Recording: Days 12 and 13 (The End of the Beginning...)

I find myself in a bit of a philosophical mood as I write this journal entry for Days 12 and 13 of my recording session, which are my last for this first phase of the project. Actually, we made much more progress than either Ben or I expected; we had planned on using the full two weeks to simply work on my guitar and vocals, but instead were able to spend one full day earlier this week working on overdubs of background vocals and violin (with Elana Arian), and the last two days working on guitar overdubs in Ben’s NYC studio.

Ben’s NYC studio space is small – just one room – and full of recording equipment of all kinds. I’ve never been much of a “gearhead”, myself, so I really have no idea what all the stuff does…that’s what I hire a producer for, anyway. Here's a picture from the studio, and a small sampling of the gear.

In one dimly-lit corner under a little nondescript table lamp, sit Ben’s two Grammy Awards. The placement of these most sought-after objects speaks to the sort of person Ben is – understated. For someone with his experience, he’s a real pleasure to work with.

So, on Wednesday and Thursday, Ben picked me up at the Ridegwood house, and we commuted by train to his studio in the city. Once there, we met up with one of Ben’s preferred studio guitarists, Billy Masters. Billy had brought along a whole slew of stringed instruments: an acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, a baritone electric guitar (they called it a “bari”), and a tiple (a fun little instrument that sounds a lot like a mandolin), as well as a couple of other instruments we didn’t get around to playing during our time together. As for the recording process, it was very free-form, and extremely unplanned. Billy didn’t even really listen to the mixes we sent him beforehand; instead, Ben would pull up a song mix on his system, and play it for Billy, and Billy would throw out some ideas for instruments that he “heard” on the tune. Ben would chime in with his thoughts, and then, to the extent that I had a “vision” for the song, I’d try to share that, with varying degrees of clarity or success.

This raises an issue that I’ve discovered is endemic to the recording process, at least for me (and I’m guessing for others who don’t have either extensive recording experience or classical musical training); namely, how to communicate your desires to your producer/musician. Someone much smarter than me should write a book on the subject for folks like me, who have a hard time translating what we’re hearing inside our heads into English words that will convey the meaning to those folks who have to play and record the sound. It may sound silly at first, but it actually can be quite frustrating, especially when I hear something in my head, and can’t seem to get the player to understand what I’m asking for. This frustration became quite real for me on our first afternoon together, when we started working on Walking In Memphis. As I’ve mentioned in earlier blog entries, I’ve had to work very hard to create an arrangement of Memphis that is sufficiently different from Marc Cohn’s original (which Ben produced) that will make Ben feel excited enough about the song to let me put it on the album. The problem with that, of course, is that at this stage, neither of us has a clear sense of the direction that the song should take (other than that it shouldn’t sound like the original). Should it be a laid-back, vibe-y acoustic piece? A bluesy tune? A rock song? Or perhaps a hip-hop, hair-band, power ballad? While I know that you all are probably clamoring for the latter (“Dude, it’s ‘Bon Jovi’ meets ‘Ludacris’!. You'll love it"), when Ben and Billy started playing around with their ideas for the tune, it was clear that they were leaning towards the first approach. Which was all fine, except that I didn’t like it. This was the first time that that has happened during my work with Ben, but I know from my experience recording my first album that it’s not at all unusual. If you have a good producer, he’ll talk about his ideas, but then will ask you what you think, and do his best to give it to you (unless he thinks that your idea sucks, in which case a good producer will tell you so). From the moment Billy started playing over the song, it was clear to me that this song needed more of a “rock” feel. I felt it was begging for it, and I could hear it in my head. But I was having a very hard time conveying to Billy the exact sound that I was looking for. Finally, after an hour of fraying nerves and general frustration, I was finally able to express my need to him in a way that he could really understand (“grok”, if you will)…I told him I wanted to hear him play “an electric guitar part that sounded like Edge from U2”. Something “edgy, but uplifting and aggressive”. THAT, Billy grokked. He turned on the electric’s delay, and played these crisp, high, notes in tight circular forms that, from first listen, felt just perfect for the tune. Ben really got into it, too, and I was absolutely jazzed by the time we finished up the day. Here's a short vid clip of us working on adding Billy's electric guitar part (don't worry about the volume of the vocal and other instruments, it's not a real mix):

