Sax School student Steph shares her experience of being part of an awesome Christmas saxophone collaboration with sax players from across the globe.
Steph J, Jayme, Danny, Stephanie A, Hazel and Becky worked together on their awesome multi-sax version of “You’re a Mean One Mr Grinch.” Steph J explains the process.
I was thrilled and honored recently when I received an invitation to play a Christmas song in collaboration with some very talented fellow Sax School members.
Creating an international virtual sax section
The membership of our large Sax School community is very international. So, this Christmas project was representative of that. The six players in our group came together to make music from multiple different time zones around the world, with performers from Australia, the UK, Eastern Canada, California and Mexico. How cool is it that we could all work together from wherever we are in the world to create a fun video to share with family, friends and our fellow sax enthusiasts?
The participants
This project was born two years ago when our team captain, Jayme, was inspired by big band version of the fun Christmas favorite “You’re A Mean One Mr. Grinch”. Earlier this year, she decided that this Christmas was the time to commit to making the project happen and so purchased the score and started planning.
In October she invited some other Sax School students, including myself, to join her on the project.
The lead (vocal part replacement) was taken by a very talented tenor player who plays entirely by ear and memory. He did a fantastic job of creating a unique lead line full of character.
The sax section parts, which were played from the score charts, included a typical sax section of two alto, two tenor and one bari player. I feel really good about how tight we sound considering we couldn’t actually hear each other whilst we were playing. Everyone really focused and did a great job playing in time with the backing track, so that when it was all put together it sounded like we were a real sax section.
We used a backing track from Karaoke-version.com to provide the sense of a full band behind the saxes. Actually, we used several versions of the track, some with a full click track all the way though, so that there was something that worked for everyone in the group whilst they were learning their part. The hard work of putting everything together and learning how to apply audio, video and graphics editing skills was done by our wonderful team captain in consultation with the group.
Communication
Having initially made contact through the Sax School community, we wanted a separate space to talk to each other and develop the project. We started out on the Messenger app, but quickly moved over to the Telegram app, on the recommendation of some members of the group. Telegram is a free app that works on IOS, android and PC. This app has the advantage of providing easy transfer of files and a pinned reference section for documents, pictures, audio and video files, so you do not need to scroll through all the chat to find the important pieces of information, which I found really useful. Other groups I have worked with have also addressed the same issue on other apps/platforms by having two threads – one for general discussion and one for important information about the project that you need to refer back to. I feel both methods work really well.
Learning the music
In November we each started working on our own parts and getting ready to record the audio. We had group discussions about how to handle tricky sections to make sure we would all be doing the same rhythm or articulation and sound tight. We added clicks to the front of the practice track so we would all be able to line up together at the start. In the middle of the song, there was a section that was very free with the tempo and it was difficult to keep track of where you are without a conductor or the ability to see each other. So, we added some voice counts at the crucial spots on a practice track, to help all the sax section players come in together at the right moments.
Recording audio
When we had each learned our own parts, we recorded the audio individually, whilst listening to the practice backing track playing through headphones.There was a variety of software used to record audio for the project, each person using whatever they already had. This included the free software/apps: Audacity on PC, Garageband on Mac or IOS and Dolby On on iPhone (which also works on android).
Each part was then exported in the highest quality possible and uploaded to our Telegram group.
The team captain then took all of the individual parts and layered them up with the backing track and spent, no doubt, a considerable amount of time balancing the sound and making us sound as good as possible together.
Recording video
Next came the video. We had discussions about what to wear, how the finished video might look and suggestions were shared and mulled over by the group. Each person then video recorded themselves playing along with, or miming, to the audio recording we had already made. I think we all used our smartphones for this.
Some people in the group were very experienced with video production and had green screens. Others were just green with regards to this process! I include myself in the latter category.
There are lots of things you don’t realize until you try to make a video of yourself playing. For example, having to stand in a very precise spot to record whilst being able see your music, to reach your computer (to play back the audio) and your phone (to start the video) all whilst “wearing” a (big baritone in my case) sax, takes some practice in itself. In hindsight, it might have been sensible to ask another person to assist.
Your outfit and video set up can have unexpected consequences. For example, sunglasses look cool on the video, but can make it tricky to read your music indoors. The colour that you wear, or the lighting used can cause issues with video editing. When using a green screen behind you to record, any green on the desired image, including a reflection of green tints in lighting from the bell of the sax, can cause an unwanted disappearing act on screen. When recording in front of a plain background, any of that same colour on your outfit can make it difficult for the video manipulation software to isolate you from the background. This makes editing more challenging.This happened to me as the white trim of my Santa hat did not stand out well enough from the white background.
Editing for the final project
For players that recorded without a green screen, the free app Capcut , was used to isolate the player from the video background. This meant the image could be manipulated on the screen in a similar way to those recorded in front of a green screen. We heard about Capcut from another Sax School member, who was not a part of this project.
We all tried to help each other with any difficulties we were experiencing. But in the end when we had all done our best, it fell to our team captain to combine all of our videos with the previously prepared audio, and add some fun graphics and visual wizardry to produce the final product. This took an extraordinary commitment of her time and a steep learning curve to produce our finished video project for sharing.
I was thrilled and humbled by what she was able to achieve, having virtually no experience with video editing myself. This was such a rewarding project to be a part of. And I feel like I made new friends and learned so much by taking part.
Tips for a saxophone collaboration
These are my tips to my future self, and anyone else contemplating this kind of project.
- If you have the time to commit, just do it. It will probably be challenging, but also very rewarding.
- Save, save, save your work with helpful identifiers when you are recording, or doing audio and video editing. It is so easy and so frustrating to inadvertently mess up your hard work, especially when using software you are not very familiar with yet.
- Do a short test recording before committing yourself to recording a full song. You can make sure the mic, camera, outfit, sax etc are positioned correctly and that everything sounds and looks as you intended. I looked terrible on my first video takes and had to try several variations in set up before I was comfortable. I was apparently also not alone in recording what I thought was my best video take, only to realize I had forgotten to put my sunglasses back on and having to go again.
- Make sure you have plenty of time. We were able to finish this project on time despite the challenges of it being the busy time of year in the run up to Christmas; a change in the vision for the final product after viewing the first draft; one player getting a tooth abscess followed by an extraction and not being able to play for a while; players/kids being sick and time spent fixing technical difficulties. For our project, enough time was allowed to still bring everything together on time and have a Christmas collaboration we could be proud and excited to share.
Supportive team
I am so grateful for all the hard work, support and great playing put in by everyone from all around the world that worked so hard on this project. Special thanks to our team captain Jayme for her vision and for giving up so much of her time to make it happen. Lastly, thank you to Sax School for bringing us all together and giving us the inspiration, resources, encouragement and support to be better saxophone players.
I hope you enjoy our finished video. Happy Holidays!
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