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This page provides summary overview information for each project. More detailed information about projects is available under Recordings and Publications. Explore at your leisure!
Descriptions on this page include a link to our online Audio Marketplace, where:
TortoiseClimbing Audio™ is now focused on upgrading and augmenting our back catalogue of Nostalgic Love Songs for public release. This follows our release of Hymns and Songs of My Mother. Nostalgic Love Songs is a series of EPs over the next year or so, including:
As each EP is released, information will be added, both on the detailed EP's page, and here on Store Access, providing the link to the online marketplace product page, where you will be able to preview and purchase a download of it.
Progress on these EPs:
As of Fall 2026, our target window is to publicly release the initial EP, Chattanooga Choo Choo EP, this fall of 2026.
For your interim, advanced listening preview pleasure, at Duets with Terry, we provide access, to the following songs for advanced streaming review:
I Am the Starlight
All I Have to Do Is Dream
Till I Kissed Ya
The Rose
And So It Goes
Planning is underway for Christmas EPs. Maybe one by Christmas of 2026?
(27 hymns and songs)
Digital Release, June 2024
CD Release 9/20/2024
The DEFAULT format for downloads of digital audio files is a small, low fidelity format, i.e., AAC or mp3. If you want audiophile digital formats, like FLAC or WAV, you Must Explicitly select one of those autiophile formats, Before you click download, in order to receive an audiophile fidelity format as your download.
Preview and/or purchase by clicking Hymns and Songs of My Mother - Vocal Version. Both a Digital download and the CD for this vocal version are available from our online marketplace product page.
Playlist:
What Is This Album:
This is an audiophile album of almost exclusively nostalgic, old, traditional congregational hymns and songs. Most are from Protestant Denominations, but there are cross overs from Catholicism. The exception is a Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) county/folk style song.
(Because the CCM song is a different genera of music, two (2) arrangements of it are offered separately as a mini-EP. See Mini-EP: Welcome Home below).
This is an audiophile album, recorded in professional sound studios, by professional:
In addition to being a hi-definition (audiophile) recording, it is also almost a maximum length for a CD (78 minutes). This collection of 27 nostalgic, traditional hymns and songs is a fabulous retrospective of formerly popular hymns and songs from church liturgies. It is a gloriously listenable, intimate collage, wover together, accompaninied by a variety of different instrumentals and vocal textures.
It's peformance and audio quality are head-and-sholders above most albums of old favorite hymns. This contrasts with most other hymn recordings. While they are well intentioned, the contrast in audio quality and presentation results from:
1. Hymns and Songs of My Mother was recorded using professional everything. That includes real instruments played by professionals, trained vocalists, treated audio recording spaces, and professional recording equipment. It includes:
Vocals for all hymns and songs are post-production processed by TortoiseClimbing Audio™ to create impecable precision.
Mixing and mastering were performed by a seasoned sound engineer who has successfully created many quality, commercially very successful, recordings.
Outstanding interpretations result from trained vocalists and instrumentalists.
The vocals are interpretive renditions, recorded in audiophile fidelity (achieved by using professional everything) and high detail digital data, a variety of accompaning instruments, including: orchestra, a very good real pipe organ, acoustic guitar, harp, and even handbells.
The vocals are a mix of arrangements including:
The vocals and accompaniments are recorded by trained vocalists and musicians, providing a wonderful spectrum of flavors. Instruments used, including:
This album was requested by David's mother as a tribute to David's deceased father. The hymns and songs were selected jointly with his mother from their favorites. (A young organist who saw the titles, described them as old chestnuts that all good organists are familiar with.)
The performances on this album shine! Their feeling interpretations and audiophile sound will enrich your life with many hours of repeatedly playing and reflecting on the comfort and greatness of these great performances.
2. In contrast, the majority of well intentioned recordings of nostalgic old hymns are amateur everything:
You can preview and purchase this recording by clicking Hymns and Songs of My Mother - Vocal Version.
The first version planned is:
Four subsequent versions are then planned. They are:
Release schedule for versions of this album:
Details will be added when the instrumenatal version is released. Advanced streaming of selected numbers from these other version may be offered earlier.
(Digital release March 2026)
Preview/purchase for download from our online Audio Marketplace by clicking Welcome Home.
This Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) folk/country style song was a favorite of my mother, partly because the author and composer, Ms. Kathy Brigman Haupt, is a granddaughter of mother's sister. She wrote and sang this song for the funeral of mother's sister. Virtually everyone, young and old, who has heard this song describe it as both very meaningful and pretty!
