Beauty and Photography Tips

This is a blog post that I’ve been wanting to write for a long time, but knew it would be time consuming and so I kept putting it off.  But no more.

I’ve received quite a lot of questions from my fellow female friends who have asked “Where did you find that dress?”, “What type of foundation do you use?”, “How did you get your hair to do that?”, Etc.

Here it is – a whole lot of beauty/fashion tips and secrets that I’ve learned through having to do many photo shoots, stage performances, and red carpets. I am NO EXPERT, but here is what I know

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Before I start, I just want to say that I used to be of the train of thought that “You are what you are and there’s not much you can do about it.”  But then usually someone else has come along (a beauty professional) and shown me that I don’t have to just “deal” with what I have, but there are tricks to improve oneself, or hide things, or what have you.  And since I am far from perfect, here are some of the things I’ve learned.

MAKE-UP TIPS

#1 – Properly prep your skin beforehand.  The best way to get awesome looking skin is to have your “canvas” all prepped.  The biggest thing is exfoliating all the dead skin off and moisturizing afterwards.

My make-up artist usually has me apply a vitamin serum, moisturizer, and under-eye cream.  The under-eye cream helps the makeup to not settle into those fine lines. It also works great to pat on even after you’ve put your makeup on for touch-ups.  I had to do this when I was filming in the desert for my “Requiem” video shoot.  After 3 days of shooting and not getting enough sleep and having the dusty desert sand get all over my face, my eyes were looking really “tired”.  Noelle (my makeup artist) dabbed some under-eye cream and it fixed the problem right up.

#2 – Use a good HD Foundation for a flawless natural look.  I was only introduced to “High Definition Foundation” last year when I was in Los Angeles.  And now I’m hooked.

Because most cameras all film in HD now, the clarity of the way peoples skin shows up on camera is super enhanced.  You don’t want to look like you are wearing cakey foundation.  But you also want to still get coverage for little flaws.

These are a couple of my favorite foundations and I’ve used them for the last year, so I know they work really well:

Givenchy Photo Perfexion

Smashbox HD Healthy FX Foundation

I also use this foundation “prep” formula underneath, which helps prevent the makeup from settling into fine lines as well. A “BB cream” is actually something you can wear alone without foundation – it is a combo of serum, moisturizer, SPF and it’s tinted so you can wear it as a sheer-type foundation. OR you can wear it underneath a foundation for more coverage, as a base.  It has been used in the Asian market for years, and a lot of women actually use it as their cream and it has improved wrinkles and dark spots.

Smashbox Camera Ready BB Cream

#3 – False Eyelashes.  Use them.  They make a huge difference in your look.  Being a fair-haired person myself, my eyelashes are very blonde and short.  I have to wear a whole lot of mascara to get them to stand out, and even still they are not very impressive.  So if I’m doing a photo shoot or an event, I will use false lashes.

Katy Perry has a great line of false lashes that I’ve used many times before, and they are definitely some of my favorite.

Here is a great shot where you can see my eyelashes (and Viktoria’s too). We are both wearing Katy Perry false lashes in this photo shoot.

#4 – Don’t be afraid of the “Wet Line”.  I admit I feel really dumb saying this, but I only just learned how to do this a few months ago when I did my photo shoot for “Illumination”.  The eyeliner “Wet Line” look.

Typically I’ve always applied my eyeliner underneath my eyes close to my under eyelashes and above the top eyelashes.  But there is a certain dramatic look you can acheive by applying the eyeliner to the wetline of your eye – especially if you’re going for a smokey eye look.  The key is to using a quality eye liner, preferably with beeswax.

This is the type of look I’m referring to:

Here is a fantastic eye liner that works great for this and actually stays on the wetline for a long time before wearing off (as you usually have to touch it up quite often, especially if you have watery eyes like me).

Loreal Extra Intense Liquid Pencil Eye Liner

#5 – Applying shadow in the right places.  You can add years to your face by applying eye shadow incorrectly. But you can also reverse your age by applying it correctly.

You open your eyes up more and look younger if you put a lighter shadow in the upper outer corners under your brows, like this:

It depends on your eye shape, but sometimes when you put a lighter shade above your eye with a dramatic color in the crease of your lid, you can sometimes look older than your years.  This is a beautiful model, but I just wanted to demonstrate the look I’m talking about (see below). I think the reason is it creates a sort of heaviness to the lid.

I actually had to look extremely long and hard to find an actress in today’s Hollywood with the above makeup look on the red carpet (lighter shade on eyelid, with dramatic shadow above it), and after looking at Google images forever, I did find Ashley Greene:

Here is Ashley Greene again but with a darker shadow on the eyelid. I think she looks much more youthful in the 2nd look:

#6 – Rule of Thumb:  If you have dramatic eyes, less color on the lips and vice versa.  If you want to have a dramatic smokey eye look (like Ashley above), then you need to do a pink or nude lipstick.  You never want your eyes and lips to compete with each other, or else you will look like you should be working the street corner

The same goes for if you want to sport some really red lips, you should do a simple eye look.  Here are some great examples:

Big dramatic Eyes, Nude lips:

Luscious red lips, minimal clean eyes:

#7 – Best way to Conceal...I have always had stuff to “conceal” on my face.  For example, I was born with a birthmark on my chin.  Even though I had it “removed” via laser surgery when I was 14 yrs old, some of it has come back.  And so I’m always having to conceal it on my chin (or later Photoshop it out).

