Much of the recording work we do involves the use of a ‘Click Track’. A click track is an audible metronome which is fed into a set of headphones and enables a musician to play with complete rhythmical accuracy.Generally a click track will be played in addition to the other instruments which are already recorded, so the session musicians can hear both the click and other parts of the music, since a combination of both gives the best of both worlds.
A lot of singers, songwriters and producers tend to record and build a track around a specific metronome marking so that all of the instruments tally and play perfectly in sync together. A click track also enables instruments to be recorded separately, so drums could be recorded on a different day, in a different studio or even a different country to the guitars, vocals, strings and other instruments on a track. It is also a valuable tool for engineers and producers to be able to communicate with musicians and quickly identify any mistakes or areas which need to be re-recorded. By knowing how many beats are in a bar and setting the click to that time signature, an engineer can liaise with musicians freely using bar numbers, even if they don’t read musical notation.
Sometimes tracks are not recorded to a click and this can give the music a real sense of freedom. If musicians are overlayering other instruments which are already recorded in a track, this requires a strong attention to detail and a good knowledge of the piece to ensure split second accuracy. If a session musician receives a track which has rhythmical inaccuracy inherent in what has already been recorded, it may be necessary to record without a click track or the end result might have strings which are absolutely perfectly in time but don’t sync up with the vocals and guitar (which aren’t). This is also true with music which changes tempo regularly or has pauses and changes of time signature.
Often a click track can be used to save time in a studio. A string orchestra or quartet may record a piece which requires no further overlayering and due to lack of studio time may decide to use a click to ensure rhythmical accuracy. The alternative of allowing more rhythmical freedom without the click could result in the music speeding up or slowing down fractionally or not being ‘tight’ enough. There is a danger here that the click may kill any sense of the ebb and flow of a piece of music and straightjacket musical freedom. So on the one hand it can create greater accuracy but this can sometimes be at the expense of feel and expression.
Over the last couple of weeks we have been recording strings for an album of healing / ambient music which has also featured oboe, cor anglais, flute, alto flute and harp - it has been quite a new experience.
On looking at the score, many of the notes are held for several bars and the pieces are very slow in tempo so it would sound like an easy task to record, compared with something faster or more lively. In practice, playing ultra-slowly is a task that requires patience and concentration as it is very easy to lose one’s place. As we were layering in order to give the impression of a larger body of players, it was also important to know where we had changed bow stroke so that on the following take, the bowing changes could be staggered (this means that when the bow changes direction, on each take it is done in a different place to give the impression of a seamless sound).
Another aspect is being aware of the overall sound needed when all of the strings have been recorded. A good example of this is where crescendos or diminuendos are written in all of the parts. If there are 8 overdubs for example, then the changes in dynamic can sound much bigger than would have been anticipated after each of the individual takes. The same is true for individual dynamics, whether soft or loud.
In any situation where overdubbing strings occurs, the overall tuning is another vital issue to get right from the very first take as even slight variations can become magnified as further layers are added, particularly if there is a spread of sound over four or five octaves.
In music of a very slow nature, the challenge is to keep a beautiful sound that doesn’t break up, have any lumpiness to it or sound as if the bow is changing. This can only be achieved by a singing cantabile approach where one is thinking in phrases with a strong rhythmical pulse, despite the sustained nature of the music.
Back in the summer, we were approached to take part in a very exciting project - to record the strings for a song by composer Leigh Haggerwood. Leigh (who has recently become known as his Victorian alter ego ‘Travis Shenanigans’!) had the idea of writing a proper Christmas song, with festive lyrics and a real ‘feel good’ melody and as soon as we heard it, the players on the session realised it was extremely catchy and likely to do very well indeed. In these days of large record company promotions, the X factor and various facebook campaigns to download silence or novelty songs, it’s a refreshing change to hear a proper old fashioned Christmas Song that actually makes you feel… well…. Christmassy! The song is called ‘My Favourite Time of Year’ by the Florin Street Band and is well worth a listen over Christmas. Because the project was entirely self funded without record company backing, it’s down to the general public to support it and get it into the Christmas charts. If initial response from everyone who has heard it so far is anything to go by, it should do really well as it is far more original than anything else released over Christmas.
The string parts were quickly notated and we went into Sarm Studios to record them in the same week as Leigh had gathered the English Chamber Choir and a whole host of other talented British musicians including James Ryan on drums to appear on the song.
