Julie Gater

In many ways Julie was the starting point for the album. She was already a friend of Libby’s, and in conversation mentioned that she was looking to create some music for a new venture. Julie was more than capable of writing and playing the music herself, one of her jobs is a piano teacher; but as she also runs a retail business, teaches yoga and does gigs; she felt she needed some extra help. Libby suggested that maybe I could contribute, so we started working together every few weeks and had a lot of fun.

The more I composed, the more the idea of doing some of my own songs developed. I have no singing voice and that had always prevented me from creating fully; now for the first time I could write songs rather than just instrumentals. It was also around this time that Libby began to get involved with writing lyrics. After completing the music for her project, Julie and I continued meeting and the sessions developed into her recording vocals for my material. The majority of the songs originally had Julie singing on them, even if they were guide vocals that I could send to other vocalists. She also has a fantastic understanding of musical theory and possesses perfect pitch. If I wanted harmonies it was like choosing from a menu, ‘Do you want a 3rd above?’, ‘Or a 5th below?’ Julie played such an important role in making this album happen. Many, many thanks.