Susan Farris sat next to her family piano as a child, sometime around 1975, listening to her mom sing and play a song called “Remembering”.
Her mother is now suffering from dementia and hasn't been able to sing that or any song for many years. She was a small-town piano teacher and was proficient enough to write the music and lyrics, creating sheet music for her masterpiece. Those two pages sat, hidden away, in a box somewhere with other trinkets and memories from the past. Susan’s husband, Charles, got an email about our new online recording studio called studioautomatic.com and immediately thought of his wife’s stories of hearing her mom sing. He emailed us to ask a simple question: “your site says to upload a rough version of your tune and we will send you back a fully formed pro recording within a few days…can you work from sheet music?”
I didn’t know all the details so asked Charles to call me and pass along more info. Is the sheet music for real? Does the song exist in an arrangement that makes sense as a modern song? I then asked him to send me a pdf of the music. I must admit to tearing up a little as I sat in an airport looking at my iPhone and reading the words to this song from the past.
I started with Tim, one of the most talented piano players in Nashville. He sat and played the first version of “Remembering” complete with backing piano and him plunking out the melody of the vocal.
My team then added drums, bass, guitars and ultimately we snagged Jenna, an aspiring singer here in Music City to cut the vocals. Everyone who worked on the song had the same response, which was this surreal feeling of bringing a song to life that quite literally didn’t exist in any audio form for around 40 years.
I love being part of this website that allows people to hear their songs recorded, mixed and mastered by the same people who work on major label projects. This song was even more special. The Farris family loved the finished project and made comments about never imagining they'd ever hear that song again.
One passage from the song “lonely days that follow, all these memories linger on.” Now these words, these lyrics, these emotions can, in fact, linger on.
We loved doing this song and bring on the sheet music!
