For the last few weeks I have been working on a project to produce an accompanying CD for a series of books aimed at helping children learn the Treble recorder. I’m sure you’re familiar with the sort of thing – a CD included as part of a book to illustrate how the songs go and also to be used as an aid when practicing.
The brief was essentially two fold. Firstly I was to create and produce a piano / instrumental accompaniment for each of the recorder songs. Having done that, I had to record all the songs to go on the CD with 2 or 3 versions of each – i.e. Treble recorder more prominent to aid learning or just the accompaniment at various speeds to help with practicing and performance.
Due to limited budget the recording was all done in the studio using sampled instruments. In an ideal world I would have preferred to record a real recorder even if the backing tracks were sampled but budget and time constraints on this occasion simply didn’t allow for this. Overall, however the final production certainly stands up against other similar accompanying CDs out there and should definately enhance the value of the book for potential pupils.
[mp3j track=”Flickering-Fire.mp3″ title=”Flickering Fire – Emphasis on Treble”]
[mp3j track=”Dan-Dog-Descant1.mp3″ title=”Dan Dog – Emphasis on Descant 1″]
The author, Heather Ward, is currently looking for a publisher to publish these books with a view to self publishing by the summer if one cannot be found.