k.d. doherty music

KatieDoherty-Extended Version -Mix5 - Chris Graham Mastering by k.d. doherty music

When I was 10 years old I wanted to learn to play Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# Minor on the piano. It was such a beautiful and haunting piece that I just felt compelled to learn it. I could not read music though (I still can't), so I painstakingly tried to figure out each note as best as I could. While recording the piano for House of the Rising Sun, I kept hearing the Rachmaninoff piece in my mind and it just seemed to fit in so well with my rendition of the song. So, I decided to highlight a portion of his piece at the closing of the song. It is not the exact version that Sergei Rachmaninoff composed, but rather his version that I tried to emulate at 10 years of age. This beautiful and classic piece, ended up being the foundation and essence of my song as I built my version around it. House of the Rising Sun is a haunting tale of one soul's troubled past, which inevitably leads to a regretful and inescapable future.

Just mmmm-ing, a little song.

Recorded Live- Christmas Eve- Hope Chapel, Hermosa Beach, California. The Hope Chapel Worship Singers and Orchestra

Testing out my new iPhone 13 in the Voice Memos App. VM is typically used for, well,....voice memos or dictation! I like to use VM when I'm trying out a vocal and piano to see if I ultimately want to record it. Seems an improvement from the iPhone 7Plus I had been using. (Nat King Cole- Too Young)

Recorded in 2008. Written by Andrae Crouch https://www.facebook.com/KDSongs/ https://www.facebook.com/kddohertyhymnos/

I originally recorded this vocal a few months ago with only a ukulele for accompaniment. It was meant to be a simple version with just the vocal and uke. But after it was recorded, it just didn't feel quite right to me. So I kept the original vocal track and switched instead from the uke to the piano. I kept hearing a specific arrangement in my head that I wanted to compose for the instrumentals and then began adding to the arrangement piece by piece over the next weeks. So what began as a simple and uncomplicated version of this beautiful and haunting song, ended up turning into something entirely quite different. I just love how music can move you to do that~ https://youtu.be/kFp5jYCrB-U https://www.facebook.com/KDSongs/

Written by Jon McLaughlin and Jonathan Michael I first heard this song playing in the background of a television show a number of years ago. I loved the piano composition so much that I knew I had to learn it. I searched for it online, but the song was unknown at that time and I couldn't locate it until months later. It has been 3 years since I have been able to play the piano (just didn't have one anywhere that I could play), so when I started to play again a few months ago, I knew that this was the first song that I wanted to learn and record. www.facebook.com/KDSongs youtu.be/B-NcyroPqDE .

A friend told me that he was learning In My Life, on the guitar and asked if I knew how to play it on the ukulele. I have several favorite Beatles songs; I Will, Hey Jude, Because, Something, to name just a few. I took that as a challenge and sat down to learn it. As I figured out the chords I found myself preferring to slow down the tempo and phrasing of the song as I do on many of the songs that I sing. As I sang it I realized that the lyrics mirrored many personal things in my life from my past, especially moving back to my hometown 2 years ago. I ended up playing and singing my version recently at a dear friend's memorial service back here at home. It was then that I realized that this was the next song that I wanted to record. https://www.facebook.com/KDSongs https://youtu.be/1nmW8IQ4eIM .

Just for fun. A smidgen of the latest song I'm working on, with some added neato EQ effects by my talented friend, Tony DiMito.

https://www.facebook.com/kddohertyhymnos/ Just a quick share of a song in honor of Easter tomorrow. It is not the best sound quality; It is raw and unmixed as it was recorded live during a church service and done so only through the church soundboard. It was only recorded at my request for my own personal music library. No bells, whistles or frills on this one; just a beautiful song that I thought would be fitting as we approach Easter tomorrow. Vocals: Katie Doherty, Joshua Keever, Alan Kisaka Piano: Joshua Keever Guitar: Alan Kisaka Recorded live, Hope Chapel Hermosa Beach, CA

I have always thought that I was born in the wrong era, at least in regards to my taste in the music that I prefer to sing and listen to. I adore singing the old standards, almost more than any other genre. There is a simplicity to their melodies and lyrics that I have been drawn to since I first began singing. They don't write them like this anymore~ Written in 1952 by Pee Wee King, Chilton Price, and Redd Stewart. http://youtu.be/YKXQJct4G90 https://www.facebook.com/KDSongs .

I have loved this song ever since I first heard it growing up. A vivid, haunting and beautiful folk song, it is of English origin based on lyrics that partly date back to the 16th Century. https://www.facebook.com/KDSongs http://youtu.be/_znknA6XryU .

I love singing the old Hymns. The older, the better. There is a purity and simplicity to them that is incomparable to any other Gospel music. Written in 1912 by George Bennard http://youtu.be/QWLvbFjId7g https://www.facebook.com/KDSongs https://www.facebook.com/kddohertyhymnos/

Written by Christine McVie http://youtu.be/HYHM2yWjYCM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYHM2yWjYCM https://www.facebook.com/KDSongs

A few years ago, a friend of mine asked me if I would be interested in recording an original song of his with him. He then sat down with his guitar on a monitor on the stage, and sang and played 'The Secret' for me. It was so beautiful and haunting that I immediately said yes. Josh Keever is one of the most gifted and talented songwriters that I know, and it was my pleasure and honor to record this song with him. I am hoping that we will be recording more songs together in the future. https://youtu.be/3k7Y_emr4yg https://www.facebook.com/KDSongs .

I love the old Hymns. The older, the better. This beautiful and classic hymn was written in 1918. I went to bed on Thursday night, wrestling over which song to record next. I awoke at 6 a.m. the next morning with this song running through my head. I hadn't heard it in years, but the chorus kept playing over and over in my mind...."Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face. And the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace." I knew right then, that this was the next song that I would record. https://www.facebook.com/KDSongs http://youtu.be/Y0y4TsejEBc Written in 1918 by Helen Howarth Lemmel. She had written over 500 hymns and poems.When she became blind her husband abandoned her, which was just one of the many heartaches Helen struggled with during midlife. One day, in 1918, when Helen was aged 55, a missionary friend gave her a tract entitled "Focused". It contained a statement that had a profound impact on her. “So then, turn your eyes upon Him, look full into His face and you will find that the things of earth will acquire a strange new dimness.” “I stood still, ” Helen recalled, “and singing in my soul and spirit was the chorus, with not one conscious moment of putting word to word to make rhyme, or note to note to make melody." The verses were written the same week.

Another one recorded "by the light of my dashboard" (aka: Durango Studios). Some times you just have to go wherever there is a quiet spot to record, whether it has a steering wheel or not. Originally a sentimental Civil War ballad, the melody of Aura Lee was written in 1861. http://youtu.be/IzdQmqcgBiY https://www.facebook.com/KDSongs .

As I was in the final stages of mixing this song, something kept bothering me about the recording. I assumed it was due to my needing to add more vocal or instrumental effects to enhance the sound. But after numerous additions and changes, I kept coming back to the same conclusion; written in 1880, this song is already perfect in it's simplicity. So, I have removed all effects and stripped it down to just a bare vocal and instrumental with only some reverb added. http://youtu.be/IInuM08ApBk https://www.facebook.com/KDSongs .

Written by Willie Neslon~ First song I recorded with the ukulele (had only been playing for 6 weeks). Please forgive my lack of playing ability, especially on the instrumental "solo". I'm a singer who plays the ukulele, not a ukulele player who sings~ This was also my first time recording, editing and mixing a song, so there's plenty of things that could have sounded better. http://youtu.be/iXquebYJ7jA https://www.facebook.com/KDSongs