About TortoiseClimbing™

Who We Are

Stories/Meanings Behind Our Name

Many stories and meanings are embodied in our name; TortoiseClimbing™. Here are three:

1. Perseverance - A well known story from Aesop's Fables is the Tortoise and Hare. The Tortoise's perseverance forms part of our mantra. It illustrates that no matter how high and steep the hill we have to climb, e.g., becoming functional in the music industry, perseverance is essential.
   
   The Climbing part of our name addresses the long and difficult hill we are climbing, i.e., learning the many intricacies of the music industry, working toward becoming respectfully known in the industry. Taken together these personify the Tortoise's commitment to persevering in the race with the Hare, which in this case is to not to give up on climbing the difficult hill to achieve some modicum of success in the music industry;


2. Taking advantage of Opportunity - An old expression is "seize the moment." The concept of perseverance must be paired with opportunity. A seminal event in David's life gave him understanding of the juxtaposition of these two concepts that flows from his father's professional experience. After many years of struggling to support his family as an employed professional, David's father had the opportunity to establish his own small business in the field he was trained, which he seized. That decision enabled him to create a better life for his family.
   
   While not the same, the opportunity that occurred for TortoiseClimbing™ was his mother's request for him to guide making a quality recording of his parents' favorite old hymns for public release. At that time, David had sung since Elementary School choirs, and studied voice in college and afterward. He continued participating in various forms of singing as a hobby, and then began amateur recording at a professional studio. Those provided a substantial musical background preparation.
   
   This opportunity came much later in David's life than the opportunity in his father's, and it did not enable him to initially turn full-time to pursuing the opportunity. (He still had a "day job" consuming much of his time.)
   
   David did however seize the "opportunity" to begin recording the requested album. He also began learning additional necessary information about how to produce excellent recordings. Plus, the many things required to functionally participate in the recording industry.
   
   Then he retired and devoted all time to persistently pursuing climbing the long and steep hill toward being recognized in the music industry. He completed and released the Hymns and Songs of My Mother extended, audiophile album, and continues developing new products, and very importantly implementing the many administrative functions to make TortoiseClimbing Audio™ into a functioning record label;


3. Making it work - While perseverance and opportunity are necessary, they are not sufficient for a business to succeed. In addition to having product in market niches with advantage, it must also be creative in distribution and marketing. In the area of making it work, we have taken two important steps that creatively set ourselves apart from the crowd:
   
   
   • In contrast to many bands whose primary purpose is playing gigs, we deliberately embraced responsibilities of the business side, i.e., putting together and running a record label, with all that applies. We understand why most bands focus on playing gigs; that is where the fun lies. Managing the administrative side of setting up and running a record label, including distribution and marketing, takes considerable time away from being able to schedule and perform gigs.
   
   
   • As part of the administrative side of things, we've taken time to create a Roadmap for our future development via this detailed Business Plan/Roadmap. It incorporates considerable research, lays out a Roadmap of creative actions enabling us to further climb toward achievement of our goals of creating:
     • Quality, audiophile nostalgic recorded music;
     • Written products; and
     • Narrations of the written products,
     
     
   • But they must also encompass administrative systems that work within industry established procedures enabling effectively distributing and marketing those products.

How We Got Here

Our love of music, since Elementary School choirs, led us to begin recording in about 1991. We released our first private cassette album, Solo Collection, in 1993, and as part of that private release established TortoiseClimbing™.

We are a small, family business, located in Maryland, south of Washington, DC. We work with a number of professionals creating our recordings, companion histories, narration serializations, and audiobooks.

Our mission statement evolved substantially since we first began in 1993 as a hobby. Our initial mission/goals were:

• Produce nice recordings:
• For friends and family.

Upgraded/Evolved Mission/Vision/Values

Since establishment in 1993, our knowledge of what is required to produce high-quality recordings grew substantially as we worked with really good audio engineers and producers. That, plus some external events, led to a dramatic upgrade in our mission/goals. High points include:

1. In 1989, at the request of David's mother, we began work on Hymns and Songs of My Mother. She requested the album to be a quality product, and publicly released. To accomplish that we upgraded our mission statement to - "produce high-quality recordings, for public release."
   
2. Another major event occurred the beginning of 2019. Ttime became available to dedicate to TortoiseClimbing™'s projects. That enabled us to:
   • Transition our business structural to privately held, small business; and
   • Bring production responsibilities internal.
3. To support these transitions, we invested by subscribing to the Adobe Cloud Suite of software. Software programs heavily used so far include:
   • Dreamweaver, for developing this website;
   • Audition, for post production processing, and for editing volume and timing of vocal Wav files, in coordination with our studio's audio engineer, and restoration of The Crucifixion file;
   • Photoshop, for producing album covers for uploading on our online marketplace; and
   • InDesign, for publication layout presentation of our publications.
4. Plus, a major technical transition occurred in the recording industry. The industry transitioned from Analogue to Digital recording, making numerous new editing capabilities available. We embraced a number of these capabilities:
   • Internally, via the highly respected audio editing software, Adobe Audition; continually learning how to do more technically involved editing functions in-house; and
   • Recording studio, via the even more highly regarded digital editing program, Pro.Tools, in the hands of an experienced audio engineer.

