About TortoiseClimbing™

Who We Are

Established

TortoiseClimbing™ was established in 1993, as part of the private release of its first cassette album, Solo Collection, to friends and family.

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

Original mission/goals were more hobby-like:

• Produce nice recordings:
• For friends and family)

Updated Mission/Vision/Values

Over the years, various events brought evolutions to our mission/goals:

1. In 1989 we began work on David's mother's request to produce Hymns and Songs of My Mother. As part of that request, she also wanted the album to be a quality product, released to the public. That precipitated an upgrade in the mission statemen to producing high-quality recordings for public release.
2. Another major event occurred the beginning of 2019. More time became available to dedicate to advancing TortoiseClimbing™'s mission. That lead to:
   • A structural transition from a hobby to a privately held, small family business; and
   • Taking on more production responsibilities internally. We acquired a subscription to all of 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 finishing presentation of our publications.
3. Plus, a major technical transition occurred in the recording industry. The industry switched from analogue to digital recording, which made 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; and
   • Recording studio, via the even more highly regarded digital editing program, Pro.Tools, in the hands of an experienced audio engineer.

Mission:

Our current mission, vision and values are to produce:

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

Vision

Provide customers with products providing 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 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.

What Does Our Name Mean

TortoiseClimbing™, embodies a combination of concepts:

1. Perseverence - The well known story from Aesop's Fables about the Tortoise's perseverence, illustrates how perseverence, which enabled the Tortoise to prevail in the race with the Hare, will similarly enable TortoiseClimbing™ to prevail in the business world;


2. Creating Our Own Opportunity - This is based on the concept that perseverence, when paired with opportunity, can achieve remarkable things. This concept flows from my father's professional experience. After many years of struggling to support his family as an employed professional, he took advantage of the opportunity to establish his own business, and that enabled him to create a better life for his family. TortoiseClimbing™ is following the pattern of that example;


3. Making it work - While the name conveys the concept of perseverence, like in the story of the Tortoise, it is also importance to be creative, to enable the business to succeed. Being successful requires a continuing effort, i.e., always climbing toward better achievement of our goals, (to create quality nostalgic recorded music, narrations, and written products), and to effectively market and distribute those products.

Organization of TortoiseClimbing™

We currently consist of 3 subsidiaries focused on different responsibilities needed to fulfill 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 and maintains this website, as a valuable part of our information and marketing program.

Products

Audio Recordings

We are returning to a focus on Nostalgic Songs, following completions and releases of:

• Our years long project producing the very long album, Hymns and Songs of My Mother;
• The mini-EP Welcome Home, and
• Creation of the digital version of The Crucifixion.

Nostalgic Songs

We are initially drawing from our back catalogue of these songs, some of which were privately released. We are updating those recordings from our master analogue tapes to achieve sonically very high sonic quality. That involves converting to audiophile digital, which enables us to:

• Post production process;
• Augment or replace accompaniments;
• Remix; and
• Remaster those early recordings.

The upgraded 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 services.

In addition to upgrading songs from our back catalogue for public release, we have 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 album of nostalgic, traditional hymns and songs, requested by David's mother of his parents favorites. (This is a tribute to 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 genre, we decided to make it available as a separate mini-EP. Two very different versions of this CCM song are included. It is available for preview/purchase from our online marketplace. See Welcome Home.

Publication Products

In addition to producing nostalgic, high-quality recordings of both secular love songs and religious hymns and songs, we produce companion indepth, thought-provoking 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. These 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 the 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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