3. The Road To Jersusalem (3:21) $0.99 MP3 (Buy/Download)
This started out as a driving piece with the string work, bass and drums. I knew we were going somewhere but, for the longest time, thought it was Egypt. That made sense because of the middle section which has a sort of caravan feel to it. But as work progressed on the piece it became obvious that the destination was not going to be Egypt. This needed to be a middle track -- so, with a pregnant Mary on either side, an Egypt story would not make sense. But work continued on the track as did my reflection. Eventually it became clear that the journey was from (not, "to" as the title indicates) Jerusalem, as Mary and Joseph make their way to Bethlehem for the census and the birth of their first child.
This piece was recorded between July 30th and early August 2006, with post production completed around August 23. The piece was written pretty much in the order that the movements appear in the song, although there was some overlap. The guitar bit in the last part of the main theme arrived very late and yes, was recorded live - although in post production a few corrections were made. There is also an entire segment that got cut, and will likely show up somewhere in the near future. It's a very new age-jazzy bit that was a lot of fun to do but which really worked against the mood and tone of the piece.
The recording was done using an Apple G4 iBook, a Roland JV-35 synth. Software was Apple's GarageBand, with some enhancement using BIAS PEAK. The strings and woodwinds are from the GarageBand orchestral sound font package, and drums come from the general GB sound font library. No loops were used.
