Sharp Practise
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8/8/2008 9:04:42 AM
Tempo and keys
It’s been a busy couple of weeks – not least because the side project with the girl singer has taken off and we signed a publishing contract for some of the material. So, a confidence boost, and a distraction!
Work in the rehearsal room has concentrated on two aspects – key and tempo. I want this album to sound energetic and I need my voice to be stretched to get high levels of energy into my performance. So, much of the work with the new songs has entailed raising the key a few semitones until they sound just right – vibrant but not strained.
Similarly, we’ve been trying out the tempo of the songs to keep them bouncy but not frantic – bearing in mind that you don’t want an album of a dozen tracks all at the same tempo (or in the same key).
So, we’ve expended plenty of sweat with only a few changes to show for it. However, these are hopefully the few changes that will make all the difference to the end product.
The next step is going to be to record the guide tracks and, when we’ve lived with those for a couple of weeks, start tracking the album properly. Since my studio is in a residential area I can’t record live drums there – but my equipment is portable so I plan to set it up in our rehearsal room and get the drums tracked there.
I’ll let you know how this plan works next time.
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