Be part of a unique Basingstoke Audio Trail!

Local artists and theatre makers Ben Mills (Proteus Associate Artist) and Lydia Thompson (who has and directed previous Proteus Youth Theatre shows) are asking the people of Basingstoke to lend their singing voices to a new audio trail project celebrating the past, present and future of Basingstoke! Read on to find out more in Ben Mills own words…

The Basingstoke Chorus
I’m producing an audio trail called New Mythologies of Basing Stoche (this isn’t a mis-spelling but the name of the project!)- fifteen short stories about the past, present and future of our town.

There’s more information about the project at www.newmyths.co.uk.
One of the stories is a folk song – and for the chorus, we’d like to include some voices of people who live in Basingstoke! You don’t need to be a professional singer or have amazing recording kit – your own voice and a phone to record on should do the trick. (If you have anything fancier
though, go for it!)
You can find a guide track to sing along to (and an example of someone singing along to it) here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/jd7ffypbrcansk1/AAB9MOksDM1V3GhrXudSKH6Ha?dl=0

There’s also the written score, if you happen to read music – but don’t worry if not. You should beable to pick it up from just listening to it. (You are welcome to sing it in a lower or higher octave if that suits your voice better.)
There are two versions of the Chorus. They are very similar – Version A is slower, and Version B is a little faster. Please record two takes of each Version: a soft and a loud take of each one. When you record, make sure that you are wearing headphones to listen to whichever guide track is useful to you – and that the recording isn’t picking up the sound of that (or anything else!) in the background. We just need a nice clean, clear recording of your voice.

Please don’t worry about putting on any kind of formal “concert” voice – your normal voice and accent is perfect for the purposes of the song.
You’re more than welcome to share this with any other Basingstokers who fancy joining in! But please do ask them to record their own tracks, rather than both singing on the same recording. This is necessary for us to mix the audio properly.

We’re on a fairly short timeframe, so we will need recordings by noon on Monday 28th September 2020 in order to incorporate them into the song.
And lastly – please make sure you include your full name so that we can credit you on our website!

Thank you in advance – and if you have any questions you’d like to ask, just email me at: [email protected]
Ben Mills