Because CCM songs appeal to different folks than nostalgic old hy mns, we made 2 very different arrangements of this wonderful "Country/Folk" style CCM song available separately as a Mini-EP. They are:
Thank you Kathy, first for creating it, and second for giving permission to arrange and make the 1st recording.
(Released October 2024)
Preview and/or purchase by clicking The Crucifixion. (The digital version is available Free from our online marketplace. An option is to order an individually burned CD at cost for delivery by mail.)
Stainer wrote this cantata of the Easter Passion to be performed by Church of England neighborhood parish choirs. Choirs of those neighborhood churches do not have the luxury of trained choir members, or additional supporting choirs. So, to tell the sweeping passion story, Stainer addressed constraints of neighborhood parish choirs by using numerous solo arias and recitatives. Singers for those parts would commonly be brought in by the churches for the Easter performances.
This recording instead uses a unique arrangement, created by the AHS choral director, Mr. Robert Kunkle. For the large number of solo recitatives and arias, he took advantage of having three choirs: two women's choirs; and a standard SATB mixed choir. He created a dramatically more choral sound by assigning most of the solo arias and recitatives to the womens choirs.
The version on the LP was created by editing together the best of two taped performances (without access to equipment to normalize/master differences in recording levels). Those are addressed by this restored and mastered version. While its fidelity is limited by equipment and placement of the microphone for the recording, it is a truely unique, mostly choral arrangement of this work.
In 2023 the score became Public Domain. TortoiseClimbing Audio™ digitized the LP that was privately sold to chorus members and friends of the 1959 combined Annapolis High School choirs. Digitizing was done by SlippedDisc™, enabling TortoiseClimbing Audio™ to:
To our knowledge, this is the only public release of this 1959 performance by the AHS choirs. (It is 41 minutes long, and Lyrics are included as a Bonus.)
The playlist for this 1959 AHS performance of The Crucifixion is found at Playlist.
Digital Download - This album is Free!
(NOTE. Bandcamp will request your pay $1.00. That $1.00 is for unlimited streaming from their site. You can decline Bandcamp's proposed streaming, and get the download for Free.)
The DEFAULT format for downloads of digital audio files is a small, low fidelity format, i.e., AAC or mp3. If you want a higher fidelity digital format, like FLAC or WAV, you Must Explicitly select one of those autiophile formats, Before you click download, in order to receive a better fidelity format as your download. (The fidelity is still constrained by the original recording technology and engineering, but is better than mp3, and it's still Free.)
CD - $4.00, includes shipping!
Note. CDs are individually burned on demand for delivery via regular U.S, mail. They are hand-labeled, i.e., a plain CD. CDs have the same 15 individual tracks as the digital, version 2 download, giving you the ability to skip to any of Stainer's numbered pieces on demand.
Despite the limited sonic fidelity of the LP, this largely choral arrangement created for the 1959 AHS choirs, provides a dramatically more fulfilling choral performance than scored by Stainer of this classic Holy Week (the week before Easter) piece. The choral emotional feel of this performance is much more fulfilling than standard presentations following the score.
This distinctively different, mostly choral interpretation of this cantata, was achieved using 3 choirs:
Note. The sound fidelity is limited by:
-- End of window about details of Hymns and Songs --
More details about the making of the original private LP recording, and this restored and mastered digital release, are found at Background on Historic 1959 Performances by Annapolis High School choirs.
Advance access to Narrations. Upon release of the eBook, History Through 27 Hymns and Songs (2024), we will begin recording and releasing chapters on our online marketplace as advanced podcast narrations. The chapters will be made available via the audio marketplace in 2 forms:
Audiobook. Upon completion of the chapter narrations (made available in advance via the subscription series and individual chapters) the completed audiobook will be made available for purchase and download. Those who choose to subscribe to the narration series, will essentially have the audiobook (if they downloaded each chapter as completed.) We are investigating how to provide an assembled audiobook for free download to subscribers.
Upon completion of the audiobook it will then also be made available as:
The reason a separate online publications marketplace is required is because our audio marketplace requires eBook publications to be part of a bundle with audio material. Thus, to sell eBook publications as standalone products, without being bundled with an audio product, a separate online publications marketplace is required for the eBooks.
Forthcoming
Working title - History Through 27 Hymns and Songs. This ebook is intended as both a companion to hymns and songs recording, and a standalone history eBook. The extensive histories cover events that happened in the period each of the hymns and songs were written, thus shaping the thinking of the hymn writers.
[The eBook will be available both as part of a bundle with the album from the Audio store, and separately as a standalone eBook from the Publication store.]
(eBooks purchased by themselves [not bundled with an audio product], require a separate online Publications marketplace. Links will be added below for purchase of the eBook by itself, i.e., not as part of a bundle with an audio product
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