Recording

Well folks, it's May 5th. That was a rude awakening. I thought it was the 2nd, or maybe the 3rd, till I checked my phone at lunch. Uncle Keith gets here in three days, bringing with him unknown amounts of non-music activity, and we leave on the 12th, early early. So the 11th will be all packing up. So I have 6 days left. That hurts just to say.

The last week has slipped by quickly with Mike here. It's easy to spend time on the laptop or watching hockey. The deadline to finish the album recording has been increasingly pressuring me, and a lot of days have gone by with not much time spent in the studio.

But here's the thing. I have 9 out of 12 songs for sure done, and two of the remaining three probably done, but with a chance of re-recording them.

The recording is going fantastically!

I've been knocking out two songs a day most days. Walk downstairs, set up a new project in Sonar 2.0, check levels, and 30 minutes later, a new final-quality track is down on the hard drive.
In case it's not obvious, let me say that this doesn't happen normally when I record. That's a big reason I don't spend more time in the studio at home. More often than not my efforts end in frustration and futility, or something that's 80% good, but too hard to get that last 20%, so it's useless.
A lot of the reason for this progress is the type of music I'm working with. These songs are meant to be sung. They live just coming out of your mouth. "Arrangements" are self sustaining even with just a guitar for accompaniment. If I botch a take it's no biggie to re-do the whole thing, or pick up part way through where I messed up. It is truly a delight to work with such excellent songs.

But there's more than that.
I still undoubtedly have the capacity within myself to ruin the recording of even such robust and intrinsically valuable songs. God has to be blessing my efforts. I am playing (i.e. "practicing") the songs, yes, but I get good at playing them faster than my rate of practice. Things are falling into place, and when I'm sitting in front of the mic, with the ominous red "Record" button pressed and destiny hanging in the balance... I'm playing and singing at my best.

God is--at the least--staying the tide of my own self destruction, and allowing me to record these songs in a manner doing justice to my musical abilities and the quality of the songs. I don't take that for granted, and every time I run up the stairs singing at the top of my lungs with another track crossed off the list, I am grateful afresh.

I am really looking forward to sharing these recordings with everybody, and I hope that they can be received and learned and sung with as much joy as I have gotten from them myself.

--JPB