Here is me before a video shoot (for Requiem) with absolutely NO MAKEUP on, and you can see the two little red spots on my chin from my birthmark:

Here I am (with Noelle – my makeup artist) after getting my hair halfway done, and my foundation/eyes done. Notice birthmark is no longer there:

The only way I’ve found to cover up stuff like birthmarks (or zits, or whatever) is to put a little more concealer on than you THINK you need (because it comes off), and make sure to powder it afterwards. The powder will set the concealer and hold it on longer. I like to use a colorless powder (usually “white”).  And then my biggest advice after that is just DON’T TOUCH THE AREA.

HAIR TIPS

My hair is the thing that I get the most comments on.  I have a TON of it.  Not only is it long, but it’s thick and I just have an ample amount of it.

My hair is naturally curly and so I have the option of wearing it curly or straight.  It takes a LOT of effort to straighten my hair though, and so I don’t usually wear it straight very often.

Some of my favorite hairstyles have to do with curls, and so I will share some of my tips and tricks to get great looking hair.

#1 – Curling Iron + Pinning = Awesome curls.  Over the years I’ve curled my hairs all sorts of different ways from using a curling iron to hot rollers.  But probably for the past year or so I’ve been just using my curling iron because I discovered a new way of using it that creates really great shaped curls.

I used to roll my curling iron from the ends of my hair up. This way of curling is okay for the underneath layers of hair that people aren’t going to notice. But for the top layers and the front of my hair, I use a technique that is shown here in this awesome Target hair ad:

Basically, you take strands of hair and about halfway down start rolling the curling iron and slowly turning as you go, then pulling the ends up and around.  What you achieve is a very rounded out spring curl. AND as you will notice in the video, the stylist pins some of the curls to her head. This is my best secret for getting great hair!  After each strand I curl, after taking it out of the curling iron I roll it back up and then use a bobby pin and pin it to my head.  I do this will all the outside curls and leave them pinned up until I’m ready to get dressed and go.

#2 – Herbal Essence Spray Gel to Hold Curls.  I spray my dry hair with this stuff before I curl it, and it is my best secret for getting curls to last all night long.  I’ve used this product for like 10 years and I swear by it.

#3 – Teasing – To get some volume to my hair, I usually take a comb and tease it underneath.  For ponytails, I will tease the hair before I put it into the pony, and then afterwards I will also tease just the top layer of hair in the pony (next to the rubberband). You always want to be sure to sort of comb down the tease afterwards so your hair doesn’t look too messy.

CLOTHING STYLE TIPS

I admit I am a total bargain shopper.  There are SOME things that I am willing to fork out a little more cash for (like dresses), but for the most part I like to find deals. And even still, my definition of “paying more for a dress” is still pretty inexpensive compared to some women out there.

And because I am a mom of two little energetic boys (who do NOT do well inside department stores), I do most of my shopping online.

Here are a few of my favorite places that I usually find really cute clothes from:

DRESSES

ideeli.com – This is a sample sale site.  They only have whatever clothes are available for about 24 hours and then they move onto the next designer.

The white silk Nicole Miller dress that I wore for my Illumination CD Release concert last Fall was a dress that I bought off of ideeli. It regularly sold $1100, and I got it for $250.

I also bought the red dress from my Illumination photo shoot off of ideeli.com. It’s a wrap dress that you can wear like 20 different ways.  I bought a red one, and a turquoise one (that I wore at last year’s Indie Music Channel Awards).

promdressesol.com - This is a site where I’ve gotten MANY dresses from.  I try to stay modest in my dresses – which means I need them to have sleeves, backs and fronts  This website has THE most variety of “modest” dresses that I’ve ever found, and they are not the cheesy bridesmaid kind either (you know what I’m talking about, right?)

Here are a few of the dresses that I have gotten from promdressesol.com:

Both Viktoria’s and my dresses are from this website in this photo:

I also just bought one more from them for the ZMR Awards show that is happening on May 11th. I won’t show you which one though – just to keep it a surprise

Casual Clothes

Alloyapparel.com – This website has some pretty cute stuff on it, and usually for good prices.  I LOVE long maxi dresses, and they always have a lot of those. And I love that they are super long – because sometimes they just don’t always make them full length for us tall people (I’m 5’7″).  I recently bought this red maxi dress from Alloy…

Express.com – LOVE Express. Probably one of my favorite stores in the world.

DorothyPerkins.com – This is a new site for me that I just discovered not too long ago, but they’ve got some really cute stylish pieces on there for low prices.

