Since its establishment in 1993, TortoiseClimbing™ has experienced at least 4 significant evolutions from its very modest beginning concept. (What might our future hold?) Its original goals/mission were to produce 1) nice recordings for 2) private release.
Question
Were the evolutions serendipitous (or were they perhaps destined?) The path of the evolutions is a scintillatingly delicious story.
Summary of the Story
Original TortoiseClimbing™
Immediately prior to establishing the original, hobby TortoiseClimbing™, David recorded a group of at least 6 songs with friends at Bias during 1990-1991, which were not released even privately. Following the private release of Solo Collection in 1993 and creation of TortoiseClimbing™, David began working on a follow-up private album, Romantic Duets with a variety of women singing duet parts. Several years after beginning work on that 2nd private album, David's father died in late 1996.
Evolution 1: Upgrade in Mission/Goals
Then in spring 1998, David's mother, knowing he had sung for years, studied voice during and after college, and was recording at a professional studio, requested he record an album of selections from his father's and her favorite traditional hymns and songs. David and his mother jointly selected the hymns and songs to include on the album, which became Hymns and Songs of My Mother.
(A simple playlist of that album is available at Simple Playlist. An annotated playlist of that album, with artists and streaming of sample hymns, is available at Annotated Playlist.)
This project led to a significant change in missions/goals. That occurred because in discussions with his mother about what she wanted the album to be, she expressed her preference was that the album be 1) high-quality, and 2) be publically released. That meant the new project required considerably more attention to:
Production quality, including arrangements for accompaniments, instrumentation, vocal harmony parts;
Vocals needed to be meticulously checked for being on pitch;
When there were multiple parts, they had to be meticulously checked for being exactly together timing wise;
Plus, since it was targeted for public release, we had to explicitly deal with copyright licensing requirements, and
We had to plan for creation of sufficient quantities for public distribution.
Accomplishing those resulted in the first major evolution of TortoiseCimbing™'s mission/goals, i.e.,:
Its quality bar was raised from nice to exceptional, and
Its market was expanded from private to public.
As a result of mother's request, the goals/mission for TortoiseClimbing™ were redefined, substantially impacting TortoiseClimbing™'s future by expanding the roles performed to encompass the larger related areas of:
Working with multiple artists to produce a high-quality recording;
Obtaining mechanical licenses for those hymns/songs still under copyright;
Marketing to let people know the album is available; and
Distribution, including:
Possibly multiple Online store sites; and
Physical product, e.g., CDs.
Evolution 2: Expansion of Business Structure
Around 2004, it became obvious the notes being prepared to accompany the recording had morphed into a history book. That essentially meant TortoiseClimbing™ had inadvertently entered the publishing business. With that realization, we embraced the fact we had taken on publishing as another part of its operations, i.e., TortoiseClimbing™ created a new separate Publications portion/subsidiary focused on the different requirements for publications.
Evolution 3: Further Structural Expanion
Building on the previous evolution in mission/goals to 1) upgrade audio product quality for public release, and 2) to expand the role to include creating and distributing publications, another significant evolution occurred in 2019. That year TortoiseClimbing™ became able to devote full time to completing all elements of the multiple pieces of the Hymns and Songs project. That is elsewhere referred to as the beginning of Phase II of the hymns and songs project.
The production goals/mission for recordings and publications remained unchanged. But, because of today's heavily oriented online environment, to be a success as a small business, clearly we needed to:
Develop a quality web presence; and
Develop the ability to quickly make revisions/expansions as needed for marketing needs.
That led to creation of the additional WebServices portion/subsidiary of TortoiseClimbing™.
As a result, by 2020 when the initial version of the new website was in testing, TortoiseClimbing™ had 3 operational subsidiaries, plus a cooperative arrangement:
TortoiseClimbing Audio™;
TortoiseClimbing Publications™;
TortoiseClimbing WebServises™; and
The ongoing cooperative relationship is support for K's Pet Sitting, established years before on its 1st website.
Evolution 4: Change in Legal Structure
About a year after beginning Phase II, with the increasing amounts being spent on development of the hymns album, in 2020 it was decided to transition the legal structure from the 1993 original of being a hobby, to become a small business for-profit, sole-proprietor.
New Requirements
As of 2024, TortoiseClimbing™ has also taken on all the responsibilities needed for marketing and distribution. As part of becoming a for-profit, it also became critically important to develop more systematized financial tracking abilities, including more detailed and capable recordkeeping and tax accounting. Thus, as we are entering the marketing and distribution of multiple initial products, in addition to mastering the worlds of marketing, distribution, we also have to create a more robust recordkeeping function.
