You Can Compose About Death All You Want...

... but when real death confronts you, how true was the music that you wrote?

Some very dear friends went through a terrible, terrible loss this week. It makes me think that, try as I might have to understand mortality in my music, when the reality of it confronts you, there is nothing--no words, thoughts or music--that can truly come close to its painful truth.

Heart-warmed By My Fans

There was a post recently on reddit.com. Someone mentioned something about Civilization IV's music, and then all these people started chiming in about the new album. I had a nice boost in sales that evening. All in all, a happy moment for me.

But what I really found heartwarming was the fact that there was a genuine, concerted effort on the behalf of all those people to help support my music by buying my album, and encouraging others to buy it as well. There was actually one person who posted an illegal filesharing download link of my album--and when I saw that, I have to admit, my heart broke a little bit. But then his post was quickly deleted, and he was shouted down by several other posters who came in and suggested that people support my music.

I was touched. (Thanks Kardionoc, RedSnt, APeacefulWarrior and petawb.)

Many music fans don't realize this, but a lot of artists are severely emotionally attached to the work they do--myself included. And when people just post an album that you spent four years of your life perfecting onto some pirate site, it just kills us.

Holiday Promo!

We're doing a little holiday promo at www.christophertin.com. If you buy two or more CDs, the price goes down to $10 per CD. AND, on top of that, each CD is signed. Because, you know, I just love signing hundreds and hundreds of CDs. ;)

Think about it: Calling All Dawns is a great holiday present. It's got a great message: unity, brotherhood, peace amongst differing religions and cultures. And a physical CD is a great present in an age of impersonal downloads... especially if it's customized with a signature! AND, on top of it all, you get to support indie music.

Go to the main page, www.christophertin.com, to get your copies. Happy holidays!

No, Really... All Pre-Sale CDs Have Been Sent!

Hi everyone,

Some people are confused by the fact that Google Checkout still shows that their orders haven't been shipped.

All orders have been shipped... but in order to mark each one as shipped in Google Checkout, we would have to go in and manually click 5 or 6 different steps to send an email confirmation. Multiply that by 1100, and you have an idea as to why we'd rather not do this. :) But rest assured, unless your last name is Dabramo or Isakiev (in which case please email sales@christophertin.com with your mailing address) your CDs have gone out!

Thanks again for your patience!

Home a.k.a CD Distribution Center

I used to have a clean home. Now it has become a CD distribution center.

Needs More Epic

A rather funny blog review of Calling All Dawns has popped up, from a blogger in Norway, Steinar Kristofferson.

Want More Good Music? Calling All Dawns

Some of my favorite lines:

With two previous versions of Baba Yetu to consider, each with their devotees, Christopher Tin did the sensible thing: he cheated. For the new version, he combined percussion elements from both previous incarnations while also adding something new, bypassing all those laws of propriety that say the track shouldn't be able to appeal to both camps, and then he goes one further and ACTUALLY IMPROVES THE FUCKING THING. I don't know what kind of person can listen to fucking Baba Yetu and think to himself, 'You know what this needs? More epic.'

So, buy it. Support the talented independent artist. It's an incentive for Christopher to make more music in the future of the sort that would make the manchild of Jesus Christ and Chuck Norris weep tears of joy.

Download Links Sent For Pre-Sales

Hi everyone,

All download links have been sent to all who pre-purchased the album... but we're getting random emails, blog comments, and so forth saying that people haven't gotten the links yet! I'm truly sorry about this... it's been a rather large organizational task, keeping track of all this stuff.

If you pre-ordered and haven't received your download link, send an email to sales@christophertin.com and we'll try to figure it out. Thanks for the patience!

New Album, New Site!

Forgive the month and a half absence everyone, but as you probably know, I was, oh, releasing my debut album. It's now out! :) Check it out, and the new website, at www.christophertin.com.

Anonymous 4 Session Pictures

Some pics from my session with Anonymous 4, the extraordinary early-music vocal quartet. These women have the most angelic voices aver, and they're performing a setting of an excerpt of the 18th-century Irish epic poem 'Caoineadh Airt Ui Laoghaire' on Calling All Dawns.