Mission:

Personifying our evolution, our mission, vision and values now are to produce:

• Exceptional quality music, audiophile recordings, for public release;
• Indepth companion history publications, and
• Quality audio narrations of the publications.

Vision

Create products that provide great listening and reading pleasure, accompanied by intellectually fulfilling publications, as eBooks and audio narrations.

Provide online information about existing and forthcoming products, artists involved, including an online marketplace where our products can be purchased.

Develop a multifaceted, national distribution and marketing outreach program.

Values

• Go the extra mile to ensure outstanding quality products, recordings, companion histories and audio narrations,
• Provide intellectually motivating products,
• Provide deeper insights into otherwise “normal” facts.

Organization of TortoiseClimbing™

We consist of 3 subsidiaries focused on different responsibilities that contribute to fulfilling our mission/goals:

1. TortoiseClimbing Audio™ uses cutting edge recording technology and talent to beautifully record outstanding quality recordings, including narrations of audiobooks;


2. TortoiseClimbing Publishing™ provides carefully researched and footnoted histories, providing insights into influences behind the songs; and


3. TortoiseClimbing WebServices™ built, modifies as needed, and maintains this website, as a valuable part of our image and marketing program.

Products

Audio Recordings

We have always focused on Nostalgia. Initially it was mostly old love songs. Then to fulfill my mother's request, we switched to nostalgic, traditional hymns and songs. After many years producing the very long album, Hymns and Songs of My Mother, the mini-EP Welcome Home, and restoring and masterig The Crucifixion, we are again focusing on nostalgic love songs. (We plan to also produce Christmas EPs.)

Nostalgic Songs

Having released Hymns and Songs of my Mother we are returning to our nostalgic love songs. First we are upgrading our back catalogue for public release. Based on years of learning how to make high-quality recordings, we are applying state of the art tools to the upgade process for our sonically audiophile master analogue tapes, achieving very interesting, high sonic quality digital recordings. This process involves converting to audiophile digital, and then:

• Post production vocal processing;
• Augmenting or replacing accompaniments;
• Remixing; and
• Remastering those early recordings.

In addition to upgrading the songs via digital processing capabilities, we are also augmenting accompaniments. In some cases completely replacing prerecorded ones.

The upgraded and augmented song recordings are being packaged as a series of EPs for public release for digital downloads, (Possibly also as CDs for delivery by mail), and via streaming and digital retail services.

In addition to upgrading and augmenting songs from our back catalogue for public release, we identified a long list of candidate Notalgic Songs, from which we will be choosing to make new recordings to include on future EP releases.

Religious/Christian

As mentioned above, we completed and released several products in this category.

The Crucifixion

This is a labor of love. We converted the 1959 high school recording by Annapolis High School choruses of John Stainer's The Crucifixion to digital, restored and mastered. This is available as a FREE digital download from our online marketplace. See Crucifixion.

Hymns and Songs of My Mother

This is an extensive audiophile album of nostalgic, traditional hymns and songs of his parents' favorites, requested by David's mother. (This is a tribute to both of them.) These nostalgic old traditional hymns have largely disappeared from the weekly liturgies of most churches. This extensive, professional album is available from our online marketplace for streaming, purchase, download and ordering a CD. See Hymns and Songs.

Welcome Home, Mini-EP

"Welcome Home" is the only Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) song my mother wanted included on the album Hymns and Songs of My Mother along with all the nostalgic, traditional hymns and songs. Because it is such a different style/genre, we decided to make it available as a separate mini-EP containing two very different versions of this CCM song. It is available for preview/purchase from our online marketplace. See Welcome Home.

Publication Products

In addition to producing nostalgic, high-quality, audiophile recordings of both secular love songs and religious hymns and songs, we produce companion indepth, thought-provoking, well researched history publications of the times when the songs were written. The goal of our 1^st book is to illustrate how history of the time influenced content of the hymns included on Hymns and Songs of My Mother. The books will be available in 2 forms.

eBooks

These will be digital EPUB format for download. They will be available as:

• A bundled product from our audio online marketplace; and
• Standalone purchase of the eBook, but from a to be determined separate online marketplace.

Serialized Narrations and Audiobooks

We will produce narrations of the eBooks, which will be available as digital downloads. For narrations made available via our online marketplace, we will offer:

• Advance audio narration releases of chapters from eBooks, via serialized subscription, and as standalone chaptes; and
• As audiobooks.

In addition to being available from our online marketplace, the narrations will also be made available via aggregators to streaming services.

Contact us via our contact page. Let us know your thoughts and preferences. We'd love hearing from you!

Roots

For insights into the roots from which TortoiseClimbing™ grew, see Our Roots.

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