In August of 1993 my family moved back to Guam. Actually that is not totally true. My daughter moved simultaneously to a job in Phuket, Thailand while we moved back to Guam after being there a few years prior. The island had developed considerably since being there in 1990-91, our previous time there.
A musical friend of mine, Jeff Patterson, Jeff Patterson profile had also decided to check out life on Guam and landed within a short time after our arriving. He stayed with us in our apartment for a brief time.
Jeff and I hadn't written anything of consequence before this although we had worked together in creative musical groups since our days in high school and college.
We sat down and started to write a melody, a three note bit that felt very soothing. We wrote that on my new guitar which I had purchased use in my music classes at Tamuning Elementary School where I was the elementary music specialist. That three note bit was the center point, but we had no words. Nothing! It was one of those blah-blah-blah songs...... We used the words "light like air" which felt nice.
In my mind I felt we were writing a song on the lines of Air Supply or something. It had that kind of felling to it. We had the whole song written melodically. It was pretty good; even the harmonies were following into place. But, it was still "blah, blah, blah" or "light like air" and that had to go. So, we were driving in the car with Barb and Julian Janssen and Barb said, "how about 'Tu-mon Bay' that works" and it could be a piece for the most important tourist spot on Guam.
Wow! Inspiration! All of a sudden the car was alive with the phrase "Tumon Bay". But, that was just the chorus. What about the verse?
Jeff literally went swimming the next day in Tumon Bay and after sat down and the whole lyric flowed out of him. In this situation the place, Tumon Bay, actually inspired via its natural beauty.
So, it came back to us together to finalize the lyric. We already had ideas of its use. We were going to present the song to the Guam Visitors Bureau for use as a bit for their advertising. We recorded it on a cassette and with lyrics accompanying it I presented it to GVB. They took forever to get back to me and when they did their response was, "it's about Tumon Bay, not Guam" That was true, of course. It zeroed in on one locale and not the entire island. But, we still had a great song.
Jeff left Guam shortly to return to the Pacific Northwest. So, the song sat unused.
For me, 1996 found me recording a children's CD called "Hafa Adai! Fun Songs From Guam And Around The World". I needed some more material and "Tumon Bay" seemed ripe for use. So, I recorded it overdubbing my voice three times for the background harmonies. The harmony that I sang (two part) in the second verse was what Jeff would have sung if he had been available; but he was in the states.
That song got a bit of help from my friend Tom Renfro who was a DJ at the time on Guam's public radio station. It got a good response and I appreciated his help in publicizing it.
I was now working at St. John's School in Guam in 1997. Another school had just recorded an album for Christmas and gained a lot of acclaim for it. The administration and other teachers saw my skills in songwriting and suggested that our school should put out a CD of some sort also. I went back to the studio that had recorded my CD and when they heard that I was representing St. John's School the price went up. The school was seen as wealthy and should be able to put up the money.
No was the answer to that. I came back from the studio with an inflated price and was given a definite NO. So, now what?
My friend Chris Evola, who was a supporter of my work suggested getting a digital recorder and do it ourselves. Of course he was saying "you Dave". I had never recorded anything on my own totally, except demos for sending to publishers. This would be a new undertaking and honestly I was afraid of my own "get it done quickly" style of doing things which left quality somewhere in the backseat.
But, he convinced me and I in turn convinced the school of the low price and what my goal would be, to create a CD for the school.
I thought of Jeff and my song, Tumon Bay, as the piece to work with. So, I created a backing track slower and more sultry than the previous recording. I also created a "waves hitting the shore" sound for an introduction to the song.
I started working with my 4th, 5th, 6th grade choir to sing the harmonies behind what would be the lead singer. The background voices were recorded around one microphone in a classroom. I didn't have enough headsets so some of the children were the primary singers and the rest heard their singing and sang to the timing of their singing. In retrospect I have to say I can't believe we were actually able to come up with anything worthwhile, but it was wonderful.
I had selected Natasha Melwani, who had a very nice smooth melodic voice, as my lead singer. Her mother would drop her off at the school and we would record her part verse by verse. There were many takes and I would have to judge each one on its quality and ask her back a few times. You must remember that the song is 5 minutes long and each verse had to be as perfect as it could be. The work was gruelling for a sixth grader to deal with, but she was a trooper and the final product was wonderful.
Guam is a destination resort to the Asian area. Millions of people, especially from Japan, visit Guam each year. As much as songs about Guam might attract English speaking listeners the truth is that more Asian languaged persons visit Guam, so if a song could be in their own language, that could be a very good thing.
I saw this opportunity and went to work on it. I first presented the lyric to one of the Japanese language teachers at St. John's, Ichie Shepherd, and asked her to translate the song for me. She did that, but the result was not lyrical enough. That can be a problem in dealing with translation of lyrics.
With this new thought, translating to Japanese, I needed a new singer who was fluent in Japanese. There was a new girl to St. John's, Sanae Okada who had just recently moved from Japan to Guam. Her mother, by chance, was quite talented at music and she took it upon herself to make a more poetic Japanese Tumon Bay lyric. What you hear on the recording is a synthesis of Jeff's lyric and Mrs. Okada's poetic work.
The music of the Japanese Tumon Bay was taken by my friend Chris Evola who was a teacher of physics at St. John's School. He worked for a year or longer at creating a music video using images of Tumon Bay and of course the singer, Sanae Okada. In the video are students of St. John's, and curious and I feel innovative use of color, and the natural beauty that is Tumon Bay.
