The making of "Chamber Pop" (Joel Pelletier, musician, composer and multimedia artist)

The creation of the "Chamber Pop" enhanced CD began around 1992, although a few of the songs on the CD are even older. I began playing with a couple of string quartet arrangements of a couple of songs I had either recently completed or had been performing for a couple of years. The first song I reworked in this arrangement were "Rather Have You," overhauling a string orchestra arrangement I had backing a band version of the song I recorded in 1991. "Hole in the Sky," also originally on the 1991 cassette "Love This Earth," was then done as completely diferent approach from the original band and orchestra part, with a more "classical" feel. Both of these scores were done the "old fashioned way," on score paper at a piano. In late '92 I got my first computer (an Apple Macintosh IIcx), and started learning a sequencer/scoring and audio recording program (Steinberg Cubase Audio). At first I entered in the two songs already completed, and realized they sounded pretty much as I had thought. I had just written "Never Be the Same," and tried scoring the string parts from the computer, although not with much success. As I got more proficient in the program I gave the song a totally diferent, more atonal arrangement (with some chords and melodies based on Alban Berg's piano sonata, a work I played and scored for full orchestra back in college). This was when I realized that I might be on to something.

Not that I was alone. Strings and classical touches to pop has been going on as long as there has been pop music; a few popular songs from the 40's to today are even based on the melodies of famous classical tunes (by Bach, Chopin, etc.). And until sythesizers reared their ugly heads traditional "classical" instruments were used in popular music all the time (what else was there?). Alexander North wrote the music and the arrangement to "Unchained Melody" in between writing classical film scores (including "Sparticus"). Then came George Martin and the Beatles, the fathers of "chamber pop." George took his classical background and fused it John and Paul's pop tradition, creating classics like "I am the Walrus," "A Day in the Life," "Glass Onion," etc. In the 70's Electric Light Orchestra made a string section integral to the sound and image of the band, starting off with a classical arrangement to "Roll Over Beethoven." In general, though, the arrangements were very tonal, based on music and tonality no later that the mid 1800's romantic period. Except for Beethoven, my tastes tend much more towards 20th century neo-classics and modern composers from Stravinsky, Bartok, Hindemith and Berg, and I was only interested in bringing in my classical background if it incorporated these modern elements.

The basic tracks for the album were first begun in 1993 at Sunset Sound Studios in Hollywood, including "Same to You" and "What are You Now?". It would take almost 5 more years (recording both at Sunset Sound and at Sunset Sound Factory) to find the time and money to finish recording the rest of the tracks, including a marathon string session on 13 October 1997. The musicians on the recording included my current band (for almost 4 years now): Chuck Crowe and Dave Hill on guitars and Joe Lizama on drums and percussion. The first session in 1993 featured Lenny Roberto on drums, an old friend from back in the early 80's. I played my usual assortment of basses, as well as most acoustic guitar parts, the piano parts and the violins on "Same to You" (bringing back memories of years of very bad violin playing as a kid).

The songs were mixed in 34 hours between 29-31 December 1997 at Sunset Sound Studios. I wanted a dryer, more natural "chamber music" sound, and was influenced as well by the production work of Mitchell Froom and Tchad Blake. Mastering was done (twice) with Tom Parham in La Habra, with lots of little tweaks and changes made at home on my Apple Macintosh 8100 with a Sound Designer II card. The master was delivered to the duplicator on 23 January, and the first 1000 CDs were delivered on the afternoon of the premier performance and release, 30 January.

The fact that I did not get much sleep over the last 4 months is an understatement. I thought the music part of the CD was the most involved until I got the bright idea of a CD-ROM in 10 languages. I started the CD-ROM in September 1997 using mTropolis, a program I had learned to create a client presentation. I probably redid it 3 times, then tested it on a Windows machine and did it over 2 more times. The translators were found from flyers I placed at a few college campuses in the Los Angeles area. Once I had found willing students it took about 2 monthe of shuttling around LA with my PowerBook, working with them as they translated to help with interpretation of the lyrics. I have learned alot about idiom and what is and is not translatable, and went with the best and closest thing we could come up with at times to get the general meaning of the line.

My goal for the CD-ROM was to have as "natural", universal and non-computer environment as possible (including a custom based on my handwriting) showcasing not only my music but my illustrations, animations and videos. All along I have felt that this project would have a more international appeal, and because of the narrowing of US radio playlists and pop styles figured the United States "music industry" would be the last place that would be interestd in this kind of thing. Since music is a communication art form, and lyrics were integral to the music (if they weren't, I would have just written instrumental "classical" pieces instead), it was important for me to have as many languages represented on the CD-ROM as possible. Hopefully many people from all over the world will have a chance to hear and see my work, which, at the risk of sounding pretentious, is the second most important reason I did it in the first place.

But the main reason was to prove to myself that I could finish a project that I would buy and enjoy myself if it was done by someone else. That was my "market"; we'll see if anyone else feels the same. Regardless, I will continue to create in an attempt to leave pieces of myself scattered about the world.

© 1998 Joel Pelletier
The Way Home Media
Box 1842, Hollywood, CA 90078
email:joelp@wayhome.com
website:www.wayhome.com
Chamber Pop website:www.joelp.org

12 February 1998