March 6th, 2006
Yesterday I recorded the penultimate vocal track. That is, one more song to sing, then I transfer the last of the songs to the computer for mastering and mix-down. The sadness at the end of an era grows. As I counted for my wife last night, it has been over four years since Ken and I started. And, in fact, Ken is mostly out of it these days now because he is so busy juggling work and school.
The song I did vocals for yesterday has a very high melody—right at the top of my range (and perhaps a note or two beyond!) and so I spent the better part of the afternoon trying to get my voice to behave, despite its lack of ability. I don't have the greatest of voices, I am well aware ... and it's been years since any formal training or decent exercise, so the meagre singing talent I have has to be coaxed. Ten takes on the first phrase, perhaps. Twenty to get the high notes just right in the chorus ... that kind of thing.
The song itself is co-written by my sister Jennifer so my desire to make the singing sound at least competent was very strong. She came up with lyrics and a basic feeling for the song. I had to partially re-write some of it, because I devised a different (almost Latin) sound and the lyrics needed to be reworded to fit the meter and the feeling.
This is not the first song that Jen and I have worked on before, but this one is ... well ... serious. We weren't just being half-assed about this one, and so it turned out to be a difficult song for me to perform. She is the more seasoned musician, after all. When I let my training trail off and instead pursued other career goals, she stepped into high gear and became a professional. So she can easily swamp me with her singing and general musical abilities if she so chooses. (Although that may not be true for piano ... I think the jury is still out on that; but the comparison isn't fair anyhow since she plays jazz and I play "classical" music.)
When I mix it down to computer, I'll make an MP3 of it and put it up on my website. But, for now you can't hear it.
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And about that: I'm hesitant to bring it up in public, where anyone can read about it, but, well, what the heck.
Ken and I had some -er- much less serious stuff. We sometimes broke spontaneously into drum-and-guitar jams after (or even during!) songs we were attempting to record. Two of them were coherent enough to finish up a bit with overdubs.
So I sincerely apologize for this And I'm sorry about this too Thank you, come again. And don't forget to tip your server.
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