Holiday Wishes: Wyte redefines ‘Drummer Boy’
Written by Jason Mack | | jmack@toledofreepress.comMighty Wyte is sure to test the limits of any subwoofer with “The Mighty Drummer Boy.” His reworking of “The Little Drummer Boy” builds in intensity as the song progresses.
Mighty Wyte
“I arranged it in the linear dynamic fashion and then really just built and built until the mix was pushing the little red lights on the monitors,” Wyte said. “I was hoping to excite the listener with the size of the mix. The idea was to update a classic without straying too far from what made the original so perfect.”
Wyte initially arranged the piece as background for a spoken-word track by Jamie Farr for the “Holiday Wishes” CD. After a fireplace sound effect was used instead on Farr’s track, Toledo Free Press Editor in Chief Michael S. Miller, who compiled the CD, encouraged Wyte to develop the arrangement into a full song. Wyte took advantage of the opportunity and spent an additional five hours developing the track.
“It’s very dynamic, starting out fairly sparse and building to the volume and size it is at the crescendo,” Wyte said. “I just used a very straightforward ascending dynamic. It gets bigger as the track moves forward. In fact, I cut a lot out. We were short on time for the CD and I had full control over that one track, so I cut about a minute out. There were two other movements, but they didn’t really make or break the instrumental so I trimmed it down.”
Wyte was excited for the opportunity to put his spin on a Christmas classic.
“The arrangement and mix was my personal touch,” Wyte said. “Of course the arrangement is my own, but I put my style into the size of the track. I write quite a bit of music for movie trailers, film libraries and independent film companies so I have a good bit of experience creating dramatic pieces. I am a percussive fanatic and the title gave me free license to make a massive interpretation of what ‘Drummer Boy’ could be.”
Tags: Holiday Wishes, Make-A-Wish, Mighty Wyte