And on the topic of Calling All Dawns, in case you haven't heard, the release date is October 1st.

Skyline Studios: NYC

Skyline Studios: NYC. Spent two days recording some fantastic singers here: Anonymous 4, and Jia Ruhan. Back to LA in the morning, with less than a month left before my mix.

Soweto Gospel Choir Recording 'Baba Yetu'

The final stop on my tri-continental trip was Johannesburg, where I was scheduled to rehearse and record with the Grammy-winning Soweto Gospel Choir, darlings of the world-music scene and perennial Grammy favorites. They will be the featured artists on my re-recording of 'Baba Yetu' for my album, Calling All Dawns.

The Soweto Gospel Choir, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, performing my music... now THAT'S exciting.

Here are pictures from the rehearsals:

And here we are at the recording session:

(On a side note, I promise that I really *do* have more poses than 'left arm raised' and 'chin down in thought', but for some reason the camera seems to catch me in one of these positions more often than not.)

Richard Mitchell did the engineering. The studio was SABC Studios Johannesburg.

I'm very, very pleased with how it turned out. The choir has some amazing voices, and the new version of Baba Yetu is going to be awe inspiring.

Christopher Tin on the Preliminary Grammy Ballot!

I got an interesting email last Friday, from a New Age pianist named Michael Dulin last Friday. It read like this:

"Hi Christopher,

Congratulations on making it to the first ballot of the Grammy Awards for your song, Civilization IV Medley. I wish you the best of luck. You certainly deserve a place at the big table this year!"

My response was: "Huh?"

Upon further investigation, I discovered that indeed, in one form or another, I was listed not once but TWICE on the Preliminary Grammy Ballot for the 51st Grammy Awards:

Best Song Written For Film/TV/Visual Media: Civilization IV Medley - Christopher Tin

Best Classical Crossover Album: Video Games Live: Vol. One

So what does this all mean? Let me take you though what happened, and how the Grammy process works.

- As you all probably know, Video Games Live performs a medley of my music from Civilization IV, consisting of 'Coronation' and 'Baba Yetu'. Earlier this year they struck a deal with EMI Classics to release a collection of selections from their show, including my songs; they titled this album Video Games Live: Vol. One. Right away the album was a hit, and shot up to #8 on the Billboard Classical Crossover charts.

- October rolls around: the time when all the major record labels submit all their artists, songs and albums to The Recording Academy for Grammy consideration. EMI Classics submits Video Games Live: Vol. One for consideration in a number of categories. It's the Recording Academy's job to sift through every single song, artist and album submitted, and eliminate the ones that are ineligible. In the case of the Video Games Live CD, every single submission got eliminated except for two: their submission for 'Best Classical Crossover Album', and 'Best Song Written For Film/TV/Visual Media'.

- The Recording Academy then sends out a ballot listing all the artists, songs and albums that made the cut into the Preliminary Ballot. As mentioned before, I made the cut in the Film/TV/Visual Media category, and the Video Games Live CD made the cut in the Classical category. These ballots go to every single voting member of the Academy. Each member gets to cast a single vote in each of the four big categories (Record Of The Year, Album Of The Year, Song Of The Year, and Best New Artist) and gets to cast up to nine more votes in any of the 31 fields on their ballots.

- The Recording Academy tallies up the votes, and sends a final ballot to its members, containing the five finalist 'Nominees' in each category. Again, each member can vote in the four big categories, but this time they're limited to eight votes in any of the 31 fields.

- The winners of this final round of balloting are announced at the Grammy Awards.

Because I'm sure some of you are curious, there are 110 categories grouped into 31 fields. The fields are pretty broad ranging, and roughly correspond to genres: Folk, Gospel, R&B, etc. Some fields defy explanation: there's a Polka field, with a single category in it ("Best Polka Album")--only around 20 albums get entered into consideration each year, so if you're really hungry for a Grammy, you should consider buying an accordion.