 

TIPS FOR THE RED CARPET

Again, some of these things I feel dumb for not knowing before, but all I can say is there are always solutions to “problems”! You just have to be “in the know”

#1 – Spanx.  Wear them.  Even skinny girls sometimes need them. Katy Perry even wears them!  I own like 3 different kinds of Spanx. One with shoulder straps, ones without, and ones that are like a tank top that you just wear underneath a shirt.   Spanx totally hold you in, and get rid of any wierd curviture that just should not be there….like the following model who was brave enough to show us all the difference:

I will also say that I have tried many different kinds of brands of these types of “things”, and Spanx is the only one that really works.  A lot of other roll down, stretch out, rip, or don’t cover all the right places.  Just trust me and go with Spanx.

 #2 – Sally Hanson Airbrushed Legs. ‘Nuff said.  I have used this on my arms to get rid of freckles or “red dots”.

PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS

All right. This is the last thing I will talk about.

My friends are always telling me “Jen, you are so photogenic.”  I am actually NOT, but I just have learned the best way to pose for pictures and some great tips on how to look better in photos.

#1 – Stand up straight.  It makes a huge difference in how you look in a photo, and will also make you look thinner if you aren’t hunching over.

#2 – Create some space in between your arms and your waist.  In other words, if you want to LOOK like you have a waist, then don’t let it disappear into your clothing or arms.

A great example of both #1 and #2 is this photo that fitness model Amanda Adams posted on Facebook a while back.  These two photos were only taken a few moments apart, but look how different she looks based on two different poses. She is totally slouching on the left and holding her arms close to her.  In the 2nd photo, she is standing up straight, hip out, and created some space between her arms and waist.

#3 – Take photos where the camera angle is HIGHER than you.  A big mistake a lot of people make is having their photo taken from an angle where the camera is below them.  This is not the most flattering angle for anyone! It only accentuates anyone’s double chin.  Here are two examples from a photo shoot I had for my first album:

#4 – Pose Correctly. When standing, I’ve found the two poses that make me look the slimmest (because let’s admit, I’m a curvy girl!) are the following:

Hand on Hip - great way to make waist look smaller

One Foot in Front – Great way to narrow hip and leg area

#5 – Know what you want, and don’t be afraid to say so.  I think a lot of people get photos back and are unhappy because they didn’t express their ideas or concerns to the photographer.  If there are certain angles you don’t like, be sure to bring those up.  If you favor one side of your face over the other, then if you do profile shots make sure you tell your photographer that.

#6 – It’s also a great idea to do a run-through of your hair, makeup and your outfit BEFORE you do an event.  For example, the dress that I wore in my Illumination Paramount Theater photo shoot – while it was a GORGEOUS dress, I didn’t take into account that it didn’t work well when I sat down at the piano.  It completely POOFED out and made my stomach look pregnant or something.  So you will see that there ended up being no official “sitting down at the piano” shots from that photo shoot because the dress just didn’t function well sitting down.  This was something I didn’t exactly practice doing with the dress before the photo shoot.

Anyway, I’m going to stop here.  This is a lot to take in.  The most important thing to remember is that YOU are beautiful without all the makeup, hair, and fancy clothes. Truly you are.  But if you must get all dolled up one day for anything special in particular, I hope that these tips help you out. These are all things I wish someone had told me a LONG time ago.

P.S. If you have any more questions about anything I didn’t cover, please leave a comment below!

College Music 101 Class Paper on Composer Jennifer Thomas

So there’s always a first for everything.  A friend of mine emailed me last week to tell me that in his college music 101 class, he was assigned to write an essay on a composer – and he picked me. Yes, ME. Not Beethoven, but moi.

Okay, on second thought, this is not the first time this has happened.  My niece wrote a paper on me for her 4th grade class one time.

Anyway, my friend sent me a copy of his paper that he turned into his music professor and thought it would be entertaining for anyone who wanted to burn 10 minutes learning more about me from a mere “historical” stance.  I don’t even have a Wikopedia page but gosh darnitt I’ve got college papers written on me.  I’m impressed that he even did a break down of my songs and explained the theory behind them. (I don’t even think I could explain the theory behind them).

Enjoy.

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Steven Casper

S00091619

Music 1010-46

Stephen Voorhees

February 24, 2013

Semester Project – Jennifer Thomas, Composer

            My favorite instrument has always been the piano. Not because I have any skill with it, but simply because the music of this particular instrument has always fascinated me. It is such a versatile beast, able to provide a powerful beat and rhythm, while simultaneously drawing me, heart and soul, through complex melodies.  And it can do it all at the same time. While most instruments are tied down to just one line of music at a time, the piano can play them all, giving it a range and majesty that is rare amongst its peers. With that, let me introduce my chosen composer: Jennifer Thomas, classically trained pianist and violinist, accomplished competitive musician and composer, and a good friend of mine.

Jennifer Thomas was born and raised in the Seattle area to Ron and Carolyn Southworth. The second of three natural children and a fourth adopted son, Jennifer was raised around music. Her mother, an accomplished musician herself, introduced all of the children to music, and encouraged them to practice daily. Jenni and her older brother, Michael, had a morning routine of taking turns on the piano and their preferred string instrument: Jennifer played the violin, Mike played the cello.

