early music career I took a stab at writing lyrics. Man,were they
lame. I told myself that lyric writing was obviously not my forte, and I should
therefore leave that art to the likes of Billy Joel, Jerome Kerr, Richard Rogers,
Bernie Taupin and Cole Porter, who were obviously"born" with this kind of talent.
Later on in my career, my then manager,Catherine Gastmeir, suggested that I try
writing my own songs. I told her it was out of the question. I simply just didn't have
that kind of talent.
To prove me wrong, Catherine wrote a poem for me...a starter poem if you will.
You can read her poem here.
I used Catherine's poem to help me write the words for my first song.
Here are the lyrics.
Listen to the song. It's called
"Love is a Strange (& Sometimes Kind of Thing)"
Credit Catherine with leading me to the song writing spirit that has dwelt
within me all of my life. Thank her for giving me the confidence to try something
I never thought I had the ability to do...writing a complete album of words
& music. Hats off to her for suggesting that I study Shakespeare's sonnets.
Thank You Catherine
Today I'll tell you how I became a songwriter. It was a long time coming...not
that it took a long time to learn how to do it, rather it took a long
time for me actually realize that I have always had this ability.
My story begins way back in elementary school. Remember when the teacher
would make the class write English compositions? ...what a bore...especially
when the topic always seemed to be "What I did on my summer holidays".
Ooh boy! Where do I begin?
Better still, remember those doggone book reports they made you write,
just to make sure you were reading your quota of novels.
Here's a secret.
I never read a novel at ANYTIME during my entire formal education.
Please excuse me a moment while I digress to short side bar on reading.
Today in the education system in Ontario, Canada - where I live, work and also teach in
the public school system -the powers that be, seemed to have noticed that boys do not like
to read. They have boys book clubs,reading recovery classes,all manner of remedial
endeavours to try and make boys read more. Here's another secret for you. It's not that
boys are poor readers, it's just that Boys do not like to read. Boys are action figures. They
want to move,they are whole body orientated. It's just plain boring to sit still. Reading is
like meditation.What school boy has the capacity to meditate? Reading just ain't fun.
Today in the education system in Ontario, Canada - where I live, work and also teach in
the public school system -the powers that be, seemed to have noticed that boys do not like
to read. They have boys book clubs,reading recovery classes,all manner of remedial
endeavours to try and make boys read more. Here's another secret for you. It's not that
boys are poor readers, it's just that Boys do not like to read. Boys are action figures. They
want to move,they are whole body orientated. It's just plain boring to sit still. Reading is
like meditation.What school boy has the capacity to meditate? Reading just ain't fun.
Now back to the book reports.
I solved this little problem simply by manufacturing all of my book reports.It was,
as the proverbial quotes says, 'Like taking candy from a baby'. I just wrote
about any movie I'd seen on television. Changed the names of the characters;
conjured up a respectful sounding name for the author;opened up any book and
voila, a publishers name, publishing date, everything you needed to put the
finishing touches on your report were at your disposal. With the millions of
books in the libraries, who was going to check? To work the system, one must
know the system.
What did I do in High School English class you ask? Easy! By then, Coles notes
had been invented. Coles book store, a once famous but now defunct Canadian
retailer,published a synopsis for every major novel that had been set as required
reading in most Canadian schools...including Shakespeare.
You probably think that I grew up rather illiterate. Not so. I could read with the
best of them. I read only when I had to make notes from science,history,geography
texts etc.
My mother was an actress. She was forever quoting lines from Shakespeare,
Dickens, Langston Hughes. Mom just loved poetry. I remember as a young boy,
she would hire jazz musicians to come to the house and accompany her while she
performed her favourite poems aloud.
... and rap and dub poetry think they are the new kids on the block...?
I never consciously shared my mothers enthusiasm for the written word, but I was
always captivated by her performances.
In my last year of High School I had a teacher named Mr. Gillanders, who had a
profound effect on me. He showed me what English literature was all about.
He introduced the class to J.D. Salinger, through J.D.'s short stories, in particular
"To Emily with Love and Squalor", - racy for its' time. He showed us how
' Mumbo-Jumbo will hoo-do you' in Vachel Lindsays' poem " The Congo" .
I remember my mother would often recite "The Congo" at home.
Don't assume that all of a sudden I upped and became an English literature freak.
I did,however,complete all of the readings he assigned... novels excepted of course.
Time passes,and I'm in my graduating year as a music major at Wilfred Laurier
University. I had choice of doing a piano recital or a research paper. I chose to do
the research paper (less work). When my prof remarked that I could already
express myself quite well within the writing medium,I took his hint and accepted
the challenge of doing the recital instead.
In hind sight, I realize that I have always been in a literary environment,
surrounded by literary mentors. I do know that I have always had the ability to
express my thoughts,clearly and effectively. As a youngster,I often wrote prose to
the "apples" of my eye, but never thought to connect it to music.
At one point in my early music career I took a stab at writing lyrics. Man,were they
lame. I told myself that lyric writing was obviously not my forte, and I should
therefore leave that art to the likes of Billy Joel, Jerome Kerr, Richard Rogers,
Bernie Taupin and Cole Porter, who were obviously"born" with this kind of talent.
Later on in my career, my then manager,Catherine Gastmeir, suggested that I try
writing my own songs. I told her it was out of the question. I simply just didn't have
that kind of talent.
To prove me wrong, Catherine wrote a poem for me...a starter poem if you will.
You can read her poem here.
I used Catherine's poem to help me write the words for my first song.
Here are the lyrics.