The best thing about that experience – which was then repeated several more times over the course of the following day – is that I’m learning to trust my instincts about what I’m hearing in my head with respect to a song, and sharing those thoughts with the player (and the producer). As you might imagine, I've often felt a bit outclassed by the incredible musical talent I’ve assembled for this project. I’ve always seen myself as more of a lyricist, and less of a “real artist” - hell, I don’t even know how to read music! So the idea that I could somehow have something valuable to add to this process beyond providing the words and the melody always struck me as a bit presumptuous. But this is my project, after all, and I want a finished product that I can be really excited about…so I’m learning to let go of my little inferiority complex, and speak my mind. It’s exhilarating to find that, more often than not, my instincts are right on the money. I guess I really am an artist, after all. ;)

These two weeks have gone by so fast. It seems like it was just yesterday that I was arriving in New Jersey...an emotional wreck, with fourteen songs to sing and play. Now I’m flying home to SFO, exhausted, still very emotionally raw, but excited to feel like I’ve got the foundations of a really good record in place.

Over the coming months, I’ll be going out to NYC several more times to continue adding instruments. The travel is a pain, but I’ve learned that it’s totally worth it to be there during the creative process, so I’m going to try to be there for as much I can. There’ll be drums, bass, cello, more guitars, and certainly some other stuff that we haven’t thought of yet…we’ll know more as the songs start to take shape. I’ll post periodic blogs during that time, and post more rough mixes as I get them. In the meantime, I’m going to work on getting more people to join the website mailing list (which I’ve found is a far superior way to communicate with folks than on Facebook). Please do encourage your friends who you think would enjoy my music to sign up!

Thanks so much to each of you for coming on this journey with me. It’s been so much fun to be able to put these blog entries together…I especially enjoyed it when folks posted their thoughts, comments, or questions, or wrote to me directly to check in. Please do keep the posts and emails coming!

I’ll speak with you again in my May newsletter. Until then, have a wonderful spring – and THANKS FOR LISTENING!

Steve

Recording: Days 10 and 11 (with a NEW SONG to listen to)

The past two days have been a lot of fun. Ben, as it turns out, in addition to being a grammy-winning producer, is also quite the piano player…so he’s put on his “musician” hat over the last couple of days, and we’ve been overlaying piano tracks onto some of the songs. Here’s a very short video clip of him playing (you won’t be able to hear the song he's playing to, unfortunately, since it’s playing in his headphones, but you’ll get the idea):

One of the songs he added piano to was Lullabye for Zoe, a song I wrote to honor a very close friend of mine who passed away nearly three years ago. Mark was only 33 when he died of complications from a cancer that was discovered too late, and he left behind his wife Maytal, and their baby daughter Zoe (pictured with Mark). I wrote the song as a lullabye, being sung from Mark (wherever he may now reside) to Zoe, to help her sleep during those times when she feels frightened or alone. Ben’s piano additions were lovely, and as I listened, I found myself crying…with sadness at the loss of my close friend, but also with a bounding joy…almost as if Mark were here, listening, and smiling at some new beauty that he helped bring into the world. I still miss him terribly.

A fun moment from today’s session was when we were re-recording the vocal for Only Always. Ben’s son Cameron is also a musician, and he’s stored a bunch of odd instruments in the basement, including a xylophone, which Ben had brought up earlier in the day to show me. After we recorded the vocal for Always, as we were listening through, I started noodling around on the xylophone…and the sound was pretty cool! So we wound up using it on that song, as well as one other. I have no idea whether it’ll stay in the mix by the time we reach the final cuts, but the experience really serves to highlight how much fun this process can be.

Finally, at my request, Ben put together a rough mix of If I Were a Book for me to post for you. This mix has my vocal and guitar, along with Ben’s piano and Elana’s violin. While nowhere near the finished product, I think you’ll agree that it’s a big change from the original, bare-bones vocal-and-guitar mixes I’ve been posting to this point. You can listen to it by clicking HERE. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

That’s all for now. Since today was my last day of singing on this trip, I’m going to be going out tonight and enjoying some (or all) the things that I’ve had to forego for the last month because they’ve been bad for my voice: alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and dairy products. We’ll see how well I do with moderation… ;)

Enjoy the rest of your day…and THANKS FOR LISTENING!

Steve

Recording: Day 9

I can’t believe I get to do this! This is the coolest thing ever.

