thirteen ways

Previously: Reich take 1.

Last Friday 8bb high-tailed it to Richmond, two days earlier than would be usual for our January residency at University of Richmond. This was in order to record the 2nd sextet parts of Steve Reich’s new Double Sextet over the weekend, with the fabulous, Grammy-winning producer, Judy Sherman (from here on, “the Sher”).

We were lucky to be able to record in beautiful Camp Concert Hall at U of R. It was a welcome surprise to find the whole music department in lock-down mode for the weekend, to ensure the absence of recording-destroying extraneous noises. The sign was a little intimidating, warning of a “professional recording session”; I looked around, expecting to see Lang Lang hovering in the corner.

For the purposes of recording, the Kap and the Duv had a combination of click track and midi pumped through headphones. It was essential that we have some sort of tempo stabilizer; since we will be performing with the recording for a number of years, an inconsistent backing track would be torture for both us and the audience. The quartet (flute, clarinet, violin, cello) decided against using a click, since we could easily follow the piano and percussion parts, which provide a solid, chugging rhythmic backbone throughout the 20-minute work.

Here is Lisa with her adorable, alien-like ears:

At the beginning of the first session we ran some fragments to listen for sound and balance. Due to Camp’s very warm, “generous” acoustic, the Sher had miked us very closely, which captured a very “honest” sound that was flexible enough to be played with by Reich and the Sher during mixing. This led to some rather pained expressions and physical gestures during the initial playback. “Damn that is out of tune!”; “Hello? Really not together!”.

I had been prepared for the Sher’s unrelenting professionalism: “Judy can be a hard-ass”; “Not much gets by her”; “Just be prepared for some very honest opinions”. 8bb has developed a very good professional relationship with Judy, having worked with her on all of the ensemble’s Cedille recordings. As a geeky, new music-loving teenager, who always made a note of classical recording producers, I was mostly excited to meet an industry legend.

We recorded the work in bite-sized chunks. The Sher decided on the tactic of recording each key area in succession; we typically did four complete takes of each ca.100 bar segment. After the first take, the Sher would say “let’s go back - if the same mistakes happen a second time, I will tell you then”; following the second and third takes, she would concentrate on more specific problems, usually dealing with synchronization or intonation issues. Thereafter, we would repeat two or three short sections that weren’t covered by any other takes.

I was anticipating that 8bb stress levels would be at record-breaking, dress-rehearsal highs, but in fact the two eight-hour-long sessions were very relaxed. Among the Sher-isms that will be sure to enter the 8bb vernacular: “spicy”, which refers to bad intonation (the Sher: “Ah, guys, that was pretty spicy”; the Alb: “Spicy? You mean we added complex layers of flavor, increasing enjoyment?”); and the terms “front row” (flute, clarinet, violin, cello) and “back row” (piano, percussion) to delineate the ensemble. A typical comment from the booth: “Front row, the chord in measure 83 is pretty spicy”; “Back row, you are not together between measure 723 and 725″.

In rugby, the “front rowers” are the big, bruitish bruisers of the team:

Hmm. Is that what the Alb, the Mac, the Phot and I look like on stage? You can read more about the mechanics of the rugby scrum - a truly bizarre sporting formation - here.

Random conversation topics during downtimes: Jesus vs Moses; Indiana Jones (”How much time passed in the story between the second and third movies, and how old will he be in the latest movie”); was Kit, from Knightrider, actually gay (”I heard that the actor was gay. You mean the character, right?”); Australian food (”You mean you have no national food…at all?”); politics.

Our thanks to some very helpful U or R folks: the Modlin Center’s own Mike Burns stepped in as a recording assistant, and was, according to Judy, a dream to work with; Ben Broening was on hand to sort out any technical problems that might arise, but mostly sat backstage, acting where necessary as unofficial cheerleader; and Ray Breakall, who was on call all weekend, kept the piano in good shape.

Tomorrow, Reich take 3 (the grand finale!), featuring lots of photos and a video featuring excerpts from the recording sessions.