Title: Recording optimism: Capturing live performance in the recording studio
Abstract: What factors must be balanced in order to capture the elusive and authentic spirit of live performance with the precision and attendant ‘artificiality’ of the large-scale digital recording studio? This project chose to investigate through the creation of a new album of original music by Tyrone and Lesley (AKA David Megarrity and Samuel Vincent) titled OPTIMISM.
Led by creative practice (composition, musicianship, record production) the research process involved recording around 14 new pieces of original music on ukulele, double bass & vocals in short sessions, spread out over a period of time (November 2016 and June 2017) which enabled examination of mixes and multiple iterations of studio practice. Selected tracks were audited and assessed for musical, performance and sonic quality, the results progressively written up and shared via a blog aimed at readers with passions and sensitivity for the complex merging of the technical and aesthetic, achievable only in the recording studio. Documentation included audio (multiple takes, versions and mixes) autoethnography and videos of interviews and studio practice, and the final creative product, Tyrone and Lesley’s OPTIMISM, launched in November 2017.
The research came to identify and name a series of competing factors (often unarticulated or consigned to instinct) that must be balanced by artists aiming to incorporate live recording as part of their collaborative recording process, including social facilitation, spirit and precision, the spontaneous and calculated, the indelible and the erasable, the definitive and the provisional, the ensemble and the solo, sustained and intermittent performance, the live and mediated, the use of natural and automated rhythms, musical as well as verbal and textual communication, in togetherness and isolation, and perceptions of artificiality and authenticity in the creation of an all-acoustic album, much of which was recorded live.
Publication Year: 2017
Publication Date: 2017-07-01
Language: en
Type: article
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