When you log on to our streaming Sunday service, or when you attend in person, one of the first things you notice is the beautiful music. Somehow we have an organ playing and a choir singing, yet there is no choir or organist present in the church!
The full choir that you hear is a technological marvel that is put together each week by our Music Director James Turner (pictured above) and his wife Claire Turner, usually a soprano in our choir. They have produced music for our streamed services EVERY week since the official shutdown in March. We asked James and Claire to describe how we are hearing such a glorious sound each Sunday. Here is Claire’s description:
Step 1: James heads to church armed with a tripod, his cell phone and a high quality digital recording device (called a Zoom). He practices and records his prelude and postlude using both video on his phone and sound on the Zoom.
Step 2: Practice and record the hymns and anthem, again using video and Zoom. Steps 1 and 2 take approximately six hours.
Step 3:We learn all the parts to the hymns and anthem.
Step 4: We head to the best acoustics in the house -- the garage! We play back the video of the accompaniments to the hymns and anthem (so we can see when to start and stop), using ear buds attached to an iPad. We then use the Zoom to record ourselves singing. We record each part two or three times so that we get the effect of a whole choir instead of just one singer per part.
Steps 3 and 4 take about two hours.
Step 5: James downloads the audio recordings onto the computer and imports them into an editing program called Audacity. He then has to manually line up all eight (or more) voice parts, plus the organ, so that we are all singing and playing at the same time. Then he adjusts the volume of each part to get the perfect balance.
I (Claire) really don’t have the voice range to sing alto so the alto recordings are usually quite quiet and need to be boosted!
Step 5 takes approximately two hours per piece, so for two hymns, an anthem and pre-and postlude that's another ten hours or so.
Step 6: For any recordings that are also posted to Facebook, the sound track created in Step 5, the cell phone video created in Steps 1 and 2, and various photos of the church are pulled together using Adobe Premier Elements.
Step 6 takes another two hours per piece.
Since we both work full time and this has to be fit in "after hours", we go to bed very late in the Turner house!
We at St. Stephen’s are thrilled with the results of this weekly effort, and offer our thanks to the Turners for maintaining this stellar level of music that lifts our spirits throughout this austere period!