It’s been a few weeks since my last real update on the album progress. In general, it’s been slow but steady progress.
The album artwork is finished! It really is completely gorgeous and is everything I hoped for. I’m not going to show any images of it, but there is a small section of it as the top banner on this website. Ashley Kopp-Wenzel did an incredible job. There are around 20 pictures layered together depicting various scenes and objects. Then there’s a lot of colors added, by both digital and physical means, to blend the pictures together for a cohesive vibe. Each image is a part of the story or theme within the album. The detail within the image is incredible, so you could spend over an hour looking at it and not see everything hidden within it. I’m hoping my music can come close to matching the quality of the artwork.
Almost all of the remaining recording sessions are scheduled. I’ll be recording upright/double bass with Joe Paule on Friday (today’s National Joe Day, by the way… I’ll have to get him a free coffee or something). In 2 weeks, I’ll be recording all the remaining string parts, a tuba, and the woodwinds for a brief section in one tune. Once my old friend, Kyle, gets back from his trip playing trumpet in Madagascar later in April, he’ll be able to lay down those parts pretty quick.
Aside from that, I have about 3 weeks from April 2nd-April 20th where I’ll have a lot of spare time to hammer away at finalizing most of the rest of my parts. This will probably be the most exciting time to hear the music coming together. For a long time, I had put so much thought, creativity, and work into the music, but still had nothing to show for it. I had sheet music, but no one knows how it sounds or can tell if it’s any good by that alone. Explaining my music to friends was mostly painful because everything essentially boiled down to “trust me, I know what I’m doing,” while I knew I was being received with a lot of skepticism.
Currently, I’m walking the balance of showing enough music to demonstrate that the end result is going to be worthwhile (so I can encourage donations, lol) without spoiling the highlights of the album. So I’ve been taking sections that are some of my favorites, but only including a partial mix (like leaving out the vocals or other key instruments) so that I’m not quite spoiling the experience. It’s still tricky to find an excerpt that sounds good enough in a fairly raw state since I’ve done very little mixing at this point.
So I’ll leave you with a small sample of one of my favorites from the album titled, “In the Quiet.” This excerpt is the interlude of a very prayer-like song. The distant horns come in behind the strings (there are no strings in this mix) as a sort of reassuring spirit and a call to peace. Hope you enjoy the sample 🙂
Devin LaRue 