Future Products
Current plans for next products include:
Completing editing of the eBook;
Developing advanced podcasts of chapters from eBooks, e.g., History Through 26 Hymns and Songs;
Audiobook from the history eBook;
Developing an easy listening instrumental version of the hymns and songs;
Develop versions of the hymns and songs album for use as accompaniment backing tracks for soloists and choirs for chruch services and home;
Applying lessons learned and higher quality bar, to revise the group of previously unreleased early recordings of songs and release publically; and
Applying lessons learned and higher quality bar, to revise the original, privately released, Solo Collection to 1) augment its production quality 2) for public re-release, as the upgraded recording titled Nostalgic Solos targeted by the end 2024.
(No decision has been made on what will be done with the draft duets album.)
Ideas for new songs, albums and publications are in planning stage.
Role of Life Experiences in Evolutions
The question of whether TortoiseClimbing™'s evolutions were serendipitous (or destined) likely should include consideration of the part David's life's experiences played in influencing possibilities of TortoiseClimbing™'s evolutions.
Perhaps the pivotal steps were the initial decisions to:
Begin recording with friends in 1990;
Undertake recording a solo album: and
Deciding to privately distribute the album and create Tortoiseclimbing™ as part of that in 1993.
All else flowed from those decisions.
The 1st evolution to expand its mission occurred in 1998, because TortoiseClimbing™ had to take on significant new functions to accomplish making an 1) excellent album, for 2) public release. That required taking on greater recording Production responsibilities.
The 2nd evolution to take on publications to produce companion eBooks to the recordings was because of taking on greater writing and publication responsibilities.
The 3rd evolution was to tackle creation of the subsidiary WebServices.
The 4th evolution was to become a for-profit as part of taking on requirements for marketing, distribution, recordkeeping, etc.
Fortunately, many of David's previous life's activities complimented a number of these new requirements. Those experiences gave him a headstart in being able to take on the multiple new roles. His experiences include:
Years of singing from Elementary school on, which inbued his love of singing and performing;
Being part of making a private record in high school, highlighted areas where he needed more knowledge about recording and album production;
Years of studying singing in college and privately afterward prepared him for both solo and ensemble performance, now exemplified in Hymns and Songs of My Mother;
Formal education, including Business and Economics aided in his ability to conceive, organize and operate TortoiseClimbing™;
Experience working with and teaching Information Systems aided his ability to learn and program in JavaScript and Php, both used in creating this website.
Previous seven years (1990-1997) slowly making relatively simple recordings for two different private albums helped fill in knowledge on areas of making an album he had begun with his high school record experience; and
Previous experiences working with programming in several languages on mainframes, and subsequently a variety of desktop software automation tools, enabled him to be comfortable with and master a number of such tools now extensively used by TortoiseClimbing™, plus made him comfortable learning new software. Recent examples include Adobe Dreamweaver (for creating this website), and the digital audio workstation software Adobe Audition (for editing music files).
Those experiences provided valuable foundations upon which to build knowledge and skills for performing the new resposibities TortoiseClimbing™ needs to run:
A record label;
A publishing house; and
An interactive website builder.
Notes. The publishing requirement evolved from the initial desire to include simple stories about the hymns. In 2000 that began evolving into what is now the eBook, History Through 26 Hymns and Songs.
The website requirement initially began from several needs:
It is an important part of marketing, publicizing albums, publications, podcasts, audiobook, and eBooks;
Additional marketing functionalities providing feedback on questions to TortoiseClimbing™;
Providing links connecting customers to online store access where they can order digital downloads of the album, eBook, songs, podcasts, audiobook, and CDs; and
David's desire to be collegial and give credit to each person involved in creating the recording.
The 3rd evolution to pursue becoming a for-profit company is similarly blostered by David's background experiences. It remains to be seen how successful the third goal will be.
Summaries of Each Component
Each of these areas of business activity were significant new roles, requiring numerous new skills. It was necessary for TortoiseClimbing™ to undertake them because, TortoiseClimbing™ had no:
Supporting organization;
Mentor; or
Budget to hire persons to perform the new roles and provide detailed business knowledge for running a record label, book publisher and website development and maintainence.
Thus, TortoiseClimbing™ has become proficient in all of these requirements.
TortoiseClimbing Audio™
Production responsibilities of TortoiseClimbing™ include identifying and arranging for multiple artists and skills needed. The following examples are explicity for the album Hymns and Songs of My Mother, but many also apply to other albums.
