Original Content London

Following on from my last post about how the music for The Clockwork Quartet gets made, it’s time to talk about the next step: how it gets played.

If you look at the about page of our website you’ll see that the show’s band comprises musicians with a bunch of different backgrounds. Some cut their teeth playing in all manner of other bands, some are classically trained freelance professionals, and some have come from a history in musical theatre. But differences apart, they are all pretty damn good at what they do, and bringing all their influences and experiences together in rehearsals has been leading to some powerful results.

The Three Banjoliers

I typically distribute the parts to each new song a couple of weeks before we plan to rehearse it, in one of our regular intensive 6-hour sessions at Ed’s place in east London. Everyone does what they need to to prep their part, so that we can put the song together and get it on its feet quickly, and then spend time making it more than just the sum of the notes on the pages.

My job during rehearsals is simple: I stand at the front with a big stick that I waggle (the “Fearsome Baton of Authority” was made by Will Segerman out of solid brass, and wielding that thing is doing wonders for my left bicep), and I say to each member of the band variations on: “Great! Now again, but better!” Generally I’m only happy with a song once it’s ready not only to play live (meaning all the parts have to flow together) but also to record (meaning each part has to be completely tight by itself). Once we’ve nailed a song we put it on the list of things to take to the studio and I hand out another set of parts.

We’ve not released anything online in a while, because the venerable Ash is taking the time to get mastering perfect, but today we just finished recording songs 5 and 6 (called “Closer” and “Withering Eyes”, which introduce The Scientist as a character), and there are several more that are ready for the studio. By the end of June we’ll have got all 13 songs in the show/album rehearsed and ready to play, record, and unleash on the world. But of course, the songs are just the beginning…

This entry was posted on 29 April 2009 at 9:36 pm and is filed under The Clockwork Quartet . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.