Listen to the song. It's called
"Love is a Strange (& Sometimes Kind of Thing)"
Credit Catherine with leading me to the song writing spirit that has dwelt
within me all of my life. Thank her for giving me the confidence to try something
I never thought I had the ability to do...writing a complete album of words
& music. Hats off to her for suggesting that I study Shakespeare's sonnets.
Thank You Catherine
Friday, March 21, 2008
Spring 1'st & my 1'st song
This is officially my 1'st post, on the 1'st of spring/08 .
I never thought I had the knack of turning my thoughts into words.
Writing lyrics was something that only " truly magically blessed people"
had the ability to do. In a future post I'll tell you how I made the miraculous
shift from being a "composer of instrumentals" to becoming a "songwriter".
This blog is intended to share with you, the manner in which I create my songs.
Each song has its' own identity, its' own style , its' own purpose -just as
people of same family have their own identity.
Listen to a recording of the first song I ever wrote... "The Poet". It was written
many years ago.... pre-internet. At that time my compositions were entirely
instrumental.
The more I write, the more I realize that each of my songs is created/formed in its'
own unique way as well. Many writers use a formula that works for them,
in their quest to pen that ever elusive "hit", but ,fortunately,as yet I have
not found one, and that ,I think, helps me keep the "art" in the craft of songwriting.
"The Poet" was my first attempt to write a tune that would hopefully
have an appeal to the general public. It was written as a piano solo
originally and then fleshed it out with a bass player and drummer, then
adding a string orchestra in the middle section.
Speaking of a string orchestra... I could only afford to hire a string quartet
for this recording, but I had them play their parts several times while the engineer
recorded each take. At the end we combined all the recorded tracks together and the
result was a full scale symphonic orchestra...the magic over dubbing!
Anyways this song was released in the 90's and there is a radio station
in Tillsonburg, a little town S-W Ontario, Canada, that has been playing it for
about dozen years. (keep those royalty checks coming in )
If you're wondering about the inspiration for The Poet... there was none.
It is just pure music for musics' sake. The title? even better... I just made it up
...sounded catchy...seemed to fit.
Wait 'till you hear some of the titles I made
up for some of my other instrumentals... "fresh", "blue conXion"
(by the way,my doctor said I spelled conXion wrong).
I think we should return to the days when composers just dedicated their
compositions to someone and gave it a number.... done...finished...now let me
write another tune, instead of agonizing over what to call the baby.
Beethoven's Piano Sonata # 9,Opus 14, No. 1 in E major,
Dedicated to Baroness Von Broun
This way we also wouldn't have the confusion of songs that bear
the same name, but were written by different composers...just a side thought.
I plan to post once/twice a month.
I won't fool myself into thinking that I can put up posts
at a higher rate... I've got a lot of musical irons in the fire ,
so my posting will be economical and informative for all.
Please have a listen to "The Poet" on my PROFILE page,
and tell me what you think.
If you want the piano sheet music, or a copy of the recording,
you can e-mail me for details on how to get it.
Enjoy
Kory
I never thought I had the knack of turning my thoughts into words.
Writing lyrics was something that only " truly magically blessed people"
had the ability to do. In a future post I'll tell you how I made the miraculous
shift from being a "composer of instrumentals" to becoming a "songwriter".
This blog is intended to share with you, the manner in which I create my songs.
Each song has its' own identity, its' own style , its' own purpose -just as
people of same family have their own identity.
Listen to a recording of the first song I ever wrote... "The Poet". It was written
many years ago.... pre-internet. At that time my compositions were entirely
instrumental.
The more I write, the more I realize that each of my songs is created/formed in its'
own unique way as well. Many writers use a formula that works for them,
in their quest to pen that ever elusive "hit", but ,fortunately,as yet I have
not found one, and that ,I think, helps me keep the "art" in the craft of songwriting.
"The Poet" was my first attempt to write a tune that would hopefully
have an appeal to the general public. It was written as a piano solo
originally and then fleshed it out with a bass player and drummer, then
adding a string orchestra in the middle section.
Speaking of a string orchestra... I could only afford to hire a string quartet
for this recording, but I had them play their parts several times while the engineer
recorded each take. At the end we combined all the recorded tracks together and the
result was a full scale symphonic orchestra...the magic over dubbing!
Anyways this song was released in the 90's and there is a radio station
in Tillsonburg, a little town S-W Ontario, Canada, that has been playing it for
about dozen years. (keep those royalty checks coming in )
If you're wondering about the inspiration for The Poet... there was none.
It is just pure music for musics' sake. The title? even better... I just made it up
...sounded catchy...seemed to fit.
Wait 'till you hear some of the titles I made
up for some of my other instrumentals... "fresh", "blue conXion"
(by the way,my doctor said I spelled conXion wrong).
I think we should return to the days when composers just dedicated their
compositions to someone and gave it a number.... done...finished...now let me
write another tune, instead of agonizing over what to call the baby.
Beethoven's Piano Sonata # 9,Opus 14, No. 1 in E major,
Dedicated to Baroness Von Broun
This way we also wouldn't have the confusion of songs that bear
the same name, but were written by different composers...just a side thought.
I plan to post once/twice a month.
I won't fool myself into thinking that I can put up posts
at a higher rate... I've got a lot of musical irons in the fire ,
so my posting will be economical and informative for all.
Please have a listen to "The Poet" on my PROFILE page,
and tell me what you think.
If you want the piano sheet music, or a copy of the recording,
you can e-mail me for details on how to get it.
Enjoy
Kory
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