While the majority of music that is heard on The Echo Society’s first compilation album “Vol. 1” are compositions that were written for our live shows, I chose to create something new. I wanted to dig into spaces I hadn’t explored with any Echo Society repertoire previously, and the album was a great opportunity to do that. I challenged myself to write a mostly textural piece, while retaining the shape, form, and arc that you might expect from something more traditional. Loire’s chamber orchestra is made up of a small string group, piano, harp, trumpet, woodwinds, marimba, metallic percussion, timpani and electronics.
Two musical goals I had while composing Loire were 1) incorporate an instrument that I hadn’t personally recorded before and 2) avoid a more traditional melodic-thematic approach as to the way it would be crafted, instead leaning on other devices to convey form and shape. The piece is mostly based on these five chord voicings performed over a common G drone that operates as the major 7th in the first chord:
For the opening presentation of these chords, I have the winds, harp, piano, and timpani performing a “texture cloud” of each voicing, established by having them perform the notes in the chord at an improvised pace and dynamic. After a prescribed amount of time, the musicians change to the next voicing.
These voicings are repeated in three different sections of the piece, each time in a different key and orchestrated slightly differently. They operate as the harmonic theme for Loire.
While I had written for timpani in an orchestral context in the past, it was within the traditional bombastic style timpani are most known for and I had never actually recorded or featured a live timpani before. So I was excited to get my friend and brilliant percussionist Pete Korpela into the studio with a large timpani set. My goal with the instrument was to really explore its dynamic extremes--crafting extended sections where Pete would play the drums as quietly as absolutely possible, nearly to the point of silence, as well as creating dynamic builds where he could slam away. In Pete’s words:
We recorded the timpani separately which allowed us a chance to experiment with a few alternative takes, and while at times recording timpani alone can be a challenge, I feel that we were able to utilize the positives that this method offers, providing a fantastic end result.
- @petekorpela
Whenever I have a project that needs extra attention on the sonics, I rope in my dear friend and mixing maestro Richard Furch. Richard recorded the timpani, mallets, and winds for Loire and provided the final mix. In Richard’s words:
A big acoustic space is vital to capturing the low end of timpani and also the full dynamic range of the instrument in a masterful player's hands. One of the big rooms at Capitol Studios was the perfect spot to get the music recorded right with the best musicians this city has to offer.
I tend to use ORTF configurations of large diaphragm mics (Neumann M49 tube condensers) to capture the body and size of the entire layout while close mic'ing the individual drums with more modern designs like the AKG C414. Given that the player has collected 6 timpani that are closely matched to each other in overall timbre and considering the player's personal touch as well, it's important to me to use the same mics on the individual drums as to arrive at a cohesive unit. That's another advantage of the grand studios, they just have all the gear, and many duplicates always.
I added room mics to the equation to really make the sound bloom and also the magical chambers that Capitol studios provides for a very special reverb space that's hard to recreate with software alone. Every pass of the timpani became a 14 track overdub, so the session became huge quickly.
To really hone in on the extreme dynamics and timbre of the piece, no compression was used but instead, I rode every part on the faders while keeping the score in mind. My job is to give the player and composer room to be creative and capture their musicality, and enhance it subtly where it's needed.
In the mix most of the parts fell into place effortlessly because this kind of attention was paid at the point of creation. Merely deciding how much of the Capitol chambers was used and a little overall eq to match the sonics of the other parts.
I'm a huge fan of enhancing dynamics in the final mix, so you would see my sessions with a lot of fader rides to push towards the dense spots and relax in the space between. Using a control surface makes this task easy and natural, with my musicality (a pianist myself) becoming a part of the overall picture.” - @richardfurchmix
Here is an excerpt from the timpani part where I instructed Pete to use these pitches and rhythms as a guide while performing loosely in an improvisational manner and at an extremely quiet dynamic. This section happens at 2:34 in the piece.
Pete on the marimba:
The uber-talented multi-instrumentalist and composer Mark Hollingsworth covered the winds in Loire. Here is an excerpt from near the end of the piece. One important detail was how the dynamic arc of the wind pulses worked in reverse of the strings, so that the winds seemingly “morphed” into strings with each cycle of the pulse. Listen from 5:03 in the piece to hear how this dynamic transition is executed.
Mark playing his Bass Saxophone:
I hope you enjoy “Loire” and The Echo Society’s first compilation album, “Vol.1”! More to come!