About TortoiseClimbing™

Who We Are

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. As part of that private release we established TortoiseClimbing™.

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.

Our mission statement has changed substantially since we first began in 1993. When established, our starting mission/goals were more hobby-like:

• 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 from working with really good audio engineers and producers. That, together with some external events, created a dramatic upgrade in our mission/goals. High points include:

1. In 1989 we began work on Hymns and Songs of My Mother, at the request of my David's mother. She wanted the album to be a quality product, and publicly released. To accomplish that we upgraded our mission statement to be
     - produce high-quality recordings for public release -
   and made all decisions supporting that change.
2. Another major event occurred the beginning of 2019. Ttime became available to dedicate to TortoiseClimbing™'s projects. That lead to:
   • A business structural transition to privately held, small business; and
   • Bring production responsibilities internal.
   • To support these transitions, we invested in a subscription 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.
3. Plus, a major technical transition occurred in the recording industry. The industry switched 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; 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 are to produce:

• Exceptional quality music recordings, for public release;
• Indepth companion history publications, and
• Quality 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.

Story Behind Our Name

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, drives TortoiseClimbing™ foward in its quest to produce and sell quality music and companion histories;


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, for the business to succeed, it is also importance to be creative. We are always looking for creative ways to climb toward better achievement of our goals, (creating quality nostalgic recorded music, narrations, and written products), and effectively marketing and distributing those products.

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 information and marketing program.

Products

Audio Recordings

We have always focused on Nostalgic. Initially it was mostly old love songs. To fulfill my mother's request, we switched to nostalgic, traditional hymns and songs. Following 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

Initially we are returning to our back catalogue of these songs, some of which were privately released. Based on years of learning how to make high-quality recordings, we are applying state of the art tools upgading recordings from our sonically audiophile master analogue tapes to achieve very high sonic quality digital recordings. That process involves converting to audiophile digital, and then:

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

In addition to upgrading the songs visa digital processing capabilities, we are also augmenting the 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 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 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 style/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, 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. 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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