"There Was a Girl with Peanut Butter Hair..."
If I had to choose a favourite song that I have written and recorded, I would have to say that Peanut Butter Hair from the My Best Friend B (Songs for Kids Volume 2) album is right there near the top of the list.
I just love Peanut Butter Hair! It's really fun to play (who doesn’t have fun playing a ukulele??)
and recording this song opened me up to some new recording techniques I didn’t know I could do. This really helped me push myself on the next session, which became The Robotanist album.
So, let’s start off with the story of the song itself… Children’s author Robert Munsch is pretty popular in our house. The books he has created with artist Michael Martchenko are uplifting, empowering and entertaining; three things I hope to accomplish with my music.
I had a line about a “girl with peanut butter hair” in my head for a few days, but wasn’t sure what direction I would go with it. When I learned in a newspaper article that Robert Munsch had been diagnosed with dementia, I was very moved by that news. I’ve been down that road myself with family members - it’s a tough road to be on. It saddened me that a man with such imagination, a man that has done so much to uplift kids, would some day not remember the incredible gifts he gave us.
So, for my song, I wanted to create an uplifting and empowering girl with peanut butter hair, that if she had the chance, could live in the wonderful world of characters created by Munsch and Martchenko.
I sat in my music room the day after reading about Mr. Munsch's diagnosis and the song came together very quickly. I kept one particular friend in mind as I wrote the song - my friend Emma. She is an amazing person and a fantastic teacher! While Emma doesn’t have peanut butter hair, her love of life and adventure helped me to bring my girl with peanut butter hair to life. And, Emma is one heck of a ukulele player too. Seeing her playing led me to purchase my own ukulele. I'm not at her level of playing yet, but I'm getting there...
Now, as for the new techniques I learned… I remembered hearing years ago that while David Bowie was recording his song Heroes, they used a series of gated microphones in the studio. I’m not a sound engineer (or expert!), but a gated mic only picks up sound when it is triggered by a sound within a certain pre-set range, as opposed to just picking up all the room sounds and just being “on”. Basically, it allows you to control what the mic hears, and then records... In his recording sessions, Bowie's team used a regular microphone for the main vocal, but also had extra gated mics at 15 and 20 feet I believe (but don't quote me on those distances!). Using these mics in that way is what gives the song that huge vocal sound and great tone after the first verse.
Now, I don’t have that much equipment or space, but for the extra vocals in Peanut Butter Hair, I thought I would try recording different vocal tracks from various distances and volumes. It was so cool to try, and even cooler that it worked. It gave me a new confidence to attempt different vocal techniques and mic placement, which you can certainly hear all over my next project, The Robotanist album. So, you just never know when a little piece of info will come in handy and allow you to learn something new...
Here's a video for Peanut Butter Hair that I made with my daughters, Eliza and Alex:
See ya next time…
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