A Time For Class
Ever since working on the last Unsent Letters album "Better Than Beautiful", i've wanted to get my hands on a old, used cello to have at the studio. Aaron Anastasi had a couple guys from Princeton come with him one session who were there to play violin and cello for a song or two and the sound of the recorded cello just knocked me out. Now granted, this guy could REALLY play... but i've always wanted to get one. So lo and behold, this christmas, my parents up and got me a cello. Whew! (They actually rented it for me so i could see if i indeed was up for learning it). Now, i've been playing lots of instruments for a number of years, and sort of consider myself able to pick up pretty much anything and within an hour or so get something on it to sound at least good enough to use in one of our super-densely-layered multitracked indy electro-acoustic songs (in a recorded setting). Not So on a Cello. It is one of the hardest things i've ever tried to play. period. There's no faking it on a cello, thats for sure. after 10 minutes or so i sounded like i was playing a tree saw with a cat stretched between 2 ends of a stick. I did however love the challenge and the reward of "sort of getting it" every once in a while. I decided to keep it and start working at it. That was last week. For this weeks session, my good friend and ex band mate Pete Nilsen came in to do some violin for "Great God" over the top of a cello and bowed double bass part i had written and recorded.
In the old days, i was in a band with Pete and his brother John called Choose This Day, along with Matt Agresti on bass. Pete also played violin for the first Million Time Winner album and did some parts for "Jesus Master" on "Light For Dark Eyes" that never made the final cut. *sniff*. Pete spent last year in Russia studying violin with some sort of Ninjia Violin Masters or something and it showed. We started noodling around (he on his violin and me like an idiot on my rented cello) and everyone in the room just started howling it sounded so awesome. By the end of the night we had what may very well be the sonic pinacle of this recording and we haven't even finished one tune! The parts he arranged were that good. I tell you we will be hard pressed to match the level of intensity he brought to this track on the rest of the recording. Check the videos of Pete warming up.
While Pete wrote out his arrangements, tim and i put down a temporary bass track. While we were making noise down in the studio, Matt was upstairs churning out a real New Ancients web page. Soon soon. The page will have a lot of album info from the last release that just couldn't fit in the layout, but it's still interesting none the less. Want to see who played what on Light For Dark Eyes? go see http://www.thenewancients.com (when it's done of course).
Ever since working on the last Unsent Letters album "Better Than Beautiful", i've wanted to get my hands on a old, used cello to have at the studio. Aaron Anastasi had a couple guys from Princeton come with him one session who were there to play violin and cello for a song or two and the sound of the recorded cello just knocked me out. Now granted, this guy could REALLY play... but i've always wanted to get one. So lo and behold, this christmas, my parents up and got me a cello. Whew! (They actually rented it for me so i could see if i indeed was up for learning it). Now, i've been playing lots of instruments for a number of years, and sort of consider myself able to pick up pretty much anything and within an hour or so get something on it to sound at least good enough to use in one of our super-densely-layered multitracked indy electro-acoustic songs (in a recorded setting). Not So on a Cello. It is one of the hardest things i've ever tried to play. period. There's no faking it on a cello, thats for sure. after 10 minutes or so i sounded like i was playing a tree saw with a cat stretched between 2 ends of a stick. I did however love the challenge and the reward of "sort of getting it" every once in a while. I decided to keep it and start working at it. That was last week. For this weeks session, my good friend and ex band mate Pete Nilsen came in to do some violin for "Great God" over the top of a cello and bowed double bass part i had written and recorded.
In the old days, i was in a band with Pete and his brother John called Choose This Day, along with Matt Agresti on bass. Pete also played violin for the first Million Time Winner album and did some parts for "Jesus Master" on "Light For Dark Eyes" that never made the final cut. *sniff*. Pete spent last year in Russia studying violin with some sort of Ninjia Violin Masters or something and it showed. We started noodling around (he on his violin and me like an idiot on my rented cello) and everyone in the room just started howling it sounded so awesome. By the end of the night we had what may very well be the sonic pinacle of this recording and we haven't even finished one tune! The parts he arranged were that good. I tell you we will be hard pressed to match the level of intensity he brought to this track on the rest of the recording. Check the videos of Pete warming up.
While Pete wrote out his arrangements, tim and i put down a temporary bass track. While we were making noise down in the studio, Matt was upstairs churning out a real New Ancients web page. Soon soon. The page will have a lot of album info from the last release that just couldn't fit in the layout, but it's still interesting none the less. Want to see who played what on Light For Dark Eyes? go see http://www.thenewancients.com (when it's done of course).
posted by pete at 6:30 AM
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