Today, Alexandra and I were engaged to record some string parts for an independent musician Mike Marlin, for his forthcoming third album. The recording session took place at a private studio near Baker Street in London and overall, we helped to complete three tracks which required session strings.
Although very often we undertake string arranging and notation, on this occasion, the parts had already been written by Mike himself and notated by another professional string arranger. This meant that studio time was spent productively without time being swallowed up notating and re-writing parts (although there were a few passages that had been recently written and therefore needed to be quickly scored on the spot!).
One of the tracks was written purely for solo cello and as ever, Ali played this with her beautiful tone and phrasing. The other two tracks were on a larger scale. also requiring violin and viola parts.
In recording sessions, we often accomodate unusual requests from clients and today I was asked whether it was possible to make my violin sound like a bee. This was to reflect a particular lyric and I tried my very best to buzz and hover! There was also a passage in a track which required a crazy violin improvisation, so fingers crossed, what I came up with was suitably manic…..
We wish Mike and the rest of the team all the best with the album and look forward to hearing the final mix when it is released.