Northern Lights by E. Esenvalds
Abigail P.
-
Over the last few years, we've performed Northern Lights three times in my children's chorus, and every time, I was assigned a different voice part. Because I love how nicely the different parts fit together in this particular song, I decided to record this song but with all the parts performed by me. First, I recorded all 8 voice parts one at a time using a microphone. I then recorded the violin solo, wine glass part, and piano part. Afterward, I mixed all the audio using Bandlab. I think that the most difficult parts of recording were keeping all the voice parts balanced, syncing up all the consonants, and coordinating entrances of different parts. However, I find the precision that's required to edit sections such as "Come above, hall, come above at once, hall" to be extremely gratifying because I love how the harmonies and chords can become so crisp after a few hours' work, especially compared to how they sounded when I first recorded the parts. Once I finished the audio, I then recorded the visuals for the video using an iPad. I edited these clips and added in the finished audio using InShot. Overall, the bulk of my time for this project was spent on recording all the parts and mixing the audio. Note: in the finished YouTube video, there are voice/accompaniment parts that are in the audio but not in the visuals, since I was only able to show about 3 clips per split screen using InShot.
-
Creativity means finding a unique way to express your interests, artistic or not. For instance, I love choral music, playing the violin, mathematics, and operating soundboards at live events, but I also love the storytelling aspect of theatre. I explored the intersection of these five interests through this project.