First step enabling migration to using digital audio technology for Phase II, was converting Phase I recordings from analogue multi-track tape technology to digital technology. (Unfortunately that could not preserve automated mixing logic on analogue master tapes, which had to be recreated);
Producers (For Hymns and Songs of My Mother, it turned out 2 were used - one for phase I - Heidi Gerber-Salins, and another for phase II - David Goettee);
Instrumentalists (both Phases I & II);
Accompaning Vocalists (both Phases I & II);
Arrangers:
Orchestrations in phase I;
Additional vocal harmonies needed for duets of some hymns (Ms. Gerber-Salins);
Descants for phase II (Jeff Whitmill);
New acoustic guitar arrangement for the contemporary Christian song "Welcome Home" in phase II (Jim Westlyn);
Vocal harmony parts for refrains of "Welcome Home" in phase II (John Creger);
Handbell arrangements to "Amazing Grace" and "Just A Closer Walk with Thee" in phase II (Larry Sue).
Recording engineers (Ms. Gerber-Salins for Phase I and Mr. McElroy for phase II, and;
Post production processsing of the audio files;
Ms. Gerber-Salins made time available and assisted with post production processing one of the numbers. She intended to provide more assistance, but was injured by a rearend car crash. So, David picked up that requirement and performed post production processing for all other numbers;
Replacement of the synthesized organ accompaniments with an on location recording of real pipe organ (James Doering);
Locating credible handbell ringers willing to record the handchime and handbell arrangements during the Covid 19 pandemic (Westminster Ringers). (Local groups in DC area did not even return my email inquiries);
On location recordings in phase II of:
Pipe organ in Ashland, VA (Bill McElroy);
Handbells and handchimes in Westminster, MD (Bill McElroy);
Shuttle pipe (baby bagpipe), and
Post production processing of shuttle pipe recording to adjust its pitch to key of recording;
Obtain recordings of both cello (Matt Treacy) and string bass (John Creger) to augment accompaniments of a few hymns;
Bill McElroy and David swapped sound files and comments on how to work toward final mixes of the numbers; and
Identified and fixed additional details as part of the mastering process of putting numbers together into an album.
TortoiseClimbing Publishing™
The entry into publishing was evolutionary. It grew from the humble beginning of just preparing notes to include in the CD jacket. It morphed into:
Researching germane detailed historical information about the times around when each hymn was written;
Developing details that place those historical facts into a draft of the accompanying History Through 26 Hymns and Songs book;
Finding editors to assist with the draft script for the book (Dr. Nancy Graham, Dave Mather, Ingrid Bartinique);
Our editor (Ms Bartinique) reaching out to a knowledgeable hymnologist expert friend willing to assist (Dr. Laura ??????);
Examining alternatives for an appropriate publishing process; and
Marketing book.
TortoiseClimbing WebServices™
As support for marketing, it was critical to create a quality website supportingTortoiseClimbing™ -
Providing an intelligent, responsive, interactive, comprehensive web presence with information about all the audio and publication products. That included coming up the learning curve on:
HTML5 - This is a substantial revision from the HTML4.01 used on the initial 2003 website. A major change is the full incorporation of CSS, rather than embedding styling in each line of HTML;
CSS3 - The initial 2003 website did not use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Although the concept of separating styling from the HTML content existed, and there was even a CSS2 specification, Browser implementations differed widely, making it quite risky to count on CSS2 for styling. Now in 2024, browsers' implementations of CSS3 (and even some CSS4 pieces) are much closer to predictable, reliable implementations;
Javascript (2015) is used to make the webpages more dynamic. The 2003 website used earlier Javascript generated by the web editor software (FrontPage), but none was explicitly written by TortoiseClimbing™;
Server side processing. The new website uses PHP7 (PHP8 was released end of 2020) as the implementing language for server processing used to error check forms, then passing on data from the forms via email, and other processing. (No server side processing was implemented for the 2003 website.)
By using server side processing we are able to hide the email addresses used for sending form responses to TortoiseClimbing™ thus preventing internet bots from collecting them. That avoids lots of Spaming to those email addresses. (eMail addresses were coded in the visible HTML of the 2003 website, and we got A Lot of Spam.)
Future implementation will incorporate use of relational databases and an upgraded email capability;
Researching and writing biographies/credits for each of the persons involved in the Hymns and Songs of My Mother and its companion project History Through 26 Hymns and Songs. (Tracking down artists involved in the Phase I work, 20 years later, was a challenge!); and
Contacting each of the artists to verify they are comfortable with the bio/credits about each.
K's Pet Sitting
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There was been a long running cooperative arrangement between TortoiseClimbing™ and K's Pet Sitting which began with our first website. K is no longer in business.
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