Jennifer started playing the violin when she was five years old; her mother started her on Suzuki violin lessons (Suzuki being a play-by-ear method of learning the instrument). When she was seven, her mother was a volunteer in the music department at the elementary school, so Jennifer would go along and join in the before-school orchestra practice. She later learned that she had been the only second-grade student in the sixth-grade orchestra, though she had no sense of being younger than the other students.

Despite dividing her time between piano and violin, Jennifer came to a time in her youth when the piano stopped being the instrument she had to practice, and became the instrument she wanted to practice. She was no longer playing scales or simple songs from primers and learner books that she was playing from, but actual pieces composed by classical greats. Specifically, when she was twelve years old, she asked her mother to purchase the sheet music to Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2. Carolyn mother warned her that it was not an easy piece to learn and play, but Jennifer’s insistence won out in the end.  Jennifer did learn it, however, despite the challenge it presented with its E# Major mode. And with this, as well as other piano-centered experiences, Jenni’s love of the piano really began to blossom, overshadowing her love of the violin.

When she started high school, the small school did not have an orchestra, which meant she found even less reason to pick up her violin, and so for four years, she played only the piano. Jennifer had an otherwise robust musical “career” in high school as the choir accompanist and the accompanist for school plays and talent shows, as well as being a blue-ribbon winner in Solo and Ensemble festivals.  At home, during this time, she did not just play piano, she played hard piano. Some of her favorite composers for piano include Rachmaninoff and Beethoven – anybody who wrote music that allowed her to play loud and fast… and drive her parents crazy.

Eventually, Jennifer graduated high school and took a stab at college. She went to what was then Rick’s College, now BYU Idaho, in eastern Idaho.  She joined school symphony-orchestra and put herself to work trying to catch up to her violinist peers who had not let their hard-earned skill rust. It was while she was at college that she first understood that she had been, to use her own words, “a sloppy player.” While at school she learned much about precision, and playing in an ensemble gave her a great respect for how difficult and rewarding precision playing can be.  She studied with Dr. Stephen Allen, dean of piano studies and learned much from him about how to connect with the piano and really make it sing.

After graduating, Jennifer pursued music through various avenues, from teaching students, to joining various community symphony-orchestras, and volunteer performances. She joined the Salt Lake City Temple Square Concert Series, where she performed regularly in the Conference Center at Temple Square in Salt Lake City as well as at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for three years, before moving back to Washington.

There is so much and more to share in this paper, but two pages in I realize I have not even gotten to Jennifer’s compositions.  She had never thought of herself as a composer. People asked her regularly, after hearing her perform, if she had ever written anything of her own. She usually just laughed and said “no.”  On a whim, she had attempted to compose something once, but it was not impressive, little more than a “sad version of chopsticks.”

One Christmas season, however, in 2003, she felt inspired to give it another go. And that night she composed her first-ever piece of music: “Old Movie Romance,” and two days later she composed “Prelude in F.” Both of these songs are featured on her debut album, Key of Sea, released in 2007.

Jennifer gave birth to her first child in 2008, and after dealing with a baby who wouldn’t sleep for months on end, she began making up little lullabies to help him relax and sleep. It dawned on her one night that she could do more than just make the little, spur-of-the-moment lullabies, and that is how she came up with the idea for this Album. The Lullaby Album, was a collaborative work with her mother.

Now, with two children, she has recently released her third album, Illumination, which is, in my opinion, sounds exactly like her.

She and I became friends over a decade ago, and I could always tell when she was playing something she had to play versus when she was playing something she wanted to play. Illumination is like a page out of the book of things Jennifer loves to play. Though her music is almost always composed for a broad range of instruments, rarely solo piano, piano always plays a strong role in her music, which keeps me listening, sometimes for hours on end.  Her skill as a composer has been reflected, not only in her successful releases of three different albums over the past several years, but in that she has been nominated for countless awards, winning or placing highly among many of them.  Just last year she was a strong contender for the Grammy Awards, though ultimately she was passed by… this time.

History of Selected Work

I have selected works from the album Illumination, by Jennifer Thomas. Specifically, I have selected the songs Etude for the Dreamer, Illumination (the title track from the album), and Across the Starlit Sky.  These songs I’ve specifically chosen because I think they represent not only some of Jennifer’s finest work, but because they (with the exception of Starlit Sky) are characteristic of the kind of fast-paced music that she loves to play, though to be more representative of her skill, I have included Starlit Sky which is much slower-paced and illustrative of her more serious side.  I had a hard time selecting music for this paper, as I thought I wanted to present a variety of her works for the greatest introduction to her, and making such selective choices was, I felt, beyond my expertise.

I asked Jennifer directly what she thought I should select for this paper, what would be representative of her. That put her on the spot, I think, because obviously she loves all of her music. She did finally encourage me to go with the Illumination album, mentioning that the entire album was more of a suite than a collection of individual songs. The whole thing goes together as a single work. This made it that much harder to finally land on the songs I eventually did.  Being forced to narrow my choices down to 10-12 minutes, I found myself cutting one piece after another until I was left with my three favorites from the album.

Etude for the Dreamer – Released on Illumination, July 2012; Tickled Ivory Music.