So today, I got to relax and let someone else do the singing for a change. Ben invited Elana Arian, a singer/songwriter in her own right who tours regularly with Catie Curtis, to come and do background vocals on some of the songs. Elana also plays violin (or is it fiddle? I never know the distinction – perhaps someone can tell me. My guess is that if it’s a classical tune, it’s a violin, and if it’s down-home country, y’all – it’s a fiddle!), and we got her to play on some songs, as well. She was great to work with on all fronts; very talented, creative, and genuinely nice. I’m sure we’ll have her back for some additional songs later in the process.

The thing that really stuck out about the whole of today’s experience is also probably going to be the hardest to describe, or to put into words. I’m a songwriter, right? I hear nuance in lyrics and lyrical structure, I hear basic melodies, but that’s really it. Beyond that, the world of music is a mystery to me. Ben? He hears EVERYTHING. With only the guitar and vocal tracks as a baseline, he guided Elana to try so many different vocal and instrumental options, ideas, etc…so many iterations, in so many different styles, just to see what worked and what didn’t…and while he was often quick to discard things that weren’t working for him, he was just as quick to seize on an idea, no matter how seemingly small, and tease it out until it became a core part of the song. I have no idea how he does it. I have no clue how he hears the things he does, or how he came by this ability to work within this realm with such consummate skill. It’s like a black box to me; it’s like magic. All I can do is sit back and appreciate it, and let him know my opinion when I have one. I can feel around the edges, so when I have strong feelings one way or the other about an approach, I voice it…but often, I find that I am simply trusting that Ben “hears” what is best for the project, and giving him lots of room for discretion. Given his pedigree, it seems like the wise course.

Tomorrow we’ll spend the day adding Ben’s piano parts to a bunch of songs. At the end of the day, I hope to have another rough mix that I’ll be able to share with you, showing you a song which at that point will contain background vocals, violin, and piano (in addition to my vocal and guitar takes, of course).

That’s all for now. I LOVE to see your thoughts, comments, and questions – whether on Facebook, or directly in the Blog – so please do let me hear from you! It’s great to feel connected, especially with the 3,000 miles distance separating me from so many people that I love. Thanks for being there, and THANKS FOR LISTENING!

Steve

Recording: Days 5-8 (with VIDEO CLIPS of the recording of Walking in Memphis!)

I am, once again, exhausted and drained as I write this. It’s pretty much a good exhausted and drained, though – the last four days have been full ones, with many evenings taken up as well, which is why I haven’t posted a blog entry for a while. So - where do I begin?

Wednesday was a picture-perfect spring day in Northern New Jersey. We weren’t starting in the studio until noon, since Ben, in addition to being a grammy-winning producer, has started a yoga studio in town and teaches there several times a week. Wednesday morning was one of his teaching times…so I decided to take advantage of the extra time by sleeping in a bit, and then trying out a fancy-schmancy gym that Ben had mentioned. I’ve been going to a really basic little gym here in town – I got a promo deal where I get 2 weeks’ access dirt cheap – but I’d heard interesting things about this other place, eponymously (and presumably not modestly) named “The Gym”. I took some absolutely beautiful back-country roads to get there…I got lost a bunch of times, but have some wonderful photos to show for it...

The area I drove through is called “Saddle River”, and after looking it up on Craigslist, it looks like homes there run around $2 million. While I question the need for 62 bathrooms in a 6-bedroom house, I suppose these New Jersey folks know what they’re doing. Maybe they drink a LOT of water during the day, or have really small bladders.

Anyway, the drive over to The Gym was gorgeous. Once at The Gym, the eye was accosted by any number of well-appointed housewives with fake…well, EVERYTHING…who were all coiffed and made up for their journey to personal wellness. How they can sweat in all that makeup, I’ll never know. Anyway, The Gym was clearly a place to see and be seen, but the equipment wasn’t much better than at my little, messy gym. That said, The Gym did have two things to recommend it: a bevy of masseuses waiting to knead your tired muscles (which I took advantage of a couple of days later), and the best friggin’ shower I’ve ever seen.

So. Ben and I worked on two songs on Wednesday – a cover of a punk song called Anything, Anything, and one of mine called We Both Know. They both turned out well enough…I was especially pleased with the punk cover. A free clip of the original tune can be found HERE, if you’re curious; I’ve stripped it, slowed it down, and made it an acoustic piece that’s really pretty cool (if I do say so myself). One thing about recording in someone’s suburban house, though, which I guess stands to reason but still caught me by surprise…you have to stop recording whenever the next door neighbor mows his lawn (which appears to happen daily at noon around here), or (as happened Wednesday) the neighbor across the street hires a company to use a power washer to strip the paint from his exterior walls. The microphones Ben uses are really, really sensitive, which means that all that noise bleeds onto the vocal and guitar tracks. So we had to take a series of breaks during the worst of it.

