I have recently found some time to continue orchestrating my ballet Thumbelina. As is often the case with personal projects that aren’t written to deadlines, it is sometimes difficult finding the motivation to get it finished as I do not see much possibilty of performance. But I am enjoying working on it, and it contains some attractive and fun music that I am very happy with. I am sure it will be worth it!
Checking the final mix
Final mix check on the old panasonic hi-fi stack in the kitchen. Important to check mixes on a variety of sound systems, including poor quality ones!
Music For Contemporary Class Vol.2 – progress!
I have been working flat out since Christmas writing a new album for contemporary dance, since I had a decent amount of time to myself to concentrate on it before work craziness picked up again, and today I finished the final track and feel much relieved. I broke a personal record producing 80 minutes of original music in 6 weeks. The key ingredients were a combination of passion for the project, and a determination to get it finished.
I still need to make a few minor improvements here and there, which involves listening back to the entire album several times to listen out for anything I’m not happy with. It’s always important to take a break from any recording project before you do this to give your ears a rest.
Then Barry Gardner of Safe and Sound Mastering will work his magic with the mastering. Barry has over 20 years experience in the music industry, works with the finest equipment money can buy, and is man who can hear sonic problems in your mix in less than a nanosecond.
These days more and more music is created by one lone individual on a computer. You just buy a few decent microphones, an audio interface, Logic Pro or similar, and away you go. If you can play your own instruments, bonus, but it’s not essential due to the wealth of free samples that are available, which, if you use them creatively, can produce very satisfying results. However, when things are made easier for the masses, it actually makes it harder for the individual, because what makes it easier for the individual, is when things are difficult! We need adversity in our lives, not everything handed to us on a plate, and if you want to stand out and be heard in music making, you have to be ruthless with yourself to try to create sounds and atmospheres that haven’t been created by millions of people on their computers already. This of course goes for anything that has been so radically affected by the digital revolution, it is certainly not unique to music. It is now truer than ever that anybody can make music, but you still have to be shrewd. If there is an inkling of doubt in my mind about a sound, it goes in the bin. Also, for this album I rarely touched the piano. It is purely a synth and sample driven record, and I think this has made it sound fresher than my previous work.
Music is a social thing, so being stuck in a room for weeks on end writing isn’t much of an experience, but I always work with people in mind, inspired by those I know who will dance to and hopefully enjoy the music.
Original music for ballet class
The music is progressing well, but it has turned into an enormous project as I am writing multiple pieces for each exercise. Furthermore, due to other commitments I didn’t manage to get this recorded and released for 2016, so hopefully some time next year!
Here is a page of the latest addition to be included on the album.
Mai Yoshida’s artwork
Due to opting solely for downloads of The Witch’s Cauldron, I wasn’t able to use all of Mai Yoshida’s beautiful illustrations she created for the CD version, so I’m displaying them here!