Jennifer knew from the outset that this would be the opening track on her new album, she specifically opened it in minor mode, with the expectation of giving listeners a sense of anxiousness or excitement for what was to come.

The inspiration for the song came from her looking out over an evergreen forest and the idea of it being covered, saturated with fog, this thought had a definite dream-like quality that she wanted to harness and convey through music. She drew on her training, specifically taking inspiration from Frederic Chopin, as she describes him as the king of creative, skill-strengthening pieces, and this piece is very technically difficult. She confesses it is possibly the most difficult-to-play composition she’s ever written, and said that she has yet to perform it live without making errors, while at the same time, it’s also a very satisfying piece for her to play or even just to listen to, as so much work went into composing it.

Illumination – Released on Illumination, July 2012; Tickled Ivory Music.

The title track of the album – one of my favorite songs of all time, in fact – has the unlikely distinction of having been created initially as a one-minute “audition” submission for a car-commercial. Because the car manufacturer’s advertisement agency did not select it for their commercial, she was able to retain her ownership of the piece and has expanded it, building it into a living, lively piece of art.

Originally written for violins, French Horns, Percussion, and celli, she later met with the conductor of the Evergreen Philharmonic Orchestra and with the help of couple of transcriptionists, was able to score Illumination for a full symphony. The end result is a fast-paced thrill-ride around twists and bends of a road designed with luxury in mind.

Across the Starlit Sky – Released on Illumination, July 2012; Tickled Ivory Music.

This is the only solo-piano piece released on the Illumination album. It’s mellower, much more toned down from Jennifer’s usual fiery piano music, but it’s so full of introspection and peace, that I thought it would fit very well as part of this paper. The piece gets its name from the deep night sky that she could view out the large window as she sat at the piano.

Listening Guide

Etude for the Dreamer

0:00 – The music starts with the piano setting a pace that grabs attention. The music cycles through several notes, then ascends briefly, making an arch as it comes back down.

0:07 – As the arch descends below where it started, we get the first beat of percussion which is a queue for the strings to start. The violins maintain a distant humming accompaniment, while the celli make occasional statements.

0:21 – Percussion becomes more involved, over the next 10-15 seconds what sounds like cymbals, or perhaps maracas, begin a slow crescendo reaching their loudest by about 0:35.

0:49 – The percussion cuts out altogether, as do the string, leaving the piano alone for about 7 seconds when the celli return.

0:57 – the celli return along with the rest of the string and percussion instruments.

1:02 – the music returns in earnest at this point, drawing the listener forward.

1:36 – there is a diminuendo, which feels like the piece is drawing to a close, but it’s a mislead.

2:03 – the mode changes from minor to major and the almost ominous feel of the piece becomes brighter, giving a sense of a new day dawning.

2:50 – a drum-roll signals a return to minor mode and the piece darkens for a while.

3:20 – the pace picks up again and we’re brought back into major mode as the piece approaches its ending.

3:50 – All the other instruments disappear one last time; allowing the piano to close the piece with two final, but strong notes.

Illumination

0:00  – Much like Etude, Illumination starts with a few very quick notes on the piano.

0:02-0:10 – The violin(s) enter, almost teasingly, hinting at their presence, but then they’re gone briefly, to return again, fully joining in with the piano by 0:10

0:16 – Here, a low chord is struck and allowed to fade before the melody comes back with a vengeance.

0:37 – The strong piano melody takes a break, and the violins take over, imitating the melody introduced at the beginning of the song by the piano.

0:47 – A crescendoing slide of the string instruments brings the strength of the melody back again, part of a pattern throughout the first half of the piece. The beat is now set by the piano, firmly.

1:05 – 1:07 – A pause in the music followed by the drums taking a turn, rumbling in the introduction to a new movement.

1:07 – The piano takes over the melody while maintaining the beat for about 10 seconds, without other instrument accompaniment.

1:18 – The violins return, mimicking the initial melody.

1:34-2:17 – The piano introduces a new melody, rich and full, in perfect harmony with the original melody still playing in the background by the strings.

2:17 – The piano and violins return to the original melody/accompaniment.

2:52 – At this point, there is a major key change, and the strings come in with a strong support to the piano’s melody. There is also a hint of brass in this movement.

3:13 – Again the arrangement returns to the original melody.

3:21 – The piano introduces a change back to minor, and it carries us through towards the end.

3:39 – The tempo slows considerably, letting us know we’re near the end.

3:50 – The piano brings us to a conclusion with a quick descent into the final closing statement.

Across the Starlit Sky

0:00 – This song opens with a  lento ascending form and a gentle progression.

0:16 – The melody changes very slightly for a moment, becoming more involved, before returning to the basic original melody.

0:36 – The evolution of the melody continues here, introducing a lovely upper-register melody that drives the movement.

1:15-1:24 – the upper-register piano takes a momentary break

1:41 – a more mature lower register tone joins the upper pitches bringing a soulfulness to the piece.

2:30 – the high notes begin telling the story again, drawing the listener along.

3:12 – We’re approaching the end, and the higher notes slow their pace, introducing us to the end.