By autumn, it was time to record the video which was filmed overnight at Blists Hill Victorian Town in Ironbridge Gorge and it was a real pleasure to appear in the film, playing a busking violinist in period costume - re-creating the violin solos and string parts that we had recorded back in August.
When I was at music college, I did quite a bit of busking to make ends meet, so although I’d never busked in a top hat before, I felt very at home in the role!
Today, the Florin Street Band website is now up and running and the video and song can be enjoyed online - the band also have a facebook page where people who like the song can keep up to date with all the latest news.
A couple of days ago I spoke to a composer who is looking for strings as part of his composition for three short films. He’d spent a lot of time working with very high quality string samples but felt that when it came to staccato bowings and phrasing, there was just something missing that gave sampled strings an unreal quality.
What differentiates an outstanding string player from an average one (as well as sampled strings) is his or her ability to really sing through the instrument. All the best players ‘phrase’ so the listener can really hear the whole direction of the music, like hearing a whole sentence rather than a series of single words. When the phrasing is done beautifully, the bow seems to disappear and instead of hearing a succession of ‘down’ and ‘up’ bows, there is a feeling of seamlessness with no apparent breaks in the sound. When this happens, the instrument can really seem to glow.
When phrasing is coming through, it can have a very individual sound for each player and with the very best musicians, it is possible to tell exactly who is playing from their unique sound and characteristic tone. This is rather like recognising someone from their speaking voice or accent, but it is the way they use their speaking voice that makes a person sound so individual. If one has a distinctive voice but talks in a monotone, this will be less recognisable than a person who injects real vitality and variety into their speech. A couple of months ago, a composer sent me an mp3 of some of his work that he’d had recorded by a really good cellist - on listening to it, I recognised the cello sound as being played by a woman I had been at college with 20 years ago and when I queried it, he confirmed that it was her.
In order to convey convincing phrasing to an audience (or studio microphone), the player must really project it with clear definition. Without using the word ‘exaggerate’ there must be a level of commitment and passion that clearly conveys whatever the performers intention is.
Any half measures will strike the listener as bland or uninteresting. There are many excellent players who are so concerned with accurate intonation and note perfect playing that they risk sounding ’safe’ with little or no phrasing to characterise their playing. This is often evident in good string quartets who display excellent ensemble and great tuning but don’t inject their playing with enough character and inflection.
In the studio, the best way of a string section sounding really impressive is for all of the players to phrase at the same points and really feel the music together. No sound sample as yet can achieve that human soulfulness that gives real strings their ability to move the listener.
Really, I don’t like the term ‘up and down bow’ very much because the motion of a bow is very fluid and when played artfully, gives a seamless, warm, glowing sound - nothing to do with ‘up’ or ‘down’ which sounds very rigid. My violin teacher (Kato Havas) says that all a bow going ‘up and down’ does is iron the music flat, so to get to the essence of the music the player should try and achieve a naturalness of phrasing which transcends the bow.
Nevertheless, there are instances when composers or string arrangers purposefully write a certain bow direction to attain a musical effect. For example, Stravinsky wrote several down bows (travelling in a downward motion repeatedly, lifted from the string in between notes) in a row to create an aggressive, percussive effect. An example of ‘up bows’ is in Paganini’s 24th Caprice where he alternates left hand pizzicatos (a future blog entry!) with ‘up bows’ played near the tip of the bow - the effect is of a whipping, pecking sound that goes well when alternated with the pizzicato.
Symbols are added to a score to indicate when there is a particular ‘up or down’ direction to the bowing. In 18th and 19th century music, this was often left to the discretion of the individual player but increasingly in the 20th century composers began to specify up and down bow markings more, frequently seeking the advice of professional string players on how best to ‘bow’ the piece.
In a live orchestral performance, bowings are marked into the parts in advance to enable each section to play with synchronised bows travelling in the same direction together - although Leopold Stokowski’s Philadelphia Orchestra were famous in using ‘free bowing’ which the conductor felt achieved a more glossy sound, even though it didn’t look as impressively uniform.This leads onto the phrase ’staggered bowing’. This is where longer notes which would require more than one bow direction to keep sustained are bowed in such a way that members of a string section change in different places, this gives a smooth and continuous effect so that the change in bowing is inaudible.
