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Tuesday, May 03, 2016

Thoughts on the recording process and something being good enough (vs not being there at all)

A musician friend (a virtual friend, actually, I've never met her in real life) was torturing herself on Facebook about getting her current recording project finished. She wrote:
 I need to ask: does everyone else - ANYone else - get overwhelmed with this process? I get lost even with taking notes about which take to use and how much. Then I change my mind the next day! 
I left her this comment, which kind of distills my current view of recording in general and my own current work in particular:
 
"I am a queen of pushing things through the chute. I've put more than 200 mostly unknown Yiddish songs on youtube, songs that I learned the same day I recorded them. Are they great? No. Do they stink? No. Am I glad they're there? Yes. I think the key is to be realistic and abandon vanity. You know how some people say "there is never a good picture of me" - it's because they have an idealized vision of how they should look, or how they looked at one golden moment on one golden day and they're dissatisfied they don't look that way all the time. It's the same with recording. If you wait until it's perfect, you'll be waiting a long time ... 

"Be happy with who you are and how your ensemble sounds, and remember your recording is a slice of life that's happening right now, it is not a one-time distillation of your life's work. Good luck! Bring somebody else to the studio with you, someone who is less invested, and listen to  their opinions and advice."

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