Other fields, understandably, are massive. The biggest categories (like Song Of The Year) get over 700 entries, and it's somehow the responsibility of the voting membership to narrow that down to 5 nominees. (This is when things like marketing come into play.)

As for the categories/fields that I'm listed under, the Best Song Written For Film/TV/Visual Media is pretty stacked, with some heavy hitters such as Alan Menken and Diane Warren, Jack White, Regina Spektor and Peter Gabriel, as well as a gaggle of songs from Camp Rock. So it, uh, doesn't look particularly good, especially since, as far as I can tell, I'm the only one on the list for a song from a video game.

The odds are looking better in the Best Classical Crossover Album category, however. A subset of the 'Classical' field, there are a little over 40 entries on the ballot; and Video Games Live: Vol. One already has some chart cred. There are certainly some big names, such as André Rieu and Libera--but the numbers aren't as overwhelming as the other categories.

So there you have it! Let's hope that I have some good news, and have another reason to blog about this sometime soon.

Album Sneak Preview: Madokara Mieru

Surprise surprise! The second song on my album has already been released....sort of. It's called 'Madokara Mieru' (or 'Mado Kara Mieru') and the reason I say that it's sort of been released is because it's actually been covered even before the official release on Calling All Dawns. I know that sounds unusual, but here's the gist of it: Corner Stone Cues, a music library that does licensing of music for movie trailers, heard an early demo of the song and liked it so much that they thought they could license it for a variety of uses; movie trailers, sports coverage, etc. And so with my permission, they recorded their own version of the song, months before I recorded my own. Their version has been released on an album called Corner Stone Cues Presents: Eton Path, which is available on iTunes, Amazon, Walmart, and a number of other places. Already it's been licensed for use for the BBC's coverage of the Premiere League FA Finals and the Beijing Summer Olympic Games, so if you happen to be a British sports fan, you might have heard it already.

What are the differences between the two versions? Theirs was recorded by the London Studio Orchestra at AIR Lyndhurst. Mine was recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra at Abbey Road Studios. Theirs features a British choir and percussion. Mine features an LA based taiko group and a Northern California based choir. Mine also has slightly different orchestrations and arrangements. So all in all, they're not outrageously different.

But just for fun, I thought I'd post a clips from both versions so you could get a sneak preview of what's to come. Here's the intro from my Calling All Dawns version (and by the way, this is still a rough mix):

And here's the dramatic outtro from the Eton Path version:

As for the lyrics, it's sung in Japanese, and is based around a series of five Haiku, each corresponding to the changing seasons: spring, summer, autumn, winter and ending on spring. Each verse is sung by a singer in a different stage of their life; so a young girl sings the first spring verse, an adolescent girl sings about summer, an older woman sings about autumn, etc. The song ends with a return of the young girl singing about spring, therefore completing the cycle of the seasons. So in essence, it's a song about the cycle of life.

As for the lyrics, they are:

SPRING
madokara mieru
(kagayaku) ume ichirin
ichirin hodo no
(sono) atatakasa

SUMMER
madokara mieru
(mabushii) me ni wa aoba
yama hototogisu
(aa) hatsugatsuo

AUTUMN
madokara mieru
(sawayaka) akikaze no
yama o mawaru ya
(ano) kane no koe

BRIDGE
yomei
ikubaku ka aru
[yo mijikashi]

WINTER
madokara mieru
(hieta) yuki no ie ni
nete iru to omou
(nete) bakari nite

SPRING
madokara mieru
(tanoshi) ichihatsu no
ichirin shiroshi
(kono) haru no kure

The translations to all these lyrics (with a nod to their authors) are:

Hattori Ransetsu:
Through the window I see
on the plum tree
one blossom, one blossom worth
of warmth

Yamaguchi Sodo:
Through the window I see
a view of greenery
a wild cuckoo
the first bonito

Kaga no Chiyo:
Through the window I see
the autumn wind
resounds in the mountain—
temple bell

Masaoka Shiki:
how much longer
is my life?
[A brief night…]

Masaoka Shiki:
Through the window I see
all I can think of
is being sick in bed
and snowbound….

