We had a great time this week learning about what it takes to record a great A Cappella track.
8 students from 6 schools across the USA became the supergroup "Emo Kidney"!
The first day was spent at Deke Sharon's lovely San Francisco home learning about arrangement,
pre-production, financial management, time management, people management, rehearsal management,
and all the other managements involved in recording an A Cappella album!
We chose Amy Winehouse's "Rehab" as our example song to practice the process,
and set about learning to tweak a basic live arrangment by adding or removing things
that would make it better for recording.
After learning our (basic) parts, we moved down to Bill Hare's studio
the next day to start the process of taking an arrangement through to a finished mix.
Here Teddy (Colorado College The Back Row) and Wren (Swarthmore Sixteen Feet) are getting some hands on practice.
Magali (Stanford Mixed Company) getting ready to "go to Rehab".
Drew (Clemson Tigeroar) did some soaring vocal trumpet work.
Fred (Connecticut College Vox Cameli) and Wren get serious.
As an added bonus, we all got to learn about putting out brush fires as one started on
the property adjoining the studio!
Teddy tries his hand at firefighting
Watcing the firefighters and helicopters at work (more on the fire itself here)
Graduating class of 2007 standing on the charred hills of Milpitas:
Deke Sharon (instructor), Ross Morey (UCLA Bruin Harmony), Sidney Le (Stanford Mixed Company), Drew Cyphers (Clemson Tigeroar),
Fred Duey (Connecticut College Vox Cameli), Magali Ferare (Stanford Mixed Company), Wren Elhai (Swarthmore Sixteen Feet),
Ed Stevens (Colorado College The Back Row), Teddy Zug (Colorado College The Back Row), Bill Hare (instructor)