Tumon Bay as performed by Dave Janssen
A musical friend of mine, Jeff Patterson, Jeff Patterson profile had also decided to check out life on Guam and landed within a short time after our arriving. He stayed with us in our apartment for a brief time.
Jeff and I hadn't written anything of consequence before this although we had worked together in creative musical groups since our days in high school and college.
We sat down and started to write a melody, a three note bit that felt very soothing. We wrote that on my new guitar which I had purchased use in my music classes at Tamuning Elementary School where I was the elementary music specialist. That three note bit was the center point, but we had no words. Nothing! It was one of those blah-blah-blah songs...... We used the words "light like air" which felt nice.
In my mind I felt we were writing a song on the lines of Air Supply or something. It had that kind of felling to it. We had the whole song written melodically. It was pretty good; even the harmonies were following into place. But, it was still "blah, blah, blah" or "light like air" and that had to go. So, we were driving in the car with Barb and Julian Janssen and Barb said, "how about 'Tu-mon Bay' that works" and it could be a piece for the most important tourist spot on Guam.
Wow! Inspiration! All of a sudden the car was alive with the phrase "Tumon Bay". But, that was just the chorus. What about the verse?
Jeff literally went swimming the next day in Tumon Bay and after sat down and the whole lyric flowed out of him. In this situation the place, Tumon Bay, actually inspired via its natural beauty.
So, it came back to us together to finalize the lyric. We already had ideas of its use. We were going to present the song to the Guam Visitors Bureau for use as a bit for their advertising. We recorded it on a cassette and with lyrics accompanying it I presented it to GVB. They took forever to get back to me and when they did their response was, "it's about Tumon Bay, not Guam" That was true, of course. It zeroed in on one locale and not the entire island. But, we still had a great song.
Jeff left Guam shortly to return to the Pacific Northwest. So, the song sat unused.
For me, 1996 found me recording a children's CD called "Hafa Adai! Fun Songs From Guam And Around The World". I needed some more material and "Tumon Bay" seemed ripe for use. So, I recorded it overdubbing my voice three times for the background harmonies. The harmony that I sang (two part) in the second verse was what Jeff would have sung if he had been available; but he was in the states.
That song got a bit of help from my friend Tom Renfro who was a DJ at the time on Guam's public radio station. It got a good response and I appreciated his help in publicizing it.
I was now working at St. John's School in Guam in 1997. Another school had just recorded an album for Christmas and gained a lot of acclaim for it. The administration and other teachers saw my skills in songwriting and suggested that our school should put out a CD of some sort also. I went back to the studio that had recorded my CD and when they heard that I was representing St. John's School the price went up. The school was seen as wealthy and should be able to put up the money.
No was the answer to that. I came back from the studio with an inflated price and was given a definite NO. So, now what?
My friend Chris Evola, who was a supporter of my work suggested getting a digital recorder and do it ourselves. Of course he was saying "you Dave". I had never recorded anything on my own totally, except demos for sending to publishers. This would be a new undertaking and honestly I was afraid of my own "get it done quickly" style of doing things which left quality somewhere in the backseat.
But, he convinced me and I in turn convinced the school of the low price and what my goal would be, to create a CD for the school.
I thought of Jeff and my song, Tumon Bay, as the piece to work with. So, I created a backing track slower and more sultry than the previous recording. I also created a "waves hitting the shore" sound for an introduction to the song.
I started working with my 4th, 5th, 6th grade choir to sing the harmonies behind what would be the lead singer. The background voices were recorded around one microphone in a classroom. I didn't have enough headsets so some of the children were the primary singers and the rest heard their singing and sang to the timing of their singing. In retrospect I have to say I can't believe we were actually able to come up with anything worthwhile, but it was wonderful.
I had selected Natasha Melwani, who had a very nice smooth melodic voice, as my lead singer. Her mother would drop her off at the school and we would record her part verse by verse. There were many takes and I would have to judge each one on its quality and ask her back a few times. You must remember that the song is 5 minutes long and each verse had to be as perfect as it could be. The work was gruelling for a sixth grader to deal with, but she was a trooper and the final product was wonderful.
Guam is a destination resort to the Asian area. Millions of people, especially from Japan, visit Guam each year. As much as songs about Guam might attract English speaking listeners the truth is that more Asian languaged persons visit Guam, so if a song could be in their own language, that could be a very good thing.
I saw this opportunity and went to work on it. I first presented the lyric to one of the Japanese language teachers at St. John's, Ichie Shepherd, and asked her to translate the song for me. She did that, but the result was not lyrical enough. That can be a problem in dealing with translation of lyrics.
With this new thought, translating to Japanese, I needed a new singer who was fluent in Japanese. There was a new girl to St. John's, Sanae Okada who had just recently moved from Japan to Guam. Her mother, by chance, was quite talented at music and she took it upon herself to make a more poetic Japanese Tumon Bay lyric. What you hear on the recording is a synthesis of Jeff's lyric and Mrs. Okada's poetic work.
The music of the Japanese Tumon Bay was taken by my friend Chris Evola who was a teacher of physics at St. John's School. He worked for a year or longer at creating a music video using images of Tumon Bay and of course the singer, Sanae Okada. In the video are students of St. John's, and curious and I feel innovative use of color, and the natural beauty that is Tumon Bay.
Tumon Bay as performed by Dave Janssen
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