Masaoka Shiki:
Through the window I see
this lone iris
white
in spring twilight

Special thanks to Ohgi Midorikawa, who helped me with the adaptation of the poetry!

(Note: the MP3 sample was updated 11/5/08, to reflect a more recent rough mix. To download the clips, click on the triangle to the right.)

My Favorite Album Covers

I'm starting the process of working with a graphic designer on the album art of Calling All Dawns, and so I figured this might be a good opportunity to organize my thoughts on just a few of my favorite album covers, especially as they might apply to my own album art design. You'll notice that, for the most part, they come from just a few bands and labels; that's because on the whole, there are certain elements that I am repeatedly drawn to, and certain things that I shy away from (for example, there are very few album covers that actually *show* the musicians, that I find interesting). And on the whole, many of the more unique bands maintain a consistency of brand image from album to album--so again and again, if I really like a band because of their pioneering qualities as artists, chances are I'll consistently like the decisions they make with regard to cover art.

Take Radiohead, for example:

Hail To The Thief is probably my all-time favorite album cover (despite being a rip-off of Paula Scher's work). First off, I like the hand-made feeling of it; the texture, the imperfect lines... It's abstract and compelling, and befits the haunting and moody qualities of their music beautifully. And likewise, it looks like 'real art'--if you didn't know anything about the product, you would be hard pressed to guess that it was an album cover. Similarly, OK Computer and Amnesiac remind me of Robert Rauschenberg and Mark Rothko respectively.

All my life I've been drawn to ECM Records' New Music Series.

Again, they're very abstract covers; black and white photography, very understated images (yet rich and full of depth and detail). Occasionally they border on the sentimental and new-age, but on the whole they stand alone as works of art, and aren't terribly explicit about the music contained within (both traits that appeal to me).

This Modest Mouse cover is something I just stumbled across while researching this blog post, but I quite like it as well:

In addition to the understated color palette, I also like the unidentifiable image in the center (presumably it's Antarctica? Looks more like a rorschach blot to me). I also like the symmetry of the presentation; matter of fact, I tend to lean towards simple graphical images that are presented front and center (pretty much all my t-shirts sport graphics that follow that simple template).

Of all the Rolling Stones album covers out there, most of them are pretty hideous in my mind, but the one that I like is from their live album Flashpoint:

It's so simple. So powerful. The text setting (Helvetica?), the use of a regular-typeface followed by a bold one, the iconic imagery....it totally works for me.

I really enjoy powerful, bold, iconic imagery--but the problem is, this is somewhat at odds with what I said before, about liking abstract, nuanced, understated works of art. But I'm allowed to have more than one preference, correct? I think for Calling All Dawns, though, something more akin to the former (abstract works of art) is probably more what I'm going for.

Zero 7 has a couple winners. I like The Garden quite a bit; it appeals to the part of me that likes collages, like Rauschenberg's works. I also like the texture of the torn edges of the page; on the whole, I like graphics that carry implied textures and processes: for example, the feeling of cloth and paper, or the sensory act of tearing, stamping, searing, burning, sketching, and drawing. If you look at my Tin Works scoring portfolio and look at the brand that was created for me, the logo is slightly grainy and faded; like it had been applied with a rubber stamp. This was something I was quite insistent about; I wanted something with a strong sense of texture, and a feeling of hand application.

As for the When It Falls art, that appeals to a totally different (and totally inapplicable) pleasure center of my brain; the part of me that likes retro colors and images. Again, totally inapplicable to Calling All Dawns, but still something I enjoy quite a bit.

By far my favorite band growing up was Pink Floyd, and a number of their album covers are Hall Of Fame-worthy:

Again, these were bold, simple images. Not quite the textured works of art that I liked with Radiohead, but still simple, powerful and abstract. The Wall in particular was a teenage favorite; I was ridiculously obsessed with that album, especially the way it (and Dark Side Of The Moon, for that matter) was a musically unified concept album, that started and ended as an infinite loop. I was blown away by this concept, and lo and behold, fifteen years later when I go to release my own debut album, what do I go and do? Make a concept album that starts and ends as an infinite loop. Go figure.