Wednesday evening I took Ben and his girlfriend out to dinner at Varka, their favorite restaurant in town. They have all sorts of fresh-caught seafood that they put out on ice for you to choose from. If you pay them extra, they will liberate the lobsters they have tied up, alive, on the ice. OK, that last part isn’t true, but I wish it were…it just seems so cruel to leave the poor guys alive and aware until some schmuck decides he wants to eat it.

The next day (Thursday) we recorded two more songs, I Do and If I Were a Book. On Friday I went back to The Gym for a morning massage, and Ben and I spent the rest of the afternoon recording Only Always. My voice was not at all strong on Friday, so I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to re-cut those vocals another time. Blech. Overall, though, my voice has been getting stronger…it’s just allergies that are giving me trouble at this point, and I’m hoping that some new remedies suggested by Facebook friends will do the trick for that (Alavert and a mullein tincture seemed to work pretty well today). Friday evening I went and visited an old friend of mine, Steve Sirbu, and his family in Teaneck (about 10 miles away). I’ve known Steve for a long time…we went to the same Jewish summer camp as kids (Camp Swig), and we roomed together for a while in college…he’s a rabbi now, and he invited me to come to services, and teach a song as well, which was lovely (I taught the congregation Debbie Pinto’s version of Oseh Shalom, for those of you who follow such things).

Today we recorded our final song – a cover of Walking in Memphis. I saved this song for last for several reasons. First and foremost, you should know that Walking In Memphis was the song that launched Ben’s career back in 1991, when he recorded the original with Marc Cohn (they won a Grammy for their efforts), so I had to do a LOT of cajoling to get him to even entertain the thought of working with me to cover the tune. Ultimately, he agreed to work with me on it, provided that he reserved the right to determine whether the song ultimately gets put on the album. With that in mind, I really wanted to impress him with an arrangement that felt new and, most importantly, sufficiently different from the original that he would be excited about it. To that end I’ve been working on a new arrangement on my own for the last few evenings, and when I finally shared it with him this morning, I was thrilled to see that he was really starting to get into it.

Many of you have expressed interest in seeing how the whole process of arranging and recording a song works, and thanks to my video camera, I'm finally able to share that process with you. The first video clip is about 30 minutes long (video quality is low so I could fit it all on the blog, but the audio is good), and shows Ben and I creating a new arrangement of Walking in Memphis:

The second video clip is short...a little glimpse into the recording process:

And in the third clip, you can watch as a very rough version of the recorded song takes shape!

With the basics of all 14 songs now recorded, and a female vocalist coming in tomorrow to do background vocals on several songs, we spent the rest of the afternoon listening to the songs and creating “rough mixes”. This involves Ben marrying a vocal track to a guitar track, adding some limited effects, and adjusting the various levels so that it sounds halfway-decent. I already posted one example for you earlier this week – a rough mix of a song called Wherever You Are (click on the link, and then the song title, to listen); I’ve posted another rough mix tonight for you to listen to, called Hearts in the Graveyard (just click on the song title to listen). We then sent the rough mixes to our female vocalist, so she can listen to them and do some prep work. I’ll look forward to posting an updated mix or two, with her vocals included, in my next blog installment.

That’s all for now. I LOVE to see your thoughts, comments, and questions – whether on Facebook, or directly in the Blog – so please do let me hear from you! It’s great to feel connected, especially with the 3,000 miles distance separating me from so many people that I love. Thanks for being there, and THANKS FOR LISTENING!

Steve

Recording: Day 4 (this time, with MUSIC CLIPS!)

Tired, tired, tired after the end of another full day of recording. I’m thinking my little “fondue experiment” last night didn’t go over so well for my voice; from now on I’m going to have to stay away from milk products (they tend to make my throat phlegmy)...at least until my vocal stuff clears up. I’ll be spending the evening drinking hot tea, as well as sipping a special concoction that my acupuncturist suggests is good for someone with allergies…it’s chicken stock, mixed with fresh garlic and ginger. And if that doesn’t work, I may elect to try some of the more, shall we say, esoteric sore throat remedies – like the “GuggleMuggle” that my Israeli friends David and Judy suggested. I’m guessing I won’t be trying my high school friend Bill’s recipe…in his words: “Mix Lemon Juice, Tequila, and Honey, and drink as warm as you can. Either your throat will feel better, or you won't care!”

