Feb 16, 2014 - As you all know, the MTC puts out several CDs each year and this past week, those who had volunteered from the Choir School joined the regular choir is recording a new CD to be released in time for Easter.
While that sounds like a lot of fun, rest assured the experience was really anything but fun. We met each night (Tues, Wed, and Thurs) from 6:30 to 10:30 and recorded three pieces each night (minus Thurs in which we did only two). Employing your math skills, you'll quickly figure out how much time we spent on each piece!
One director would be out on the floor directing us and the orchestra while the other director would be in the recording/sound booth listening to how it was sounding through the 40
microphones that were setup. If something didn't sound quite right, we would redo it. There was
so much start, stop, start, stop that it quickly became a exercise in patience. Just when we thought we had nailed a particular section (and even when the director on the floor had thought the same thing), the director in the sound booth would pipe in saying it wasn't quite right. "Sopranos--on measure 36, the pitch on the F# needs to higher. Tenors, you really need to round the "eh" vowel in measure 40. Basses--those sixteenth notes need to be a little crisper. . .". Ug. Microphones are very unforgiving.
Anyway, lest you think, when you listen to the CDs, that the songs you hear were recorded start to finish, I assure you they were not. I would say that each piece we recorded probably had between 30 to 50 takes. Not that we'd sing each piece through that many times, but if a piece had six pages for example, we'd do five takes of page 1, five of page 2, and so on. Some measures were isolated on their own because of their complexity. So, when it was all said and done, the sound engineer and directors will listen to all of these takes, figure out which ones are the best, and then stitch them all together. No small task I'm sure!
Aside from the patience required and the achy feet from standing so much, it was nice to meet more people from the choir proper, as we had ten minute breaks in between pieces to sit, talk, get a drink or whatever. The other benefit was the fact that those of us in the choir school now felt like we were done with choir school and an actual member of the choir! We couldn't help but feel that way after spending so much time with them and creating an Easter work of art! Reality will set in next week though as we resume our regular schedule and continue our preparations.
Hope you all have a great week. God be with you!
PS: Check HERE for downloading the Easter album (after March 4th).
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