Esperanza to live-stream entire composition and tracking session from studio

Interesting. The NYT reports that Esperanza Spalding has talked her record company into a marathon live-streamed session during which she'll compose and track her next album live in studio.

But recently Ms. Spalding, 32, has grown a little wary of her own ambitions, and for her next album, which she announced on Wednesday, she is heading straight to the creative source. Starting the morning of Sept. 12, she will spend 77 straight hours in the studio, bringing with her a few musicians but no pre-written songs. Over those roughly three days, she will write, arrange and record a full-length album, “Exposure,” while streaming the experience live to a web audience. She is aiming to finish 10 songs, most with lyrics.​

 

I admire Esperanza's approach to upright and electric, love her singing, and think she has an interesting take on composition. I'll definitely check out some of it.

I love the idea of making the process and stages of composition and arrangement visible instead of only leaving them masked behind the finished recordings. That said, a 77-hour livestream seems like a weird form in which to share music. On one hand, it brings back to the surface otherwise invisible aspects of the music. But for the audience that would most be surprised by a song's early stages, a livestream this long seems all but inaccessible. Unless the audience is already deeply invested in arrangement and composition, a lot of this will probably be lost on folks—who will watch a few moments and drop out.