MUSICAL MATCH; COUPLE IN SYNC AT HOME STUDIO.

Byline: VICTORIA GIRAUD People and Places

Thousand Oaks newlyweds Shelby Daniel (her professional name) and Steve Kaplan really do make sweet music together.

Daniel is a singer/songwriter whose voice is heard on numerous children's toys, and Kaplan is a musician, composer and producer for a variety of television projects. The Mattel Tunemaker toy features Daniel singing nursery rhymes, and Kaplan's 3-second Sony theme logo is heard after each Sony television production, at least 40 times a day.

They met more than three years ago when Kaplan hired Daniel ``as a last-minute substitute for a dance record I was producing. She was great, sparks flew,'' he remembered. ``We were making eyes through the control room window.''

Sharing a home that is also a home-recording studio, the newlyweds call themselves S-Teamed Recordings Inc. They joined their musical talents for a couple of charitable projects in the past few years and liked it so much they are working on creating more music.

Thinking about the hit musical ``Rent'' that both had enjoyed, Kaplan enthused, ``our original songs would fit into a musical.''

Last year, working from profiles of specific children, the couple collaborated on writing several songs for children who were terminally ill. They recorded them for the children in their home studio.

A project to help the homeless emphasized ``using (individual) lives as dramatic material,'' Kaplan explained. He and Daniel, along with a rehabilitated homeless person, wrote the song ``Stop This Train'' for the album ``In Harmony with the Homeless.''

One of Daniel's current projects is a Mother Goose Rhymers toy in development. ``It's great; it's fun,'' Daniel says with enthusiasm. She added that she also ``gets a kick out of writing for kids.''

Her toy recording work - recording as many as 12-15 tunes - is ``very precise, very technical'' since it must fit into precisely timed segments.

Raised in Canada, Daniel's interest in singing took off when she landed the lead, at age 11, in the school musical. ``I sang `Bah, Bah, Black Sheep.' When I opened my mouth it was very loud and big.''

In the early 1980s she and some musician friends put together a demo record for a competition and surprised themselves completely when they won. An ``overnight sensation,'' they quickly had to form a band. When the band broke up, Daniel sang for commercials in Canada and then moved to Southern California.

Kaplan grew up in Southern California and was taking piano lessons at age 5. Early on he informed his mother that he ``was going to be a musician. She went along with it; she had no choice.''

At 15 he was playing piano professionally, doing ``rest-home gigs.'' He was trained classically at CSUN and played piano with the university's award-winning Jazz Ensemble. Studio work ensued and Kaplan played on jazz albums for well-known musicians Grant Geissman and Morgana King.

He gravitated toward work in television - performing and composing. During the 1980s Kaplan was an actor/musician playing keyboards for the Michael Damian rock star character on ``The Young and the Restless.'' More recently he did the music for a reality-based series on angelic visitations - ``Could It Be A Miracle?''

This summer he was ``game boy,'' composing music for television shows ``Wheel of Fortune,'' ``Jeopardy'' and ``The Dating Game.'' He's soon to start composing for an updated television version of ``Born Free.''

``I love working at home,'' Kaplan declares. With a piano, electric keyboards and a state-of-the-art mixing console, ``I record pretty much everything here. If I'm working with a big orchestra, we record in a bigger studio.''

If he's working on a major project, he will set himself a grueling schedule, sometimes working from 3 a.m. until 10 p.m.

Thousand Oaks is a new home base for the couple, but they plan on staying, especially since they enjoy the smog-free, cooler climate.

They are both looking forward to more musical collaboration. ``We have a lot of different interests musically; we're versatile,'' Kaplan declares. ``Stylistically, we jump around. The fun part is writing. We surprise each other and ourselves.''

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Photo

PHOTO Steve Kaplan and Shelby Daniel make beautiful music together at their Thousand Oaks home studio.

Joe Binoya/Special to the Daily News