From 3 to 7 October, AeroDynamic recorded her first CD! We hired an adorable, idyllic little chapel/art gallery for a good price, and stayed at a B&B nearby. The sound engineer came over from Spain to work with us and with another group after that. We also asked a good friend to sit in, listen, and give comments, and keep a list of takes and their good/bad things.
We rented a van to get to the chapel, which was in the middle of nowhere. David helped us out by driving it there and back. We recorded about ten pieces in three days, which was kind of exhausting. We would start recording at 10am, take a lunch and a dinner break, and go on until 9 or 10pm. On Wednesday we even continued till midnight. As you can imagine, my voice was not amused. Singing more than 11 hours a day is just too much, and it showed. On the last day I was really worried whether I would be able to sing one of the last pieces. But somehow, I managed to squeak it out.
Recording a CD may sound cool, but it’s very tiring. If everything were just about your own ability to perform a piece well, it would be done quickly. However, there are a lot of external factors that stretch your patience to the limits. Airplanes, cars, people using their car horn, crows, rain… it only takes one of these things to make a take unusable. So you have to repeat. And repeat. And then repeat some more. And then there’s a boy mowing the lawn, who decides to do that next to the church and you have to talk him out of it. Every single day. Fortunately, I have some great colleagues and we had a good time together!
Now that the recording is done, the CD is nowhere near finished. There is a lot of listening to do, editing, creating texts for the booklet, etcetera. We hope to be able to present the CD in about six months. I’ll keep you informed!