Two of my favorite electronica albums are Verve Remixed 1 and 2:

Seriously cool album covers, but mostly because of the works of art that were created for them, that pretty much encapsulate the essence of the albums: that is, taking old jazz records and remixing them. Absolutely love the concept, but I'm hard pressed to find any similar approach for Calling All Dawns (nor do I plan on making my graphic designer create a sculptural work of art like that).

Finally, my all-time favorite band has two clear winners:

Let It Be is perhaps the only album cover that I like that features the band members. Why? Well, for one it's not one picture of the entire band together, but rather four GREAT portraits of the Fab Four, arranged in a simple, geometric layout. It comes at the end of their career, so it's rather fitting that the four are not shown together in a single frame; but at the same time, it brings a flood of nostalgia, of remembrance of the good times that we all had listening to their music on our old record players. This album cover probably violates the majority of artistic principals I have for the medium; but it just works so well and hits home in the context of the whole Beatles experience, and what it means to me.

And as for The White Album, it's simply beautiful. (The fading on the text is nice, too, though I'm not sure if that was a part of the original.) Simple, clean, and forceful.

Backing Vocals

Yes, I've been lax in blogging. But the reason is because I'm on a very cool Microsoft project that's had me completely wrapped up for the better part of a month now. I can't really talk about it until I'm done (hopefully in another month), but it's a rather unique--and somewhat odd--opportunity that I couldn't pass up!

In the meantime, the report on the album is that I spent the month of June flying back and forth to the Bay Area to record backing vocals for my album! Most of the tracks are done....just a little minor tweaking left to do, and the album will be ready to send out to guest soloists, and possibly even labels for distribution deals.

Anyway, the singers that I've been working with are actually my old singing group up at Stanford University, Talisman. Many of you may know them as the group that sang Baba Yetu--well, I spent four weekends recording with the current singers, as well as a handful of alums--a sort of Best Of Talisman group, so to speak. And just for fun, here are some pictures from the sessions.

As I get closer to being able to release the album, I'm going to start posting preview MP3s here of the songs. So keep an eye out for them!

Drums...Lots And Lots Of Drums

An update on the album!

I spent three days at Sage And Sound Recording Studios in Hollywood with an arsenal of percussion. 8 of the 12 songs on Calling All Dawns require percussion of some sort, ranging from African ashikos and udus, Brazilian surdos, Middle Eastern dumbeks and frame drums, Japanese taiko...in other words, the works.

The bulk of the percussion was played by Greg Ellis; session musician (check him out on this summer's blockbuster Iron Man), drummer for Juno Reactor, former founder of Vas, and all around talented guy. We spent two and a half days laying down all manner of raucous noise.

Day three, the neo-taiko group On Ensemble came in to record the Japanese percussion, as well as to add some low-frequency bottom end for the entire album. Shoji Kameda, Kris Bergstrom and Maz Baba came in and played well into the night. Shoji, Kris and I go way back, actually; we all attended Stanford together, and played in Stanford Taiko as undergrads (those two were a helluva lot better at it than I was!).

In addition to their guest appearance on my album, they've got a great sophomore album in the works right now. Keep an eye out for it!

The session was engineered by the incomparable John Kurlander, of course. My album's in good hands with him.

My Wikipedia Page

Brent Woo, a student at UCLA, just overhauled my Wikipedia page.

Wow! Thanks, Brent! Talk about grassroots efforts to help get the word out about my music!

Delicato: The 'Calling All Dawns' Font?

I think I may have found my font for Calling All Dawns. Introducing Delicato, designed by Stephan Hattenbach for the Fountain type foundry (based in Sweden). I think it's quite good; it looks classic, without being overly used, and without the baggage of a font like Trajan.

Here's the creator of the font describing his product:

"After spending my early years experimenting mostly with display faces, my focus now is to make functional text fonts, incorporating both traditional and modern aspects.

