Everyone Needs a Safety Net

Pre-release copies of Safety Net 19 are now being made available to anyone who participates in Everyone Needs a Safety Net, a fundraiser set up to support Stockport Mind's Emergency Coronavirus Appeal. 

From Stockport Mind:

"Since this situation came about, at times our helpline has been non-stop, with many people who have never contacted us before ringing in crisis, as well as those we know. Outbound calls to those we already support have gone up 68%, with a 63% increase in length of time spent on calls.

But our financial position has become precarious overnight, so we are now urgently in need of support to meet this growing demand. We had budgeted for £3000 income from fundraising activities every month, funding vital functions such as our telephone helpline that saves lives, but this has dropped off very quickly."

Taylor writes: "Everyone needs a safety net. Stockport Mind is that safety net for many people. They need our help, and they need it now. Between now and the release date, 17 May, all who donate will receive a free mp3 of Safety Net 19 as thanks."

Please visit the JustGiving page to find out more.

 

 

Safety Net 19

Taylor is pleased to announce that Safety Net 19 will be released on 17 May.

Safety Net 19 is a collaboration between Taylor and producer Mark Allen, to be released 17 May 2020. Safety Net was originally released June 2018 as a vocal/piano piece written by Taylor. Mark Allen has breathed new life into the song by adding some production magic from his studio Benchmark Productions in East Nashville, Tennessee. Taylor writes:

"The title Safety Net 19 has been chosen out of respect for the amazing people all over the world, particularly those working in hospitals, who are helping others. The outbreak of COVID-19 has turned our world upside-down in ways we never imagined; causing pain, death, and heartbreak everywhere we look. But it has also challenged us to be there for one another like never before, and it is this togetherness that will help us through. We all must now be safety nets - for each other."

 

 

Stay at Home - A Choral Experiment in Lockdown

Taylor has come together with a few other singers to try singing together in (almost) real time. Taylor is a choral conductor, and of course due to the coronavirus she cannot meet with her choirs. However, being apart doesn't mean you can't sing together. Taylor writes:

"I was missing my choirs, and they were missing singing. Fortunately, we live in amazing times, and video conferencing technology can bring us together. But, as the audio is only 'one-way', it's tricky to sing together. One way around this is to record separate videos and then glue them all together, which is being done all over the world - with beautiful results. But I think that it's just as important to have the feeling that you're coming together, and to feel as though you're singing with each other. I wanted to recreate the rehearsal/performance process as close to real life as possible. So, we held a rehearsal for a little over an hour, singing all the way through my silly Stay at Home rewrite to the Row Your Boat tune. I sang and they sang along. And, as usual, the rehearsal wasn't all singing - there was a bit of banter as well :) I gave each of the singers a track to sing along with so that they could sing in time, and then one at a time I recorded the audio, mixed it very quickly, and then played it back so they could sing along. The voices they heard were the voices of each other, from only moments ago, and so it was very nearly like singing in a choir. We held another short rehearsal and made the final recordings, and then a recording of our experience, singing along in real time to the track I'd mixed, all in just over an hour. The video is just one take, and it's the best I could do to capture the experience of all of us singing together, though we're apart."
Taylor plans to do lots more of these in the next few weeks!