Production process – from sketch to final video

Every project starts with a song that makes me wonder how it would sound in a historical style for days on end. When the melody just asks for it, when the text has some nice expressive passages, or simply if I have to laugh at the mere thought. That’s when I know this is something that I want to dig deeper into. From time to time, ideas come to me through students who, mostly joking, pitch me their thoughts directly (e.g. Who Let The Dogs Out), or I scroll through the google document provided to my YouTube community (see the links and resources page).

Usually, I write my composition directly down into finale (still using) and record all the parts afterwards (or have it recorded by a collaboration partner, see people). The recordings are cut together to one track per part, which then undergoes a diligent intonation and timing correction process (using melodyne). Haters will call this cheating or wrongly label it as „autotune“ (if you want to know why this isn’t the same, watch the video essay by sideways). I personally use melodyne as a tool that enables me to make my voice(s) sound blended the best possible way for a project that at its core is a digital product, and I would have very different standards if I was part of an ensemble that performs these arrangements live (see the professional singer paragraph above).

With all parts recorded and the most obvious contrapuntal errors corrected, I turn to my personal sound designer Valentin. Valentin can do a lot of things that I cannot, first and foremost the effortless navigation of a DAW. He can hear many things that I cannot hear, he has an extremely high production standard, and best of all: he is musically literate and knows his music theory (not something one can take for granted from a sound designer). You can find out more about him here: https://schvld.com/ 

When at least a preliminary audio version is produced, I turn towards video shooting. Each part is filmed seperately and then cut together in davinci resolve. For me, the score is the center of the video, the wobbling heads around it serve one of the following two functions. The first one is actually pedagogical: in depicting visual singers, I hope to help viewers understand the structure of the music, for example the imitatory patterns, the use of Cantus Firmus, the exceptional dissonances. The second function is to underline my main philosphy: that – at least – not all of this is to be taken entirely seriously.

Influences and Idols

The number of channels on YouTube with arrangements „in the style of“ is vast, but only very few had a meaningful impact on me and inspired me to do what I do:

• Giovanni Dettori: the godfather of fugues over pop music derived themes, without whom, as far as I can tell, this wouldn’t be its own genre on YouTube.

• Peter Breiner: besides Joshua Riffkin and John Bayless probably the only one who published this style of crossover pastiche in the professional music industry, and he has dedicated four consistent albums to it! Even if his Beatles concerti grossi are not completely stylistically accurate, they have shown me a large spectrum how period inspired compositions can be made and can work in the context of professional concerts.

• Postmodern Jukebox: one of the very few groups that managed to transform a large amount of songs I never liked into all time favourites.  

• Arthur Wilkinson: His „Beatle Cracker Suite“ is probably the best possible form of cognitive dissonance one can be exposed to.

• Next, there is a piece called „Masterpiece“ by the British composer Paul Drayton. As the title suggests, „Masterpiece“ is a modest title for a piece with modest pretentions.

• Florian Wagner: German piano comedian who has a few „how would Beethoven have composed…?“ in his repertoire.

• Ben Comeau and his Donald Trump fugue, for reasons obvious.