March 2021 - Wrap Up

We have a Table of Contents! If you remember, last month or so, I was complaining about Patreon making it very tricky to find older posts and I wished there was a table of content. Well, they didn't change anything on that but I manually created one which you can access at the link above and which is also pinned as the first post when you access the site. I've sorted it all neatly into categories so you can easily find and browse through the content and read the posts accordingly.

On other issues I was remotely recording a project in Prague a few days ago. If you are following the current numbers, Czechia has a very high infection rate currently so all the musicians were tested before the session and everybody was required to wear masks. It was still not the most comfortable view to see 50+ people squeezed into a relatively tight space. The week before, I also had a remote session at Synchron Stage (which sounded amazing). They handled the situation differently and we needed to record the orchestra in three different sessions (strings/brass/woodwinds) so they could maintain the proper distance.

A few months ago I had a similar session with another orchestra in another studio where they really struggled to play tightly together sitting so far apart as they couldn't hear each other properly. It is indeed still a very weird time to record orchestras and I wish that things would become easier by now but most of Europe is currently stuck in or on its way into the third wave which complicates matters. 

It also is really not too great to record an orchestra remotely. The act of travelling there, feeling the energy in the room, interacting directly with the musicians and simply "being present" is completely missing. I usually really love attending sessions and look forward to these moments but the last few remote sessions felt incredibly distanced from the whole act of bringing music to life. It is very covenient to be able to attend a session from your home studio, but it is also very uninspiring.

I know that this is a first world problem and feel weird complaining about the minor inconveniences this pandemic is posing on my work life in light of all the tragedies that are happening around the world. I just wish that we will get past this very soon and get back to a life that is not dictated by social distancing.

I'm also still very much looking forward to finally getting started on the ORCHESTRA DISCOVERY SESSION and record the woodwind quintet with the 5 patrons who won the first round of this. So hopefully, we will have a useful prediction on when this will be possible in the near future so we can get to planning things.

I am also working on a new piece for the Composition Screencasts of which the first part will go live next week. I was recording the entire process so far but couldn't handle the multitasking of composing and commenting at the same time so I might need to switch to a form of voice over for these videos in the future but this is still "in the works".

There are a few scoring projects lining up in the next weeks that might be suitable to do a screencast about as I really would like to show the process of a "real life" project but couldn't do this so far due to rights issues. It's not 100% sure whether this will be possible with these projects as well but it's looking a bit more promising than usual on these. I will keep you posted on this.

Again, I'd like to thank you for supporting me here on Patreon and allowing me to invest some time into writing about and exploring things that I find interesting. As usual, I value your feedback greatly, so if you have any critizism or ideas for improvement, don't hesitate to send me a message. If you're celebrating Easter, I wish you a great holiday break.

Thanks again for being part of this communiy!

Robin