I got my score for Spem in Alium in the mail yesterday. Lisa called me at work and said, “You have a very large box.” She wasn’t kidding. I didn’t measure the cardboard flat the score came in, but the score itself is 14 inches by 20 inches. Open, it’s 38 inches by 20 inches.
And 40 staves tall. And 120 measures long.
And it hits me. Where the hell am I going to find the time to multitrack 40 vocal parts? At about 70 bpm, four beats to the measure for 120 measures is about 7 minutes per part. That’s 280 minutes, or more than four hours of recording. And how am I going to find that much quiet time in this house?
Man. This is going to be a harder project than I thought.
The score thing really bugs me, though. The only commercially available vocal part is the full score. There are part books available (one book has Choirs I – IV, the other Choirs V – VIII) but only for rent, not to buy.