Hi!
Last month was an exciting one for us, this time working together in Sweden with seminars, workshops, songwriting and planning. We set up these things due to a commission we got initially to hold a seminar together in Stockholm on the 18th of April. Taking care of the opportunity of being at the same location, we then added more activities around the event.
The commission we had was from the Swedish magazine Studio who invited us to be the guests of their recurring event "Producers Seminar", for which we designed a special programme about singing and vocal recording, tailor-made for producers, sound engineers and recording vocalists. We both have a lot of experience from working in the studio, both recording ourselves, being recorded by others and coaching singers for and during studio sessions. From our many hours in the studio, we know that there is a lot of knowledge that can make the work of producers and sound engineers a lot easier and more efficient. It is about several things: understanding how the voice works and the singer's situation, how to communicate to get the desired results, how to chose and use your equipment and much more. There are quite some efficient and concrete techniques that producers can use to help singers in the studio and get really good results even if the producer is not a singer or vocal coach. We combined our knowledge in order to share some of our tips and tools for how to make vocal recording the best it can be.
Part of it was coaching and recording invited singers live. We recorded some parts and then worked quickly tweaking for instance dynamics, vowels, sound colour etc. and recorded new takes. This was especially fun as it became even more evident than usual how much improvement can be achieved and how fast. Usually when we teach in master classes and time passes between the first performance and the coached one, listeners clearly hear a lot of progress, but this time we also had it on tape! We were delighted to hear that the audience chose the tweaked examples every time asked.
Part of it was coaching and recording invited singers live. We recorded some parts and then worked quickly tweaking for instance dynamics, vowels, sound colour etc. and recorded new takes. This was especially fun as it became even more evident than usual how much improvement can be achieved and how fast. Usually when we teach in master classes and time passes between the first performance and the coached one, listeners clearly hear a lot of progress, but this time we also had it on tape! We were delighted to hear that the audience chose the tweaked examples every time asked.
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| Seminar - Live coaching |
Since we had to fit so many subjects in this short seminar we could only share some of our many tools. Many of the subjects we briefly mentioned also contain a lot more interesting and useful information and it was clear there was a great need and interest for more. So we have decided to arrange a longer course for both producers and singers. This workshop will be in Stockholm in the middle of August. Let us know if you're interested in joining!
The weekend following the Producer's seminar Annika was teaching singers at the 4-month singer education at Vocal Soul. Ville joined in a few hours to guest-teach some wonderful singers in the master class. Both this and the producer's seminar were great experiences in teaching together. Ville will return to the subject soon to share thoughts why it is such a good idea to work together with another teacher.
We'd also like to thank the two singers whom so bravely and professionally let us record and coach them live for a big audience at the Producers Seminar. If anyone is looking for a great vocalists we warmly recommend you to ask Åsa Lundman (Nordin) and Herman Gardarfve. Ask us if you need help getting in touch with them and we will assist you.
