More about the recording
Recording this CD was one of the most fulfilling and enjoyable things I've done - not least because of the great team I was working with. Below is an outline of the 5 days we recorded in November 2007 to give you an idea of how it all happened.
Run up, London: Emails fly back and forwards deciding the schedule: who’s available when? How long will each track take? What is the best way to organise the sessions?
Wednesday, Derbyshire: Arrive late to be met later by Lawrence with his car-load of percussion.
Make enough soup to feed an army for 4 days.
Thursday: We set up, rehearse, try things out, rehearse, play around,
rehearse and throw it all down on the most basic and most useful of
Dictaphones. We go for a walk, loose the dog (and almost my voice calling her!),
find the dog and manage a run through of the whole CD. Les arrives: facilitator
in chief.
Friday: Les earns the undying gratitude of all concerned by stocking up the cupboard with goodies to keep us going. We rehearse, getting to grips with Hili’s ‘tunes’. Dave arrives after a long drive across the country but is still ready to set up. We start recording around 6 and have two tracks down before the end of the day – fantastic!
Saturday: A full recording day with Conor arriving late morning. It amazes me how easily all the music goes down and how much ground we cover in one day. We’re working consistently ahead of schedule. There’s much laughter, great senses of humour and not a cross word in sight! As we’ve been recording more or less in order, we can sit together at the end of the day and listen to the show so far.
Sunday: Everyone’s more tired today but we keep going, fuelled by constant cups of tea and biscuits. Howard arrives to do the double viola part and some quick rewriting is needed: it doesn’t quite sound in practice like it did in my head! We get all the main tracks down then onto the harmonies in the afternoon. I have great fun improvising these and we keep stacking them up on each track.
Monday: We’re a smaller team now, Lawrence and Conor having finished on Sunday and headed home. We start picking the harmonies apart and playing with the sound – what do we like and what stays?
Tuesday: We finish off the first round of editing and disperse to our different parts of the country. What a fabulous experience - although there’s still plenty to do to get the CD to this point…
