Here is that announcement we've been hinting at for the last week.  It is very exciting news - watch the video to find out!

   Yes, that's right, we're recording a new album! 

    In the Fall we released a single (one song - fairy dance jig), but now we are back in the studio in earnest and recording an entire album's worth of new material.
   At the moment we're aiming for a Summer 2013 release, followed by a national tour based on the new material, plus all your favorites from Story Girl.  To keep up with all the latest news from the studio, go RIGHT HERE!

Rehearsing with the Seattle Firefighters pipes and drums for the Benaroya show. We couldn't hear our feet so after a while we brought in some folded tables and danced on those. Lol! You do what you gotta do! :)

We're working on a new song today... if you come to the Lacey concert in the park tomorrow night you may get to hear and see it!  Get the info on Lacey.  
What kind of song do you think we could be working on?

So on Monday I told you I would attempt to lead you through what goes on at band camp at our house step by step.  I started out with good intentions, taking pictures of each thing we were doing, but then of course we got all involved and I forgot to take pictures.  So it is not complete, but I tried!

Band camp starts in the morning at 7:30 when we all report to the breakfast table and get our schedules for the day.  The schedules are written by me (Greta) to space things out so we don't get burned out on anything during the day.  It's kind of a fun mixture of working on songs, dances, musical exercises and dance exercises, plus weird sections where we make up songs based on words or feelings or other interesting things like that. 

Example schedule from band camp:
7:30-8:00 Set up and sound check in the living room - we like to practice "plugged in" at band camp, but have to keep it pretty quiet since the neighbors are sometimes still asleep.
8:00-9:00 Zumba!  Our friend Sitara is training to be a Zumba teacher, so she tries out one of her routines on us and we dance around in the living room for an hour.  Fun!
9:00-Noon We work on choreography in new songs that we hope to add to the shows this year.  This means doing a lot of things over and over again to get them in muscle memory.  It's difficult to coordinate moving and playing an instrument at the same time, but if you do it through enough times you get used to it.
Noon- Tea We go on a long walk and collect rocks for our gardenbeds.  We want to line them with little rocks, so we pick up new rocks every time we go on a walk.  The bulbs we planted last year while recording Story Girl are all starting to come up!  When we get home Willow teaches us all the new hard shoe steps she made up during the week to add to one of the dance numbers.  Then we do dance exercises.  These include ankle raises, lunges, leg lifts and lots of abs and crunches.  Yay!  lol
Tea-6:00 More work on new songs.  We share all the musical ideas we've each had during the week and start to expand on them.  Recording here and there when something works and discarding songs that don't "click."
6:00-7:00 Greta teaches violin and Willow and Solana have private practice time on violin and mandolin.  Willow's also starting to teach Solana a little bit on the mandolin... watch out!
8:00 Band camp is over.  Tired out, we watch the video of what we've done so far and make judgements about the things we like and don't like.  Then it is time to watch a new episode of Downton Abbey with the family.  Oh yes!  A great way to relax.
So there you have it -  a day in the life of the Gothard Sisters on the day that we rehearse everything related to the show.  Hope you found it interesting.  Here are some pictures of the day. 

Every week this month, in order to practice new numbers and songs that we got ideas for, we have been doing "band camp" on Mondays.

Basically we all get up really early and work on music and choreography and numbers all day until it quitting time.  This allows us to keep practicing older numbers while we don't have any shows, and also to work on new ones for upcoming shows next month.

The point of band camp is mostly for coming up with new material though.  Willow has been writing new tunes and coming up  with new dance steps, Solana has been singing all day and learning new songs, as well as some bass lines (more on that later!) and a bit of pennywhistle here and there.  These will all be in our upcoming shows if we can manage it! There's also a lot more three-part harmony singing coming and some of our newer songs from Story Girl will be added to the live shows.  :-) 

I finally finished the video looking back on all the fun times we had this year.  Hope you enjoy!

Here's a little image from the practice studio of Willow working on what Irish dancers call a "leap."  You can see why! 

Hi there!

I am really excited, because we have a new place to practice our shows!  Right in our living room! We set up a bunch of the floorboards that my dad made, and rolled marley on top.  My dad's going to find a nice mirror, so we can figure out choreography and stuff too!  Now we can work on our shows while my mom is making dinner! ( She always had to wait until we were done when we practiced in the kitchen.) 

I am about to jump into doing schoolwork again; I only have a month before all the St. Patricks day shows, so I'm going to try and get a lot done.

 Today we are doing a show for a Chamber Music program that we are a part of!  As well as doing a show, we are going to teach them a dance too!  

Greta gave me an assignment last night, I have two weeks to learn 5 diverse songs!  She's tired of hearing me sing "The Climb" all the time, I really do sing it all the time!=)  I sing it in the shower, in the car, getting myself a snack, etc. So she printed out the lyrics and put the songs on my i-pod so that I can learn them.

Well...... see you all later!
Solana 

Here are our memories of 2010 - all squeezed into one video!