Probably true. ;) As Homer Simpson says… “To alcohol! The cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.”

In yesterday’s installment, I told you that I’d be posting a video clip of Ben’s rework of the song Wherever You Are. Well, due to some very strange malfunctions with my video camera, I will not be able to follow through on that promise…the best part of the session appears to have been lost. To make sure this doesn’t happen again, I’ve gone to Best Buy and gotten a bunch of 8GB memory cards…one or two cards per day should do it, and should ensure that I don’t mysteriously “lose” any video again.

Since I couldn’t give you what I promised, though, I figured I’d do one better. Remember how I told you that we made some pretty substantive structural changes to Wherever You Are? Well, I’ve included a link to a video clip of me performing the original version of the song – just click on the video box to watch it.

Then, once you’ve watched that, click HERE and click on the "Wherever You Are: New Version" clip to take a listen a rough mix of the song, as revised. Ben and I threw this together this evening, so that you all could listen to what we’ve been working on. Remember, it’s just basic guitar and vocals for now – there are no other instruments or voices, so there’s lots of empty space…and no real production work has gone into the tune, so it’ll sound very raw and unfinished (including the vocal, which is quite rough in places). This is the baseline that we’ll be working from to create the finished product. If we’re lucky, I’ll be able to share the various incarnations of this song with you as we go through adding other instruments, vocals, and production qualities. Let me know your thoughts! Which version do you like best, and why?

Today we worked on two more songs – Close Your Eyes, which we’ve changed to be titled Lullabye for Zoe, and a song called Boats. Both seemed to go fairly well, although Ben and I had some disagreements initially over the treatment of the Zoe piece. We’ll see what happens with those issues as we move further down the road with production. Tomorrow we’ll be working on a cover of a punk song (Anything, Anything), and one other song to be determined by how strong my voice feels.

That’s all for now. I LOVE to see your thoughts, comments, and questions – whether on Facebook, or directly in the Blog – so please do let me hear from you! It’s great to feel connected, especially with the 3,000 miles distance separating me from so many people that I love. Thanks for being there, and THANKS FOR LISTENING!

Steve

Recording: Days 2 and 3

I am indulging in cheese fondue before dinner at Winberie’s, a cool little restaurant in Ridgewood. The weather here today has been picture perfect – bright blue sky, weather in the mid-to-high 60s – everyone was outside, enjoying the springtime. I was able to get out a bit during the day today, taking a drive through the country to get to the local Apple store (I needed to get a new external hard drive to offload all the video I’m taking). How do you know you’re in the Tri-State area? Ultra-Orthodox Jews scoping out MacBooks at the Apple Store. Maybe if I go to Philly, I could find an Amish fellow at an Apple store…that would be a funny experiment, trying to find and photograph the most incongruous people at Apple stores…but I digress.

As a California boy born and bred, I’d always had the impression that the entirety of New Jersey was the brick, stone, and grey skies of Newark and Trenton, and that everyone here sounded funny. I was half right. This part of Jersey is full of green hills, rolling farmland, back-country roads, lovely tree-lined streets with cute little houses…not quite pastoral, but it’s still hard to believe that these little towns – they’re called villages, actually – sit within an hour’s train ride to Manhattan. I’m guessing that most people commute into the city from here…maybe anyone who reads this who is from the Jersey area can help set me straight.

Days 2 and 3 have flown by. Yesterday I went to the gym in the morning, and then we started work on a song called Wherever You Are. Again, we began with the arrangement process – but unlike the first two songs, where Ben had relatively little to say, he had some changes to propose to this one. Major changes. (Gulp.) Keep in mind that I’ve written and rewritten this song at least a dozen times to get it to where I liked it (I’m not kidding about the dozen times, btw), and that I happen to know that this song is a favorite of many…so I was more than a bit apprehensive when he started to make some suggestions for changes. Ultimately, I think the song turned out better than before. I’m creating a video clip of the process we went through to modify the song, because I think it is by far the most interesting thing that happened yesterday, and I’m guessing that a lot of you may be interested in watching it. I'll provide the link soon - hopefully in my next installment.

