I'm Brenda K, Chi's music partner and alter ego, and this is our (or MY) first attempt at getting some objectivity on our music with a view to increasing our placements.
I would be most grateful if you would give me your opinion about our track, "Majesty", available on Chi's profile, that we are about to record as the "anchor track" for our upcoming album.
At this point, all we have is the audio track stripped out of the video of our debut performance in the U.S. in April 2008 (We're from Tokyo), so of course the recording quality is not good, and it's just a "bare bones" live acoustic violin/guitar duo, and for that matter, that was the first time we had ever performed the piece and I had barely learned it at that point. We have since varied the "A-theme" slightly so it doesn't keep repeating exactly the same each time too.
We are working on further developing it substantially, and I have the following questions:
1. Genre-wise, we think it is a pop-rock instrumental. Do you agree/disagree? Any more appropriate genre match, or other genres that would fit? (Perhaps this question should be at the end since my description of what we are planning on doing with it will likely impact the answer.
2. In order to maximize its syncability, how should we "dress" it production-wise? Being a dyed-in-the-wool orchestra player, my natural inclination is to doll it up in a lush string arrangement that would be staged in throughout the duration of the piece, and in fact am even learning to play the cello so I can record those tracks as well as violin/viola. There will also be electric bass and drums (Chi plays both very well), the intro will be doubled on 12-string acoustic guitar, and I'm trying to sweet-talk him into doubling some of the violin leads w/electric guitar at the end. One "exotic guest instrument" that may make an appearance is the bouzouki, and we are contemplating featuring a solo by a virtuoso domra player during the coda, which will give it a "world" spin and add some collaborative capital.
I plan on having a "working draft" available to post within the next couple weeks as I blunder my way through figuring out how to operate our recording gear and do some test tracking before we go into the "real" studio with it. I really appreciate the opportunity to get some peer feedback, and please, if you think the proposed idea(s) for this piece is/are fatally flawed, by all means tell me so, as it would really suck to go to an infinite amount of time and trouble and expense to record something that has no viability.
Oh, and of course your general thoughts about the track as it is are most welcome, as well as suggestions for improving it.
At the Rally this year, I will be homing in on engineering and production-related panels since that is the logical next step for us. Last year it was promotion and PR.
Thanks for listening!
Brenda K
http://www.panacheorchestra (apologies in advance, as our site is undergoing a massive overhaul and presently in an embarrassing state of disarray!)