Delicato is, in many aspects, built in a traditional way. Still, some modern details have been implemented which classic designs sometimes lack. The prime goal was to make a strong text font for books and longer texts in general. This fact does not exclude the possibilites for use elsewhere.

Throughout history existing designs have often been the source of inspiration for newer ones. Delicato is no exception and looking closely, similarities can be found in the lowercase of Jeremy Tankard’s Enigma and the stems of Petr van Blokland’s Proforma. My goal is to respect these sources and turn my own creation into something new with a unique and personal touch.

Most text faces carry a basic set of weights like regular, italic, bold and small caps. I wanted to expand that a little bit further and added a medium, alternates and a set of ornaments to make the family complete and versatile."

I know I have some artistic readers out there....what do you all think? Thumbs up? Thumbs down?

Three Typefaces

I'm dating a graphic designer these days, and since I'm a big-time design aficionado, the topic of typefaces (otherwise known as fonts) comes up frequently. In most cases, I'm a fan of sans-serif fonts--that is, fonts without the little 'feet'--like the one utilized in this blog, verdana. On the whole, they're cleaner, more modern, and easier to read. In certain cases, though, when I want to tap into various traditions or subconscious associations, I'll utilize serif fonts. Here's what I mean:

Trajan is 'the movie font'...and it has been heavily overused in motion picture advertising, especially with epic blockbuster summer tent-pole fare (which I have to admit, I hate). But if a typeface carries any sort of subconscious association that I want to tap into, then it might not be a bad idea to utilize that font. So in the case of Calling All Dawns, if I want to convey that the scope of the album is epic and cinematic in some way (which it is), I may consider using Trajan as the principal font.

On the other side of the coin, however, is my favorite font Helvetica--a modern classic sans-serif that is purposefully devoid of distraction and meaning, preferring to let the words express themselves without coloration of typographic associations. You've seen Helvetica everywhere; it's the default font for Apple Computers, used in countless corporate logos, and pretty much pops up in all manner of signposts and advertisements. So you can see just how pervasive it really is, here's another clip, from the documentary "Helvetica," created for the 50th-anniversary of the font:

And finally, just for fun, I'm posting this YouTube video of a tribute to Akzidenz-Grotesk, an early predecessor to Helvetica. Some people just really, really love their fonts.

Abbey Road Pt. 3

My day at Abbey Road started at 8:00 AM, when I showed up at the studio. Already the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's massive truck was outside, and roadies were loading various large instruments into the studio, including the timpani, celeste, the battery of ethnic percussion I hired, as well as the mother of all taiko drums. (Here's a picture of me having a little fun with it!) Jeff had already shown up early to put all the musicians parts out on the stands, and John was already there making last minute adjustments to the microphones. My ace conductor Lucas Richman arrived shortly thereafter, and with that, we were ready to roll.

The morning session started at 10:00 AM and lasted three hours. The afternoon session was four hours, starting at 2:00 PM. The final lineup I settled on was an orchestra of 85:

3 Flutes
--w/ piccolo, alto flute
3 Oboes
--w/ English Horn
3 Clarinets
--w/ Bass Clarinet
2 Bassoons
Contrabassoon

6 French Horns
3 Trumpets
2 Trombones
Bass Trombone
Tuba

Timpani
5 Percussion
Harp
Piano/Celeste

14 1st Violins
14 2nd Violins
10 Violas
8 Cellos
6 Basses

Our goal was to record, over the course of 7 hours, 46 minutes and 40 seconds of music....which is incredibly ambitious! (Why the rush? Frankly, I couldn't afford any more time.) We were able to accomplish this with few hiccups, mostly due to the amount of time I had spent in advance preparing every last detail. It wasn't a 100%-smooth process, though; because of a last-minute fiasco in the parts preparation, there were a number of missing notes in the horn parts that had to be corrected from the podium. All in all we wasted about 5 minutes with these problems, which doesn't seem like a lot on the outside; but considering every minute elapsed costs me about $150 in musicians salaries and studio rental, I was cursing my head off in the control room the whole time.

