According to the records that
document all the "work in progress", the mixing process started in
late Summer of 2015. Levon Hakhverdyan, the sound engineer, spent many hours synchronizing
the recorded tracks and bringing them in readiness for further processing.
Starting from October and on until the 25th of February this year (with
some delays at the beginning), we worked on mixing the material that we had had.
Now we already have nineteen music files (including those five already
completed in August 2014), and so I believe that we can provide some summary.
Most of the recorded tracks lie
on the "experimental" territory, which implies changes done to the
original form of the song and its new, free "rendition", as well as
addition of something new to the canonical arrangement. I would dare to count six
out of the nineteen songs that fall into the first category. In my view, those
are these new versions of the famous songs that will give some chance to gain any
interest for potential listeners. Six songs will represent the second category.
But for the remaining seven songs, we also tried to put our souls as much as it
seemed possible for us.
Most likely, in my next post I
will be talking about the songs in more detail, and will probably name them,
but so far I will say just a few words to describe my impressions. First of
all, I am very happy to find myself again in the recording area (after one-decade
break), doing something serious and at my own will, nurturing my own project. It’s
OK (or maybe it's even great!) that I started with recording covers: it was
necessary for me to start, and doing covers of favorite songs creates an
atmosphere of an exciting game and gives a vital spark to the whole process.
Among other things, this task demanded manifestation of creative approach, the
result of which was supposed to be different from the original new material. Like
I've mentioned it before, the initial stage was not enough for us, so in
addition to the five compositions intended for the first "group"
project, half a dozen was recorded during the second phase.
Fortunately, at some particular
point in time, I’d had a desire to finalize this project as quickly as possible
and start a new one – my own, based entirely on the experience gained over the
past year and a half. All the participants were able to feel each other and
find the methods of work that give optimum results. I am now convinced that I can
not only perform songs, but also present my vision of them. It is fun, it is
unexpected, it is justified – within reasonable limits, of course.
The songs for the new project
are in the process of thinking the structures through and feeling their shapes,
but the tasks that are to be addressed in the new work, are already clear to me: I want to create something, that
will have at least one minor but personal feature – yeah, probably flavored
with the musical legacy I’ve been getting for all the years, but still personal.
Mistakes are inevitable, difficulties are obvious, but they say: a journey of a
thousand miles begins with a single step. So, it is with even greater force that
I will now be pushing the current project to its completion, to start a new
one. But before that, I will certainly pay tribute to my first big experience
in creating music albums, which is still entitled "Work in progress":
as soon as the album is mastered I will present a few more photo-/video
materials and rename the photo album.
P.S. Work on the previously
mentioned project group is also in the final stages.