3:28 – The notes start a progressive descent towards the end.

3:50 – The entire piece is wrapped up with the final few notes and a closing chord.

Diary of a Song: Gymnopédie No. 1

This is the seventh of a series of blog posts entitled “Diary of a Song“, where I share the stories behind each of the songs from my new album “Illumination“.

At the end of each post, I also include a link to buy the sheet music, and the MP3 download.

Gymnopédie No. 1

(From the artwork in the CD booklet)

Gymnopédie No. 1 is Track #4 on my new album, “Illumination”.

Gymnopédie No. 1 is the first of three songs (all named Gymnopédie) composed by French composer Erik Satie, who lived from 1866 – 1925 in Paris, France. He was sort of a revolutionary in his time  - as he was breaking molds from the Classical form of music and taking a minimalist and repetitive approach.

This song has been a favorite of mine for a very long time, and in my opinion is one of the “must-learns” on any pianist’s reportorial list.  It is such a hauntingly beautiful, yet simple song.

When I was a little girl I was a huge fan of the movie The Black Stallion.  Not only did I love the movie but I also read the books, and often times found myself carried away into a dreamland of Arabia with horses races, romance, and suspense.  I loved the scene on the beach when Alex (the boy stranded on the island with the wild stallion) finally befriends the horse and the horse allows him to ride him.  The music in this scene, at sunset, carries a very strong resemblence to Gymnopédie No. 1, and perhaps that is why I have always loved this piece – because it reminded me so much of my favorite movie as a kid.

You will see here in this video -if you skip to about 4:40 you will hear the music I talk of.  There is something I really long for in this scene – perhaps it’s the isolation, the beach, being one with nature and no distractions.  Whatever it is, it calls to me.

As this song is such a peaceful song to me with meaning, I really wanted to include it on my album.

Ignoring the dynamics that the editor from Schirmer’s had included in my copy of this song, I recorded this piece how I personally felt it.  I added much more dynamic range to it, including some FF’s which are not in the original. I also took the 2nd half of the song and added more notes, making it more complex and driven.

And finally, I added orchestration to it. Which, funny enough, I thought was so original in – but turns out Claude Debussy also orchestrated Satie’s Gymnopedie’s as well (except for full symphony, whereas mine still has the piano as the lead).  I personally find my version much more dynamic and emotional.

Here is Claude Debussy’s version:

I can’t tell you what great care I took in recording this piece for my album. I was so OCD about it – every detail had to be perfect from the way I played the piano, the expression and dynamics, to every last note that the violins lifted off of the strings.

Here is a clip from the finished song, starting about half way through:

I’m happy to let you know that the sheet music is now available for this song, which you can find below…

You can purchase the sheet music (as well as other songs from Illumination) from my web store HERE.

You can download the MP3 of this song HERE.

BUY AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF ILLUMINATION directly from Jennifer while copies are still in stock:  http://jenniferthomasmusic.com/store/illumination-audio-cd

NEXT SONG UP:  ”New Life”

Diary of a Song: Illumination

This is the sixth of a series of blog posts entitled “Diary of a Song“, where I share the stories behind each of the songs from my new album “Illumination“.

At the end of each post, I also include a link to buy the sheet music, and the MP3 download.

Illumination

“Illumination” is track #3 and the title track on my new album.

The story behind this song is this…

About two years ago, I saw an ad on one of the many TV/Film 3rd party company licensing websites where a European luxury car commercial was looking for music for a commercial.  I don’t normally compose from scratch for opportunities like these (usually just submit already finished works), but the payout on this one was quite substantial and therefore I made an effort.  Okay, it was VERY substantial.  This one licensing opportunity would have paid me more than my music made in one year. AND the description of music that they were looking for basically almost perfectly described my style of music.  I knew I had to try.

I spent a lot time imagining a fast sleek car winding down a highway with curves. A BMW perhaps? Mercedez?  Who knows.  In my mind, I pictured a sort of Bond car, or luxury sedan.  Aston Martin perhaps.  I imagined the wheels turning and turning and the rhythm it created with its movements.

And thus the opening 16th notes of Illumination were born:

Because I knew this has to be a 1 minute clip of music, my attack on the composition of this song was quite different than how I normally compose.  I was crunched for time and needed to get to the main melody of the song from the get-go, so right after that short intro I immediately went to the theme of the music. Again….imagining a fast car zooming by.

And then, the next portion of the song, is me imagining the car driving off into the distance, sparkling clean, shiny wheels and a nice logo and a man’s voice coming on (sexy English accent) to say something about the car or whatnot…

That was basically my entire composition for the car commercial, which I then added orchestra to.  I wanted it to be simple, yet powerful.

So I only added: Violins, French horns, Percussion (Glen Gabriel designed the percussion, which also includes some synth effects). And the final end result for the 1 minute commercial version of “Illumination” ended up like this:

I proudly submitted the song by the deadline and waited to hear back.

Waited…

Waited…

What Happened With the Car Commercial…

And finally, heard back. My song did NOT make the cut for the commercial and yes I was super sad.  Especially because I spent a lot of time and effort on tailoring (what I thought) was the perfect song for this car commercial.

