Last week, I got a random phone call from a friend asking if I was working Monday night.
"Nope."
"Cool. I need you for a recording session. We're recording the musical Lil Abner. 8 to 11 PM. I'll email you the book."
And away we go! I was sent Reed 2, which was mostly clarinet and bass clarinet, and a little bit of alto sax. Lotta clarinet. Good thing I've been practicing. Wednesday night, I read through the first act. Thursday, I went through everything twice. Sunday night, I went through a lot of it, and then again on Monday (though I was trying not to wear myself out before the session).
Monday night, I met up with Kevin Lyons and Lee King on trumpet, Tom Gibson on trombone, and Seth Kuehn on Reed 1 (piccolo, flute, clarinet, and alto), plus a string quartet, to rip through the book. The recording was to be used as backing tracks for a high school musical.
The goal was to record as much of the show as we possibly could in three hours. In order to accomplish this, we flew threw songs, often taking the first take, regardless of any mistakes. In our headphones was a click track and piano track as a guide, and we did our best to keep up.
In the end, we probably recorded almost two-thirds of the musical. I assume that everything we did will go into Pro Tools and be severely edited. A very interesting evening!
