Vaudeville, Jazz, Rock, Rap, and...
Take Me Out to the Ball Game?? Now you might be thinking, "What in the world do THOSE things have in common?" Well, allow me to explain...
Near the beginning of October, the University Singers were asked to take part in a project that was being put on by the Teacher's College here at BSU. The Teacher's College do these things called EFTs, or Electronic Field Trips. This particular EFT was taking them to Cooperstown, New York, to help celebrate the 100th anniversary of the song "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." The purpose of this EFT was that a live broadcast was planned for October 21st to help educate students on how music has evolved throughout those 100 years of this song's existence. Well, they came to us, University Singers, and asked if we could help them out with that aspect of it. We were asked to arrange and record the song in four styles: the original vaudeville-esque style, big band/jazz, rock and roll, and a modern/hip-hop/R&B/rap version...but with one condition...we had around 2 weeks to do it all. Now, for those of you familiar with music and recording, you know that recording alone can take weeks to lay down the tracks and do all the editing. So from the get-go, we knew we were pressed for time. To help out, the director asked for help in arranging the pieces. I stepped in and said I'd take care of the rock and roll version. Our alto sax player, Sean Sumwalt, took the jazz while our lead technician, Trevor Frohberg, took the rap version.
Knowing the time commitment, we all knew it was time to put everything else aside and focus on this. We were to do the song as a "chorus-verse-chorus" arrangement. Now, how many people know the verses to the song? Yeah, neither did we. So we did some research, found lyrics and recordings, and got to work. I decided to keep it simple and just do vocals with the rhythm section (piano, guitar, bass, drums). Never having done an arrangement outside of just doing one for fun or for a theory class, I knew this was going to be an undertaking.
When it was time for recording, we brought the band in first and laid down the instrumental track. This was a lot of fun as I played the piano for my arrangement. It's nothing amazing as my piano skills are barely more than basic, but it's still cool knowing that it's me...ya know? Anyway, the band tracks were laid down wonderfully and it only took about 6 hours for 2 tracks...the original was strickly piano that would be done the same day the vocals were recorded and the rap version contained no real instruments. The vocal recording lasted just as long, but each voice part got 1-1/2 hours to do their 4 recordings. The ladies came in and got their work done...the guys on the other hand, had a bit more fun with it. This was also a lot of fun for me because not only did I sing with the tenors, but one of the basses was out with a previous engagement, so I got to step in for him and sing bass for the recordings too! Once the vocals were done, our technicians had just a few days to do the editing and get a finished product ready. Trevor Frohberg, our lead technician, was in the studio until 6:30am the day it was all due.
As this post is becoming kind of long, I'll get to the fun part...the media. Below are several pictures and a video from the recording session. I hope you enjoy!
P.S. The audio and video files are currently not working. Check back in a few days and I will have both a video and audio from our recording sessions!
Javier settin' up the piano room Trevor at the main board Lindsey is here and ready
The alto section Our bassist, Angela The horn section
Ellen, never paying attention Some of the basses getting a level check in the headphones The tenors listen in on a take