So, I just had this idea.
I’m going to post the warts and all experience of recording my latest album. There are a lot of myths and questions about recording an album and the music industry in general. I’d like to shed some light about my experience of it to the people I know and any others that stumble on my blog. I’m going to write about my experience as a truely independant artist (no label, not even a small one, I’m my own label). Where possible I want to include every detail, particularly, the costs and time that it takes to make a cheap indie label in these modern times.
My album is called “Pilgrim”. It is currently in the Manufacturering stage, so this post, and some others, will be retro active!
COMPOSING:
This is a fairly constant thing for me. I’m always composing. All it really takes for me is time. Some quiet time spent on my instrument and things start to come out. Then, a sort stream of consciousness approach to lyrics and melody. Then, more time. After the intial spark, there’s a lot of effort that goes into organising the sections and also finishing melodies and finding lyrics. Every song is different. One song on the album took me about 2 hours, start to finish and it was done. That’s pretty rare though. The songs on this album date back to about 2008 when I first moved to Melbourne and I had lots of spare time after making muesli and reading at the library.
ARRANGING:
My idea was to use a variety of talented people I knew and some I didn’t. I also wanted to include a orchestral instruments. I also didn’t want a typical band album and I wanted to arrange the songs in such as way, as the instruments played an integral role rather than a supportive one.
I love writing for strings. So I knew I wanted a string quartet. I also saw it possible to write for a brass/wind quartet as well. So the line up for a lot of the songs is; String quartet, Brass/wind Quartet, Drums, Bass, Guitar/Keys.
Arranging 10 songs for that many instruments and getting it just right (perfectionist) took me a good part of about 8 months, which was longer than I originally thought. There were also last minute changes happening on the morning of some of the recording days. But I really did love every second of working on the scores.
So to recap. Composing of the original songs, happened from 2008 right up until the moment where I was changing lyrics in the vocal booth in Nov 2010. So give or take, 2 years. Arranging the material into just the right perfect symbiotic harmonious glory between all instruments, about 8 months. Cost, well….composing is just time really so no costs there. Arranging, cracked version of Sibelius was free, or about $200….no prises for guessing which one I went with.
Tune in next time for “Decision Time!”
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