Later in the afternoon we recorded a second song (You’re Gonna Find Someone), and then I put on the good jeans to meet my friend Leslie and her new fiancée for dinner. It was so nice to relax a bit with an old friend. I realize now that I totally should have taken a picture of us all for the blog, but I forgot…so here’s a picture of Leslie and Paul that I’m certain they’ll love to know is posted for all to see.

This morning, after a short walk around the neighborhood, we worked on Hearts in the Graveyard. No major arrangement changes this time, and the recording went well. Then came my noontime jaunt to the Apple store for my hard drive. One more thing about driving out here in this part of Jersey – they appear to have a strong aversion to street signs. It’s a lot like my years in Boston, where directions basically amount to “turn Right at the big tree stump, Left at the blue house…you know you’re getting close when you pass the Citgo sign and the broken streetlamp. If you pass the big farm with cows, ayuh, you’ve gone too far”. Check out a really funny SNL skit on the subject here (transcript only - couldn't seem to find it on video). Needless to say, I got lost several times on the way to the Apple store (which, for reference, was only 5 miles away). No, I still won’t get a GPS – you find more interesting stuff when you get lost, anyway. Once I got back, we attacked a song called Halls of Your Heart, which proved to be incredibly challenging. Not too many changes to the arrangement, but playing the guitar part of the song is very hard on my fingers…my fingertips were burning by the time we finally finished. My voice was getting pretty tired by the end, but I think I’m noticing a bit of improvement…hopefully I’ll get stronger as I go.

Ben is starting to talk about having a couple of folks come in to do background vocals and guitars the beginning of next week…I’ll keep you posted. Much will depend on whether we’re able to keep up this pace of recording two songs a day (which is really a lot).

That’s all for now - feel free to post comments or questions, or things you’d like to know more about. Thanks for being there, and – as always – thanks for listening!

Steve

Recording: Day 1

Day 1 is successfully in the books. I’m now sitting in a Charley Brown’s restaurant in the next town over, typing this blog entry and watching all the old people (and there are LOTS of old people – maybe this is where they gather before they move to Florida). I am spent. To go into all the reasons why, and how it impacts the recording process, requires a bit of context….and, since you’re reading this blog, I am going to assume that you have enough interest in what’s going on inside of this strange, strange head of mine to indulge me as I give a little history.

The last month has been very difficult for me…mostly because my relationship with a beautiful, wonderful woman who I care for deeply came to an end, which has left me feeling devastated and lonely as I try to pick up the pieces. The drain of that experience has taken its toll on my voice, as well as my psyche; last week I started to come down with a cold, which left my voice weak and scratchy. Then, to add insult to injury, yesterday I learned that my father - who has been battling a very aggressive form of prostate cancer since 2007, and had recently completed a successful round of chemotherapy – was informed that his PSA (the marker for the cancer) has started to rise again. Without going into more detail, I’m feeling tremendously emotional, fragile, vulnerable, and raw right now, and my voice is nowhere near 100%.

So, it's fair to say that I was feeling spent long before I began working with Ben this morning. We’re recording at Ben’s home in Ridgewood, NJ, where he’s set up his living room and dining room as a home studio. It’s a cute little house, very quiet, and I get to stay here for this entire first trip…it’s really very nice, for lots of reasons…no commute, of course; no need to pay the unbelievable hotel prices in NYC; and, because Ben is staying with his girlfriend who lives a couple of miles away, I’ve got the whole place to myself when we’re not recording. It makes the recording process feel much more relaxed, as opposed to the more rushed, intimidating feeling that’s common when recording at a studio. Plus, Ben has a cute little Koi pond in his backyard, which is very relaxing.

A bit of background on Ben Wisch. For those of you who don’t know him, he’s a fantastic producer and engineer who has worked with some of my favorite singer/songwriters over the years, including Marc Cohn (Ben produced Marc’s grammy-winning, self-titled album which contained the hit song Walking in Memphis), David Wilcox, Patti Larkin, Christine Kane, Catie Curtis, and others. Ben mastered my first album, Very Fine Line, and I was thrilled when he expressed an interest in producing this entire second album.

So. This morning, I got up, had a piece of toast, went to the gym, and then went shopping at the local Whole Foods to load up on all the stuff a recording singer/songwriter needs…tea, aloe juice (a new addition, thanks to Leah S.), a bunch of fruit, and some food to nosh on for lunch. I headed back over to Ben’s place, made a sandwich, and sat out by the koi pond on the crisp spring morning and waited for Ben to arrive. He came over at around 11:30, and we spent an hour talking about the project, and how my current emotional state might affect things (both positively and negatively).

