Conducting and Recording

You will notice that the level of the music is very low on this clip. This is because it was recorded by the film crew in the studio itself, rather than the engineer’s booth. In the studio many of the players are sequestered into isolation booths or they are positioned behind baffles because of ‘leakage’; which is the sound on one instrument bleeding into the microphone of another. For instance during this piece there is a harmonica solo in the middle and an acoustic guitar solo at the end that is barely audible on the clip, but we are hearing it live at performance level as are the engineers in the booth. By the way, that is why we are all wearing earphones or ‘cans’. This is so we can hear each other and hear each other in ‘real time’ rather than with a time delay because of the separation of the different sections of the orchestra. That can cause a ‘room lag’ and the headphones eliminate that. The cans also are used when we use a ‘click track’ which is a digital metronome to help us stay in sync with a piece of film for timing purposes.

One this particular clip the orchestra is sight reading the piece for the first time and it is also the first time that I am able to hear it played by live musicians; always a special moment for me. At the end of the run-through you will see me point to my ears and that is a signal for the engineer to have the piece racked up so I can hear the playback.