To begin with, a Cadenza is not something a string arranger would usually write into an average 3 minute pop song or rock track but they can be added into other styles of music and apply to any instrument (not just strings!). A cadenza comes from the word ‘Cadence’ (a cadence is an ending either to a phrase or even section of a piece) and is essentially an ad libbed passage in a piece of music (usually at a Cadence) where a solo instrument breaks out from the rest into a flourish. In the baroque era, a singer would often embellish a cadence with an improvisation (normally near the end of an aria). Later, in the classical period the cadenza developed into an improvised solo at the end of the recapitulation section and before the coda of a first movement (normally a concerto). In this form, the soloist would take themes from the piece and develop them, often changing the form into something quite different yet still related to the original melody. Cadenzas became increasingly virtuosic, allowing the performer the chance to really demonstrate their skills on the instrument - and in many cases became quite a few minutes long. Nowadays, a cadenza is less commonly improvised and more often carefully composed before the performance to cleverly capture themes from the piece and gain the maximum impact whilst still feeling ‘improvised’. The performer has the complete attention of the audience during a cadenza so it’s important to ‘get it right’ and most cadenzas are carefully prepared beforehand.
In a string arrangement for a song, the length of the track will determine how long a cadenza might last but in modern pop or rock music it now takes the form of an instrumental break - where the vocalist and other instruments takes a pause and one of the instruments comes to the fore with a solo phrase or quick flourish, possibly only lasting a few seconds. An appropriate section could be at the end of the introduction, before the first verse begins.
So how does a cadenza differ from say, a guitar solo? In a guitar solo the beat or pulse of the track continues underneath - sometimes the same chords repeat, allowing the guitar to float over the top with improvised runs. In a cadenza, the beat of the music stops completely (like a pause), allowing the instrument to provide a fill in until the music starts where it left off. A cadenza is usually a solo instrument, but there’s no reason why a whole section of instruments couldn’t play one!
On Sunday the 6th December, we were booked as a string quartet comprising two violins, a viola and cello to record at the ‘Engine Room’ (part of the group of Miloko Studios in London). We were required to add simple string parts to seven tracks for an independent band - as these weren’t string arrangements that we had been asked to write, we simply had to turn up and play the music given to us on the day. The bands style favoured irregular time signatures which kept us on our toes with large sections being done in a single take to capture a live feeling of spontaneity. The end product certainly enhanced the sound with the tracks gaining richness and depth as a result of including live strings. In a couple of tracks, the producer discussed the possibility of using the tracks laid down by the four session musicians to add a top layer to existing sampled strings - this technique is becoming increasingly popular where there are many different sounds in the mix and can certainly help the strings to sound more convincing than only using samples.
Some of the work that Stringsection does involves providing strings for composers or bands financing their own projects on a limited budget. People believe in a track enough to invest in live strings (rather than samples), but simply cannot afford to hire a full sized string orchestra without going overseas and potentially compromising on quality. Occasionally, in order to keep things within budget, or because only a few of us can fit into a smaller studio, we have overlayered the same players in order to create the impression of more musicians.
Although this might sound straightforward and the obvious answer to keeping costs down, it is actually a skillful process that only very good players are able to pull off convincingly. It is vital that the first string parts laid down are rhythmically perfect with 100% accurate tuning, as any slight discrepancies of timing or tuning can become exaggerated with a subsequent overdub. It’s often the case that this first layer takes the longest time to record and get right. If a handful of players are to successfully layer their sound a second or even third time, it can potentially end up sounding weird and slightly artificial - rather like a choir made up of the same few voices, without the variety of sounds produced by a large group. One way to overcome this is for the players to add a little variety to each take, without disturbing the rhythm or intonation. This can be done by varying the speed of vibrato, changing the weight of sound and even playing a passage on different strings (so that some notes on the lower region of the violins ‘E’ string for instance could be played higher up on the ‘A’ string). A good engineer will help enormously and can subtly change the position of the microphones between takes to avoid ‘phasing’. ‘Phasing’ is where the identical frequencies are replicated or fractionally overlap, causing the sound to become sort of ‘fizzy’. When overdubbing, if particular care isn’t taken to avoid this, what started out as a high quality group of string players can end up sounding more artificial than samples - which completely defeats the object of hiring live session musicians in the first place.
When overdubbing is done badly, it’s easy to tell straight away what’s gone on, especially in exposed passages. However if over-layering string parts is done with care and attention, the sound can be quite flawless- but success really depends on having excellent players, a sensitive producer and some very precise ears for detail.
