WOAPA cd recording

 

On Saturday 20th October 2012 a momentous occasion, in my opinion, occurred. Approximately 150 adults and children gathered together in the main hall of a local school to record some of their repertoire for a cd. The buzz of excitement in the hall was electric. Looking around at the faces of those present, it was hard to decide who was more excited, the adults or the children. The ages ranged from 4 to 60+. On the stage a table was set up on the left-hand side with the recording equipment and sitting in the chair behind it was the sound engineer tasked with endeavouring to make our amature attempts worthy of the £10 cost of the cd. An awesome responsibility indeed, but he seemed calm as with his headphones on, he played around with the controls.

At last the choir conductor managed to have us all sitting in some kind of order and being reasonably quiet. The young man who is responsible for teaching the kids to sing then led us through a series of warm-up exercises, some of which were hilarious! If I live to be a hundred, I'll never master the art of trilling. for those who are not musically minded, this involves a type of blowing raspberries in a tuneful way and is extremely ticklish!

Finally, drum roll, we were ready to begin recording the first song, 'We Are the World'. Our first attempt was deemed to be too polite and quiet. "It's a Michael Jackson song" said the singing teacher, "let's have some fun with it". The second attempt was met with approval and so we moved on. So the morning progressed, with a mixture of contemporary pop sings being performed along with Christmas songs and songs from musicals.

At one point the adults were told to have a break as the little ones were recording 'I Can sing a rainbow' and a verse of 'We wish you a merry Christmas'. I took the opportunity to have a comfort break and when I returned the entire adult contingent were sitting with tears running down their faces. It was as if there had been some kind of mass hysterical event in my absence. Apparently it was the little ones singing that had reduced them all to tears. I can only hope that the cd will be sold with a box of tissues if this is the effect that it's going to have, especially as one of the songs that the adults are singing is a combination of Sarah McLachan's 'Angel' and 'When she loved me' from Toy Story 2. There has to date, never been a choir practise at which at least one, usually more, choir member has been reduced to tears while singing these songs.

At last, after a long, tiring few hours, we were finished! By professional standards it wasn't very long. But we are not selling ourselves as professional. The whole ethos of the cd is to produce something that mums, dads, granny's and other long-suffering friends and relatives can buy and hear what it is they are sacrificing time with us for. The proceeds of the cd are also being given to the Relay for Life cancer charity as their annual Candles of Hope ceremony had to be cancelled this year due to flooding.

All we need to do now is wait for the sound technician to work his magic and produce a finished product that is worthy of all the hard work of those who run the choir and children's drama workshops.

http://www.witneytv.co.uk/videos/woapa-cd-stars                                                               


Flashmob Granny

P.s. this is the choir who performed the Flashmob!