We decided to take things slowly today, and try to get one song done. For each song, Ben and I first sit down in his dining room – he’s got his piano set up there – and after I play the song for him, we talk about the song’s arrangement. For those of you non-musicians, an “arrangement” in this context means the form and structure of the song. Should there be an instrumental intro or outro? Should there be an instrumental part in the middle of the song (usually after the bridge), and if so, how long should it be? Are there any elements of the current song structure that don’t make sense, or that could be improved upon? He also takes the opportunity to play along on the piano, and brainstorms ideas for possible approaches for including other instruments. It’s really cool how he works, actually, coming up with all sorts of ideas and possibilities…it’s very much a “black box” to me, but I’m finally getting to the point in my musical career where I’m able to understand most of his suggestions, and sometimes even make a few of my own.

So, as I said, we started with one song. I had expected that song to be Sleep of the Dead, which not only mirrors my mood but also has a vocal range suitable for the Tom Waits-ish voice I’ve got today. When I sat down to play and sing a bit, though, I was pleasantly surprised by the apparent strength of my voice. So, I pulled out a different song - Gone on You - and played it for him. It was clear that we were in a nice groove with the tune – I was really feeling it, and Ben really liked my arrangement of the song – so we decided to give it a go.

Once we finish the “arrangement” discussion for the song, Ben goes over to his computer setup, and I go over to my chair, which is surrounded by microphones – one for my voice, and one for the guitar. I feel kind of like a cyborg, attached to all those wires and stuff, and unable to move for fear of nudging anything out of place. We then spend some time figuring out the “tempo” for the song – the number of beats per minute - and Ben sets up a “click-track” on his computer to help keep time. It’s essentially a fancy metronome that I can hear through my headphones, and that I am supposed to keep time with when I play the song. The reason that’s important is because we’re ultimately going to have lots of other instruments playing on each song, including drums and bass, and they need to have a clean, clear, tight line to play to. The more my tempo meanders, the more difficult it is to work in the drums in such a way that the finished song sounds good. Playing a song to a “click-track” can be challenging, though; especially when, like me, you’re used to performing songs live and without a drummer backing you up. So that part took some time to get right, but is was very gratifying once I finally got it. Then I play the song the whole way through, and all the data gets stored into Ben’s computer setup in digital form…each in a different “sound-wave” file format that Ben can review and modify. It’s really cool.

Then, we go back and re-record the vocal and the guitar parts again – this time separately, several times over – so that Ben has lots of different options of digital files to choose from. The process of digital song creation is much more a “cobbling together” of the best parts of a variety of takes than it is trying to capture a coherent, perfect whole in one take. I’m guessing it’s a lot like modern moviemaking. In that way, the computer actually takes a lot of pressure out of the recording process. I don’t have to perfect all the way through (although that’s something I always strive for); instead, Ben can pick and choose the best bits of different tracks, and paste them together to create a seamless whole that sounds like it was all done in one take. I won’t tell anyone if you won’t. ;)

So, that’s what we did with Gone on You, until my voice started to give out. It’s a very challenging song, vocally – there’s a lot of range, and full-voice singing involved – and my voice isn’t strong enough to handle multiple takes yet. So we took what we could, and hopefully later in the week my voice will be strong enough to give the vocal another try.

The good news is that, even if I’m not in great voice on this trip, we’re getting the guitar parts and arrangements down. I can always come back out again and re-record the vocals to my satisfaction.

We took a short break, after which I felt strong enough to give Sleep of the Dead a try. What a good, good decision. :) That song is at the low end of my range anyway, with a very raw, emotional feel at its core…and it was just right for my throaty, scratchy voice today. We got the whole thing done, with a bunch of cool takes for both vocal and guitar.

By the time we finished up on Sleep of the Dead, it was 6pm – time to call it a day. I’m exhausted, physically and emotionally, but satisfied that I gave it my best today, and that I was able to come up with some really strong performances. Hopefully my voice will be stronger tomorrow, and I’ll be able to venture into some songs with a greater dynamic range.

I am videotaping the entire recording experience, by the way, and intend to create a “making of” video… I’ll be working on enlisting Steven Spielberg to direct.

I’ll try to post new blog entries every couple of days. Feel free to post comments, or questions, or things you’d just like to know more about. Thanks for being there, and – as always – thanks for listening!

Steve