Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, performances, concerts, and signing opportunities have been rare. Singing is one of my greatest passions, and with my sister back at home, I was determined to pursue my passion despite the cancellation of many events. My family is extremely musical, with all of us singing, playing guitar, piano, and drums. We are in a constant routine of jam sessions, music exploration, and karaoke nights! We then decided that a first step to taking our music journeys further, would be to do a professional recording, as up until now we have only amateur phone recordings to show for our work.
The first step was creating a repertoire. This came down to what kind of music we wanted to record and pursue, as I have performed a wide range of genres, from musical theatre, to operatic arias, or pop rock/alternative music. Shenali (my sister) and I also wanted to sing a few duets, so we formulated a list of solos and duets to commit to rehearsing. For this first session, we decided to do more chill, rNb/soul songs, with our own arrangements and unique versions of songs. For example, inspired by Stevie Wonders version of ‘Close to you’, I sang the mashup of Close to you/ Never Could Say Goodbye, and I replaced the first verse with lyrics from Frank Oceans version, with a chordal arrangement which completely flips and transitions both original songs. I also ended the song with a section of improvisation inspired by jazz scatting, and adding some of my own lyrics at the end to add to this improv aspect.
Another example is that Shenali and I created a unique arrangment of ‘Time After Time’ (Cyndi Lauper), mashed with ‘Everywhere’ (Fleetwood Mac).
The planning component of organising musicians and a recording date was definitely a challenge. Coordinating rehearsals was also a challenge seeing as everyone has unique, hectic schedules. However we are very very lucky to know Mr Marlon, who is a fantastic guitarist, and we were able to reach out to him to play for us, along with an amazing bassist, Mr Ranga. Shenali also had a friend who is an amateur drummer! We then had a handful of musicians to produce a great backing fro some acoustic sounding covers. My sister and dad also play guitar very well, and we decided they would accompany us as well.
The first rehearsal was just Shenali, Mr Marlon and I, and we really focused on sorting through the arrangements, and organising the climaxes and structure of each song. This was important because neither Shenali or I chose any straight forward covers. they were all unique arrangements, or variations of the original songs, as we really wanted to have a creative component and artistic licence over the music we would record. We then coordinated a second rehearsal, but our family friend who was the initial drummer bailed 2 days before the recording!
To navigate this problem, we were very lucky that Mr Marlon had a contact of another drummer, so we asked him to play for us with only 1 day’s notice, but it all worked out in the end. In fact, the new drummer, Mr Indika, was a professional, so I guess everything happens for a reason! My dad also mentioned that it made such a big difference to play with a professional drummer, as the beat was so steady and the timing was perfect. We had a contact at the recording studio; Sooriya Village, from past productions with local theatre groups. We then reached out to him to book a studio date, as he was also able to mix our tracks and produce the final audio. Another component was needing to contact and coordinate a videographer, as we wanted to have the full studio experience. This was challenging to source, so we ended up taking a video camera from a family friend, and using this for the video component.
On the actual day of the recording, we got to the studio at around 9am, and had a rehearsal with our 3 piece band (plus my dad and Shenali for some songs). Akhil also (extremely last minute!!) decided he wanted to record something, so he accompanied himself on piano and sang. We then started jam session, and balanced all of the sounds. We started recording at around 11 and went straight through until 4.30pm! Needless to say it was pretty tiring, and we didn’t really stop for a lunch break, but it was probably one of the best experiences I’ve had. It was so cool to see the mixing process in the studio upstairs, with all of the tracks laid. Seeing a qualified sound engineer at work was really inspiring.
Since they were live recordings, we took 1-3 takes per song, recording a total of 7 numbers between Shenali, Akhil and I. This was quite ambitious, as 7 songs with multiple takes, plus a rehearsal session, is quite taxing on the voice, but we held up pretty well! We were inspired by the vibes in the NPR Tiny Desk Concerts, and really wanted to make the recording session a chill, jam session vibe. Everyone was really enjoying themselves, and it was amazing exposure. It was also amazing to work with such talented musicians (Mr Indika- drummer, Mr Ranga- bassist, and Mr Marlon- guitarist), who always had so many interesting musical ideas, and really pulled the whole thing together.
One totally new experience for me during the recording, was listening to myself through headphones… this really meant I could hear every note, which pushed me to be consistently on pitch.
The next step will be laying the audio tracks on the video, and uploading the songs to different platforms.
This experience allowed me to focus on my strengths and passions, but what made it truly enjoyable was the collaboration with my whole family. With my dad playing guitar, my mum guiding the whole process, and my brother and sister contributing, it was truly a family experience. I absolutely love jamming with my family, and this was an opportunity to turn our otherwise casual jam sessions, into something professional, with some fantastic musicians.
In the process of recording these covers, I became much more invested in music exploration, production, and creation. It truly inspired me to take it a step further, and familiarise myself with the production components of music, using an online digital audio work book (DAW), a midi keyboard and a sound card. In this process we discovered that we actually own many mics in our house, so with a few extra pieces of gear, we will now be able to set up a functioning, basic home studio. This connects perfectly to my HL Music Component within the new IB Music Course. This is a collaborative music making project, and as such, with my new love and interest in music creation and production, I hope to produce my own EP, and have an artist create the album art. This will be a perfect opportunity to push my passions and broaden my skills, and connect this exploration to the music course. I am also inspired to keep recording arrangements/covers until I produce originals, wether this be more rNb, or even musical theatre which I love!
All in all I am super grateful for this amazing experience, and very excited for the pathways it has opened up!
This CAS experience relates to many learning outcomes. In fact, it connects to LO1,2,3,4,5, and 7. It connects to LO1 (Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth) due to the identification of singing and performance as a strength, and music production as an area for growth.
It also connects to ‘planning and carrying 0ut a CAS experience’ as it was completely self initiated, and we coordinated all of the musicians and sound technicians.