The Goal

To record a few pieces of music, where I sing or play all the parts.

Why?

Most recently I blame The Piano Guys for producing awesome videos involving duplications of Steve the cello player, such as Cello Wars, the Cello Song, and particularly Rockelbel’s Canon.

I’ve always liked the idea, though, ever since Dad showed me what he’d done with the fancy recording features on his electric keyboard.

Yet another influence is Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major, which I’ve loved listening to for years. My main instrument is the piano, not a violin or viola, so I haven’t played the piece with a group. I have found a few arrangements for piano, but it’s just not the same.

And finally, I believe sound recording would be a useful and interesting skill to learn. I enjoyed a course I studied many years ago, and I have a few friends who deserve their own CDs.

Progress so far

Last week, I bought a cheap microphone and an adapter to connect it to my laptop. I’ve also researched a free online sound recording software package, called Audacity, that looks good.

The plan from here is to download and install Audacity, and make a few test recordings with the microphone. If/when that works, I’ll try recording Canon in D on the piano: first recording the bass line, then recording the melody line. There shall be much abuse of copy/paste!

After that, I’ll work out which pieces to record next and how to upload them on YouTube and embed them in a future blog post.