Reveing up for Collaborations

Prep work:

In mid early to mid June, I made contact through Craig’s list with several artists and musicians. I choose to meet with a photographer and a guitar player to create independent collaborative opportunities. After initial meetings with each of them, I was able to create 2 initial collaborative contacts.

Week One:

The Guitar player: “Mike” plays with a regular group of guys, but was interested in exploring the more jazzy side of his usual folk venue. I am eager to utilize the gift of my voice and sing with other people. We agreed to get together weekly and see how it goes. We met with his wife downtown and enjoyed a glass of wine, and a discussion of what types of jazz we each enjoyed. We emailed links back and forth so we were really ready to work at our first session. After hearing me sing Mike suggested an Aretha song for me to learn. I was greatly flattered. He burned a CD of songs for me to learn and choose from.

The Photographer: “Mark” is a talented amateur photographer looking to build his portfolio and gain experience with people and settings. In my youth I did some modeling, which I greatly enjoyed, but it had been a very long time. We were well suited and our very first 4 hour photo shoot stretched into a 10 hour session as we worked so well together and fed easily off each others ideas. We have already formed an interesting friendship outside of our collaborations, based on similar life experiences and outlooks.