Most people don't realize this, but orchestras that are contracted to do recording sessions don't actually rehearse the music in advance. They simply show up and read it on sight. It's actually quite incredible; these are some of the finest players in the world, and are capable of playing something nearly perfectly on first-read. However, that means that some adjustments that you need to make to the music will often catch you off guard on the day of the session. After every take, Lucas and I conferred on the podium and made minor changes to the sound. Most were things that can't easily be conveyed with written musical notation; for example, how short to make a staccato note, or how legato to play a melody.

At 7:30 PM The Purcell Singers showed up to record the chorale to my Polish song, Hymn Do Trojcy Swietej (Hymn To The Holy Trinity). Directed by Mark Ford, this 45 member choir spent an hour recording first working on the pronunciation of the text (courtesy of a Polish coach), and then doing take after take trying to find the right sound.

We capped off the evening in exhilarating fashion. I've mentioned before in this blog the Maori tradition of the haka--well, at 9:00 PM four Maori guys came in and laid down take after take of chants, stomps, and body slaps for my closing Maori song Kia Hora Te Marino (May Peace Be Widespread).

10:00 PM, and 14 hours after I had arrived at the studio, we finished with a celebratory pint of Guinness. One of the longest and most exhausting days of my life...and hopefully the beginning of a great journey for me.

Abbey Road Pt. 2

The night before the session we were able to get in to Studio 1 to set up for the next day's events. John Kurlander's main task was to get the room set up to his exacting specifications....and when I say exacting, I really mean exacting. One of the reasons I feel very comfortable working with John is his level of attention to detail. Weeks before the session, I was getting detailed floor plans from him with proposed orchestra layouts, microphone setups, etc. The night before the session, he and his team of assistants, headed by the capable Richard Lancaster, got everything ready for the big show.

My task was two-fold; first, to get the ProTools sessions set up with Richard for click tracks and pre-records, and second, to make sure that all the orchestral parts were there. Richard is frighteningly fast on ProTools--the poor man works long hours, but it seems like it will all pay off for him in short time.

As far as parts preparation goes, I had the assistance of a long-time friend of mine from when I was a conducting student, Jeff Eckstein. Jeff has worked in many capacities around orchestras before, from conducting to managing, and so together the two of us sorted through every single part of all 12 songs and made sure everything was there for the session.

That night I climbed into bed at about midnight; it was about 4:00 AM when I finally fell asleep. Three hours later I woke up to start my marathon day.

Abbey Road Pt. 1

Dear blog readers,

Today I had the privilege of recording my debut album in one of the holiest of places in the music industry: Abbey Road Studios.

It's 1:30 AM (my typical blogging time), and despite having been working for about 16 hours today, and having only gotten four hours of sleep the night before, I'm still wide awake. People have been asking me if I was "excited"--and the truth is, I was a little too busy to be excited, and so I never really reached any point where I was blown away by what was happening....even up through the moment when I first heard the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra start to play my music. The best way to describe my mood all day, and indeed, the reason why I'm still up right now, is that for the entire day I was extremely, incredibly FOCUSED.

I literally can't wait to dig into the recording files that I left the studio with, and start editing and mixing them. I may even post a sneak preview or two of some of the tracks in time. But for now, I thought I'd start by sharing a few pictures.

My first day back in London I paid a visit to my old alma mater, the Royal College of Music, to do a little guest lecture to the composition students about what life is like in Hollywood, the game industry, the commercial industry, and as an independent recording artist making his first album. It was a very enjoyable day--I always love to teach and lecture, and was thrilled at the opportunity to do it at the RCM.

Then the next few days were spent alone in my little academic suite that I rented at my old dorm, preparing for the session. There was a bit of a last minute panic with the parts preparation, and so I really didn't get a chance to go out and have any fun in London. But ultimately all the preparatory work paid off, and Monday night, before the session, we were able to load into the studio.

That's when the fun really began....and for that, I'll wait until my next post.