Alas De Polvo - Original Song - Steemit Pre-release! - Story behind the song - How I funded an album with the help of STEEM.

Hello Steemit!

So.. today is a special one for me as around 2 - 3 am my phone rang ( and as I would normally be really pissed ) it was because the masters of this particular song arrived, a song that just happens to be my first single of my first album!, I had received some masters earlier yesterday but as always .. I had corrections to do .. hahaha.. I'm sooo picky when it comes to production!

I thought about waiting a bit and collecting more material to present and such but I am quite excited to share it now and plus... even though I have been in a production and creative team to make quite a few albums for others, including art and such... I just happen not to have any material of my own... I never requested or created visual art for myself.. so .. there was not much to ''add'' to the song presentation.. so.. oh well.. why not just do a little informal release? For the friends and people I like and would love to share this song with , just imagine you came to my house for coffee and I showed you the song while I told you the story behind it ... ready?

- The story behind the song and the album:

So , this whole song writing period for me was kicked by my move to Uruguay and sudden ''collapse'' of everything I had , one of those cases of ''I lost it all'' and ''it's time to start from scratch'', I moved to Buenos Aires and took quite a break from music as I needed to rethink about my life a little , I got a regular job and I was just letting time do it's thing and move on. I also slowly started writing along this period , just writing , having joy and release in putting my thoughts into paper and let them be, I started writing my thoughts , little poems, stories, anything ... and these things eventually evolved into small songs, as if the musician also wanted to take part in this, I also had many things to say at this point .. so the writing kept constant.. I still have many of those papers with me .. It's an interesting way to know what was going through my mind and heart at that particular time. I also started taking arrangement lessons at that time and my teacher Daniel Camelo started to slowly encourage me to pursue my music as we would usually practice arrangement techniques over my compositions.

This was all before I joined Steemit, I joined on October 2017 ( yup .. I'm close to one year ) and all of this writing happened from January - September of that same year. Also I reluctantly joined Steemit after @meno insisting for maybe a month or two, he ended up buying my account and told me ''you owe me the money I paid for your account.. so start posting!'' ... So yes... those are my beginnings on Steemit ..hahahaha... crazy I'm still around :P .

So , after going through the question ''what should I write about?'' , since I didn't want to share too much of my personal side I just went with music and production related tutorials and stuck with those for a while , then I was pushed again to participate in @openmic and I submitted my first entry at week 56 with a song I had written alongside @vera.carla without expecting much:

https://steemit.com/openmic/@pechichemena/steemit-openmic-week-56-original-song-cancion-de-otono

I remember waking up to a @curie ( without even know what a Curie was ) and an almost $100 payout! Also .. @luzcypher showed up with nice comments and welcomed me to the community .. So that finally kicked off the adventure.. I was going to do an album... somehow. I had no way to pay for it but at least I could start working on the music and details.

- How I paid for the recording:

If you ever see my activity in transfers.. I have barely cashed out and the times I cashed out were 90% of the time used to put some money on the piggy bank for the recording , I was lucky to cash out a bit when the STEEM price was high and also the devaluation of the currency here in Argentina , though it sucks.. made it possible for me to raise enough to pay for the whole thing. After a year of posting , and yes.. only posting and networking .. I never ''put in money'' since I don't have any extra to spare :P but if I could , trust me .. I would be investing. So all I had was work to put in and since I'm stubborn and determined like crazy over the course of almost a year of posting and sharing and creating .. I finally raised enough money to enter the studio. I did some things on the side , I would lie if I said I ONLY used STEEM but .. at least 70% of the recording was funded by merely Steemit work, crazy huh? at other times I would have thought that to be impossible but hey! It happened to me! So , yes .. work paid off :) . I'm proud of this achievement.

Musicians and producers know how expensive it can be to record an album , studio time , musicians , logistics , equipment , mixing , mastering , art .. etc etc etc.. It takes a team to put a production together and well.. each process has it's financial cost. Luckily many of my friends helped me and I also paid some of these things with work .. so I'm doing recordings and editing and such to ''pay back'' the making of this album . It's all hard work and I sometimes go a little insane handling this.. but it's worth it.

Bass and Drum live recording session.. of course the coffee and cookies on the right are mine.. essential for a producer!

We did this recording at a beautiful studio called ''Nak Estudios'' by the hand of Ninja engineer Tomás Vigo, the whole day I was quite nervous and anxious but as the day went by I could direct and handle the whole thing.. luckily I have some experience directing recording sessions.. but the fact that this was my album added some pressure on me.

Where we handled the recording.. I'll definitely return here!

After we recorded the whole album in a day now it was my turn to put each one of the songs together.. and well .. "Alas de Polvo'' made sense to me as a first one .. as it basically talks about this ''starting over'' that kicked off the whole adventure.. so .. It had to be the first one.

So , then is where I go insane since I don't have a team to work with and have to carry the whole workload myself.. the art of turning this :

into THIS:

Reaper Session with all the tracks loaded and edited ... I spot some HedaScripts there ;) @hedac @yidneth

After going insane recording and editing and cleaning each and every track it was finally good to go and send for mixing! Sergio Vivar once again handled this one as with every production I do back at the studio in Ecuador.

After many back and forths and mixing corrections and masterings and all those not so fun things.. I finally received the final version.. making this one special day for me!

So, here it is! , a special release for the STEEM family, my first single from my first album ever :

Alas de Polvo - Pechiche Mena.

Alas de Polvo
(P.Mena)
Una palabra
se ha transformado
en calor , en tiempo de dolor
abandonado
Una mañana
se ha desvelado
me ha dejado penas
del viento que te ha llevado

Despegaste en alas nuevas
de Polvo

Una mirada
te ha desnudado
ha quebrado el barro
que tu cuerpo ha secado

Una ventana
te ha invitado
a elevarte en nubes de color
en nuevos lados

Despegaste en alas nuevas
de polvo

Here's a translation:

Dust Wings
(P.Mena)

One word
has transformed
in heat , in times of pain
that were once abandoned

One morning
Has not slept
It has left me sorrows
of the wind that took you away

You took off in new wings
wings of dust

One look
has unclouded you
It has broken the clay
that your body had dried up

One window
has invited you
to elevate in clouds of color
somewhere else

You took off on your new wings
wings of dust

The team:

Julian Piterman - Drums
Damian Carballal- Bass and Percussion.
Mattias Fumagalli - Keyboards.
Pechiche Mena - Guitars, Vocals, synth programming.

Drums and bass recorded by Tomas Vigo at ''Estudios Nak'' - Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Guitars, vocals and percussion recorded at my personal studio.

Mixed and Mastered by Sergio Vivar at ''La Real Sociedad'' - Guayaquil, Ecuador.

Composed, Arranged, Edited and Produced by Pechiche Mena.

---

This song also comes days away from me completing one year on the platform, the two-year anniversary of the Open Mic contest which I had the honor to win on such a special date and also me stepping into my 30s in just a few weeks.. It all seems to close in a beautiful way and kicking off a new chapter. But hey , this is just the start of the album .. 7 more songs to go now ;)!

''You took off on your new wings
wings of dust''

Thanks for reading and listening!
Much Love
Pechi