Musical Creativity in the Era of COVID-19
- Michael Lu
- Sep 15, 2020
- 3 min read
Despite how COVID-19 has shaken up the music industry over the past several months, I have found this unique era in human history to be a fascinating time where the many hours I spent learning to bring up home studio recording capability and collaborate remotely were well spent.
This year, I am proud to have partaken in two albums that both released several months into the pandemic -- "Love and Happiness" by Tim Be Told (June 19, 2020) and "Kairos" (Super Deluxe Edition) by Jae Jin (August 28, 2020).
"Love and Happiness" -- Tim Be Told
After more than a year of recording strings and collaborating with Timothy Ouyang and Colin Althaus, “Love and Happiness” by Tim Be Told is available on all major streaming platforms!
For this album, I recorded violin and other orchestral instruments for 10 of the 12 tracks (all except “Conquer the World” and “Me To You”). My personal favorites from the album are “Say Whatever,” “Like This,” and “Again.”
In the past, people have asked me about how I develop the string parts and other orchestral components that feature in these tracks. To answer this question, I have included my thought process below for what was going through my head while working on "Love and Happiness" throughout 2019 and 2020.
It is first important to understand both the content of the lyrics and the desired emotional response intended with each song. Tim Be Told gave me a wonderfully wide degree of freedom to create the strings for this album. Oftentimes, I receive tracks with only a rough cut of vocals, piano, guitar, bass, and drums to work with. I then compose and record string parts in sections of the song where I feel that strings not only help support the vocals, but also elevate the music to where it should emotionally be. Once recorded, I sent all my newly created strings/orchestral tracks to Tim Be Told, where he then proceeded to add them to the final mix of the track.
Below are considerations I took while developing the strings for various tracks in the album:
For songs with lots of instrumental voices already present, such as "Say Whatever," "To See the Light," "Word You Mean." and "Again," I created 3-4 unique string parts and recorded each one multiple times to create a warm string ensemble to accompany the vocals and detailed guitar background.
For "Robe and Chalice" with heavily illustrative lyrics, I used strings, woodwinds, brass, and symphonic percussion tracks to create the effect of a movie soundtrack.
For "Like This" with exposed and vulnerable lyrics, I used a simple string quartet with only one instrument per part to minimize the complexity of the track while also expressing the intimacy of the pain expressed within the song. A similar effect was created for other expressive songs such as "Time Stopped," "Grace," and "California."
"Kairos" (Super Deluxe Edition) -- Jae Jin
This album is a re-release of Jae's 2015 album "Kairos," with an expansion from the original 10 tracks to 31 tracks. Though I contributed strings to the original album release ("Running, "Wild Creatures," and "All Caught Up"), it was just the first time we worked together professionally.
Over the past five years, our musical relationship has grown much closer, with Jae inviting me to contribute violin to a large number of tracks in his 3rd album, "Letters and Drinks" (2018).
For "Kairos" (Super Deluxe Edition), many songs from the original "Kairos" album were re-imagined in multiple different versions. For the Super Deluxe Edition, I created orchestral and violin instrumental versions for "Moons and Stars" and an orchestral arrangement to accompany the original tracks of "Chemo Song" and "Amen."
I am hopeful the music from these two albums serves as both a comfort and joy for you to listen to!
At this time, it is still uncertain when things will go back to normal. However, I am optimistic that, thanks to the creativity borne out of the social-distancing restrictions from this pandemic, a new wave of musical creativity is on the cusp of breaking through!
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