Recording the song
(This post follows on from the previous post Self-Publishing My Christmas Song: Part 2)
Having written a Christmas song, the next step was to record it so that it could be made into a video and posted on YouTube. This is a central part of the promotion strategy.
The big day arrived… 17 singers, a pianist and 2 sound recorders arrived at Eccleshall Church in Staffordshire ready to record “Kisses beneath the Mistletoe”, my Christmas song. The choir had been assembled at super quick speed so they had not all had a chance to run through the piece with me and some had not met before. There was a real buzz of excitement in the air. The plan was rehearse, have a break and then do the recording.
Rehearsal
After some practical issues had been resolved, finding some chairs, agreeing where the parts would sit and moving the piano (a Clavinova) into location, it was time to start. My rehearsal checklist said:
- make sure that parts are secure
- work on dynamics, phrasing and the interplay between piano and choir
- work on blend.
After about an hour I felt that the performance was ready so we made a test recording and had a break while microphones were moved about. Someone even brought along some mince pies to get into the festive mood…. (in September).
Performance
Listening to the test recording we were pleased with the result but the piano wasn’t prominent enough, we needed to take a signal out directly from the instrument. This resulted in several of us lying under it with a torch looking for output jacks (why do they put them underneath?) We discovered a crucial little switch that controlled whether the speakers would still sound and set that ‘on’ so that the choir could still hear the piano.
The choir re-formed and we recorded several takes. We put the video camera in different locations each time give different camera angles for the video and had a number of still shots taken too. For the last take, the choir donned festive hats and accessories, it really looked very strange!
Next steps
- Mix and edit the recording
- Make a video
- Post it on YouTube
- Finalise the score and upload it to the Score Exchange website
- Promote and publicise it
Previous posts in this series:
Martin Jones 
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