So the funny part about this story, is several months later, I was online watching new movie trailers on Yahoo’s movie section.  Before one of the movie trailers, a car ad came on.   I immediately looked up and took notice, because the song sounded an awful LOT like my song “Illumination”.  It was even weirder that my husband came in from the other room to find out what it was, because his response was also “Hey, isn’t that you?”.

But it wasn’t me.  But it was so incredibly close to my song that I almost thought it was mine.

I was in such shock that I didn’t catch the name of the car.  I thought I had seen Land Rover on the commercial, but I wasn’t certain.  Will and I must have refreshed the browser a hundred times trying to find that commercial again, but it never popped up. We also searched YouTube and the Lexus/Landrover websites trying to find this commercial, and yet we could not find it. So annoying.  So I just forgot about it.

But as I was in LA last year and met with my sound engineer, Rob Beaton, who deals a lot with sound libraries and companies that scout music for commercial work – I told him about what had happened with my song and that car commercial.  He told me that often times these ad agencies that scout music for commercials will find the music that they DO want, but they won’t want to pay the fee for it, so they will actually hire composers to write something very similar to it.

I don’t want to start drama or whatever, because I have no proof and I’ve never been able to find the commercial since then, but I have this little inkling that my song was heard by the ad agency (that I submitted it to), and perhaps replicated by another composer and variated ever so slightly so they could not be accused of plagiarizing. I have no way of proving this since I used a 3rd party to submit my song – I don’t know the name of the ad agency, nor the name of the car company.

BUT the story does not end badly.

The GOOD news in all of this was that I still owned the rights to the song. It was mine to do whatever I wanted with.

I let it sit for a long, long time until I finally came up with the inspiration to work on it again.  It was kind of hard – as I had the first version really stuck in my head.  But eventually I was able to go back to the drawing board, dissect it a bit, and start over.

What I ended up with was a 4 minute long extended version, a couple key changes, a major-keyed section, and a pretty dramatic ending.  You can hear a sample of how I changed the transition of the short clip to extend here:

My album “Illumination” was actually originally going to be called “Portraits”, but as I kept working on it – the title Illumination just seemed more fitting for the vibrant cinematic music evolving for it.  And as I was choosing photography to go with the song (as this was an art-based album with my Dad’s photography), I chose this photo as the perfect representation of Illumination.

You can purchase that beautiful photo of Ruby Beach, Oregon Sunburst directly from my Dad at his website.

More Illumination Projects

As if the song hadn’t evolved enough, there was still more to come.

In the summer of 2012, I met with the conductor of the Evergreen Philharmonic Orchestra and arranged for me to perform with the orchestra in December of 2012.  It was a lot of hard work to transcribe the song for a full live symphony orchestra, but it got done.  I had the help of a couple transcriptionists (Travis Tagart, Daniel McBride).  While I did a lot of the notation myself, I wasn’t familiar enough with the various clefs of brass and woodwind instruments and wanted to be sure I got it exactly right.  I was so thankful for the help.

I should also note, that as I said, I originally only wrote the song for Violins, French Horns, Percussion and then later added Celli as well.  Transcribing it for a full symphony meant adding MANY more additional parts that were not in the original, and also dividing up the violin parts among the various string instruments. For example, in my recording, there are about EIGHT different violin sections playing various harmonies. But in a real orchestra, there are only TWO violin sections. So I transcribed some of the parts over to the violas, and then had each stand within the two sections playing different parts. Usually there are 2 violinists to one music stand and they play the same part, but instead I had them each split with different harmonies.

The end result was obviously NOT the same as the recording, but still very fun and surreal to hear my music performed LIVE with an entire symphony!  Here is the video if you care to watch.  I made a few blips here and there, but overall it was a really great concert and experience.

I’m still planning to shoot a music video for this song, but the plans for it have undergone many changes and I’m still waiting for the stars align for it to all work out how it’s supposed to.

Sheet Music

And now for the moment many of you have been waiting for, here is the link to BUY THE SHEET MUSIC for “Illumination”. I’ve noted in the music that there are a few measures where when I play it live, my part is minimal and the orchestra plays a lot.  But for the solo piano version, I have done some “orchestra reductions” into the part.

BUY THE SHEET MUSIC $3.95 - http://jenniferthomasmusic.com/store/productdetail.php?product=179

BUY THE MP3: http://www.amazon.com/Illumination/dp/B008O0NUSM/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1357268285&sr=8-2&keywords=jennifer+thomas+illumination

BUY AN AUTOGRAPHED COPY OF ILLUMINATION directly from Jennifer while copies are still in stock:  http://jenniferthomasmusic.com/store/illumination-audio-cd

Jennifer Thomas Receives Top Female Artist of the Year and The Indie Award from Classical Crossover UK

Late on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, I was coming home with my family from the mountains near our home outside of Seattle after just having family photos taken when I checked my phone to see what emails I had after being out of cell range most of the day.

My inbox was completely flooded with messages, facebook posts, and more.

