Recording Day 2

This recording has been pretty demanding vocally.  I especially feel worn out when  the pieces are loud and high for my range.  Wednesday night the men had an earlier call time so the women got to come later around 7:45.  The men were recording "We'll Shout and give him glory" BUT some volunteer altos were asked to help out with the VERY high tenor sections.  So.. I volunteered.  Mack  emphasized that he knew the tenors sang those notes very well but just for recording purposes (which require singing those high notes over and over and over) he wanted about 30 altos.  It of course is not as straining for us.  I think we sang many "b's" above middle "c"   That's one of the best notes for my voice.   It is a rousing piece and we finished it around 8pm.  The ladies then came in and we proceeded with "Death Shall not destroy my Comfort", another M.W. arrangement thats been around for a while.  It starts with womens voices in a minor mode, and strains of  "oh halleluja, how I love my savior.."   Mack has such an amazing ear for pitch.  We've all noticed that his ears are tilted forward.   He is constantly asking  us to raise the pitch when it must be but a mere  fraction off that I'm sure is not even noticeable to most people!  The last piece for the evening was "Rock-a-my soul in the bosom of Abraham"  Mack told us how he saw this done on TV or something and that he loved it so much he hunted down the composer and got the music for it. its accapella and features short solos by Alex Boye.  Its a spiritual that builds and builds with excitement.  I like it a lot.  We finished a little late at around 10:20.

A Recording Log

 

This week the motab is recording a new CD called "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing"  It is American Folk Songs and Spirituals, conducted by M.W.  I thought I would give a day by day entry of the process.  Last night we began at 6:45  in the tabernacle.  I drove a van full of people up to SLC leaving at 5:35pm.  We sat according to a new seating chart.  We were asked to bring blankets to lay on the benches of the tabernacle to muffle the sound a bit.  Half the choir forgot to bring them but we seemed to have enough.  We were introduced to the recording engineers and staff, some of whom are not Mormons.   We began with some sound checks for the orchestra and then the choir. By about 7:45 we were beginning to record.  We started with "Saints Bound for Glory".  We did a few full run throughs and then took is apart and recorded sections at a time.  I brought my ipod along and listened to talks when we had a few minutes of waiting.  At around 9pm we proceeded with  "Come Thou Fount".  Some new people had never even sung this with us and here they were expected to record it right off.  That's how it goes in this organization.  Its made up of people who CAN do that!  We spent quite a while on perfecting the different verses and then finished around 10:15.  I drove everyone home, dropped off the church owned van at a guy's house and arrived home at 11:20.  This will be the schedule for every night this week and all day Saturday.