“Wow, that’s a lot of Merry Christmas’s”, I thought.

But then I kept seeing “Congratulations!” everywhere, and soon I realized that the 2012 Classical Crossover UK Awards had been announced and I won TWO!  ”Top Female Artist of the Year”, and “The Indie Award”.  Considering my recent disappointment in not getting the Grammy nomination, to get this news really made my day. My week. My month.

Here are some of the super nice things that the editor, Nicola Jarvis, wrote about me and the list of nominees as well.

BEST FEMALE ARTIST AWARD
Jennifer Thomas simply oozes talent, and she puts it to good use.  Primarily a pianist, Thomas is also a violinist, producer and composer and has featured in film soundtracks and commercials.  Her 2012 release, Illumination is an album that boasts integrity and incredible intricacy in its arrangements and composition, offering a balanced track list of old and new.  It’s absolutely ridiculous how musical Thomas is – she may not have major label backing (yet) but that doesn’t stop her from producing world class music. To buy Illumination, click here.

Jennifer Thomas – Winner

Jackie Evancho – Nominee

Katherine Jenkins – Nominee

Siobhan Owen – Nominee

Hayley Westenra – Nominee

THE INDIE AWARD
The internet is enabling independent artists to reach out to audiences in ways that were unfathomable two decades ago.  Unfortunately, an indie artist’s pathway is still blocked from major promotional appearances and accolades.  It’s too easy to give up and easy to fail, so when an indie artist earns achievement after achievement, it says much for their talent, but also their hard work and dedication.  Jennifer Thomas is an inspiring independent artist, constantly aiming higher and earning over 30 nominations or wins from various awarding bodies.  Thomas also produces top quality music; Illumination sounds like a soundtrack to a major Hollywood film – something that can only normally be achieved with the financial backing of a major record label.  It takes years to build up this kind of reputation and resources to get to where Thomas is today.  To buy Illumination, click here.

Jennifer Thomas – Winner

Siobhan Owen – Nominee

Affiniti - Nominee

Phillippa Lusty- Nominee

Naria – Nominee

ALBUM OF THE YEAR
Storybook Journey should be a staple in any classical crossover collection.  Whilst it’s not as technically brilliant as Jennifer Thomas‘s Illumination and not as lushly orchestrated as Jackie Evancho‘s Songs From the Silver Screen, it still shines brightest among the 2012 album releases.  The key lies in its prime idea and concept and the perfectly fitting way it is carried out.  It’s a wholesome, circular album, inspired by stories and fairytale and it’s confidently realised.  Siobhan Owen’s pure vocals, atmospheric harp playing and emotive delivery ensure its theme rings true.  The tracks have been carefully selected both thematically and commercially (a very rare feat) and the overall package of the album just puts the cherry on top.  Storybook Journey announces the arrival of Siobhan Owen as a serious artist as well as vocalist. To buy Storybook Journey, click here.

Siobhan Owen – Winner

Jennifer Thomas – Nominee

Il Volo – Nominee

Gregorian – Nominee

Jackie Evancho – Nominee

The Tenors – Nominee

David Garrett – Nominee

I came to the CCUK site late in the year. It is a website dedicated to helping the world be aware of those of us in the Classical Crossover genre.  It’s not a complete roster yet, and there is a long list of artists still waiting to be added to the site, but it is the most comprehensive site dedicated to this cause (and receives an enormous amount of hits).  I’m so honored to be among such talent, and am very excited about the awards! Thank you all for your continued support of my music. I’m not sure what 2013 will bring yet, but this was a great way to end 2012 and kick off the new year.

Merry Christmas!

Music Video UPDATE

A lot of people have been asking me when they can expect to see the music videos that I’ve filmed over the past couple of months. I finally have an update and so I wanted to share…

“Requiem For a Dream” is going to be finished in January 2013 (not December as previously thought). For awesome reasons though. Ryan (the director), and Alex (the editor) have a lot of amazing footage that they’ve been going through – that was filmed on a top notch camera by the way.  They are also doing some special effects with some of the shots and it is taking some fine-tuning and a lot of hours.  But in the end, all the hard long hours will be worth it because it’s going to be a standout video and one worth waiting for.

“Moonlight” (my collab with Viktoria Tocca) possibly the end of December.  We started shooting this video at the end of the summer, and due to a lot of people involved and various schedules (mine included), it’s taken quite a while to finish filming all of the scenes that were needed.  They are still fine tuning the editing and making sure they have all of the shots needed to go with the storyline of the video.  I’m just grateful that I have been able to work with such talented people who really take care in their work to be sure the final product is as best as possible.

By the way, the song is now available for download.  You can find it on all the regular hookups like Amazon, iTunes, Cdbaby and more.

“Illumination” – And last but not least, I’m very excited to tell you that plans are underway to film a video for my song “Illumination” with the Evergreen Philharmonic. I’m actually performing with this orchestra next week, but after the new year I will go back and we will film an official music video with the orchestra.  We’re still in the planning/brainstorming phase of this project, but I can tell you it will be beautiful.

So it’s looking like 2013 will be my year for music videos. Stay tuned…